http://www.rsternberg.net/Structuralism.htm

anyone know what this says in layman terms?

is he saying that the theory supports common descent or that it doesnt? that it supports numerous origins of life events or just one?

i see this explanation:
Although process structuralism does not necessitate the denial of common ancestors and evolving lineages, structuralists see such concepts simply as irrelevant in explaining the forms of organisms.

but that doesnt make much sense overall either. well, to me i mean…he says that the theory has little stake in the origins debate, but i thought the idea itself WAS a question of origins…then how does it have little stake in the subject?

the basic descent with modification theory posits that life only started once. so youre saying that that doesnt logical to you? that it probably originated many times? i dont know about a one time deal- but i do know that you can see common design as easily as common descent, would you not agree? i see the limits to change within the certain life forms, and no one has been able to break past that barrier (if scientists cant do it, i have a hard time buying that chance and NS could do it- esp. given that NS has been shown to do next to nothing in the wild).

as for similarity on the molecular level. if were talking about a mulitple origins of life scenario- we only have two real choices, no? special creation or a front-loaded plan that would have to have been designed. or else, life forms wouldnt share traits at the molecular level if they had formed independently from numerous origin events.

as for the fossil record. how do you reconcile the idea of common descent with stasis in the record? if things were forever evolving into new forms from other forms- why the lack of millions upon millions of transitionals- and why the big gaps between groups. when i research the topic, the main examples i see used time and time again are horses and whales…tho, i also see quotes from many whale experts that say the evidence doesnt reall back up the theory of whale evolution, and who was it quoted that mentioned the horse exhibit (he said something about the exhibit still being downstairs in the museum), but that it was based on a fantasy. i see a lot of flimsy just-so evidence but not a lot that is all that solid.

It’s a reasonable explanation for the relatedness of all living things and fits well with the fossil record. I wouldn’t bet my life on it being the truth.

What evidence is there there that life only originated one time? How may the universal common ancestor hypothesis be falsified?

Keep in mind perfectly sober biologists like Richard Sternberg are structuralists that believe that life self-organizes according to physical laws as do crystals. Maybe everything has similarity at the molecular scale because that’s just the way the crystals form and they’ve formed independently more than once – perhaps WAY more than once.

dawkins isnt a militant atheist? no one said militant in the sense that hes violent. hes militant in the sense that he despises religion, despises those who practice religion, hates all forms of it. he is most usually referred to as a militant atheist.

am i saying there was a global flood? well, ifthere was a global flood 10 million yrs ago, scientists certainly couldnt say one way or another whether it occurred. same goes for 10, 000 yrs ago. ive no idea. nor does anyone else with any certainty. scientists cant even agree what killed the dinosaurs (did a meteor hit the planet and plunge it into eternal winter for thousands of yrs, blocking the sun…or is that all a fantasy as many other scientists believe?) so, scientists cant decide whether a massive meteor hit the earth, but they can say with certainty that geology is uniform in the way it works and that no global flood could have ever occurred. now THATS so absurd as to not be taken seriously. its funny how of the two events, the only one theyre CERTAIN of is the flood. hmmm. bias? anybody?

there IS evidence humans evolved from nonhuman forms. BUT, only when you start out with the preconceived idea of mud to man evolution. you can look at the data and clearly see common design as opposed to common ancestry. guess what? we STILL have yet to find the missing links between those nonhumans and humans. as paleontologists will point out- humans seem to appear in the fossil record fully formed without any ancestors. heck, apes themselves appear in the record with no ancestors and fully formed.

so, no…when going into the issue without a presupposition of goo to you macroevo. the evidence isnt there. thats why scientists are often accused of fitting the evidence into their own preconceived story of evolution. if you start out with mud to man in mind, you can make any fossil fit anywhere. same goes for body plans that are similar, similar dna, etc. these would all be hallmarks of common design, but the dogma of mud to man has ruled so long, no evidence would overturn it in the minds of most scientists.

theyve tried to breed irish setters and beagles but find that they cannot get any live pups to be born. theyve no idea why but they come back to the trust argument from ignorance and proclaim it must be “junk dna” (we now know that much of the dna considered “junk” has been shown to have function- and its only a matter of time before we find even MORE “junk” dna that isn’t really junk at all. so, dogs of the same “species” cannot interbreed sometimes. yet a dog can breed with a wolf and a coyote and coyotes and wolves can breed…but theyre of different “species”.

the article on dog breeding mentioned:

So the fact that most dog breeds can easily interbreed isn’t reason enough to consider them all the same species, although that’s a large part of it. It comes down to how you define “species.” Many scientists use the rule of thumb that if two organisms can interbreed, they are of the same species. But that doesn’t apply in every case, to say nothing of species like bacteria that don’t “breed” at all, but reproduce asexually. The fact is that there are many definitions of “species” accepted and debated in the scientific community, and each has its exceptions.

we cant even agree on what a species is, yet scientists proclaim the FACT that lucy was an ancestor of ours and very closely related based on some bone fragments of ONE single animal? now were talking about hypothetical fairy tales with no support to back them up. i think scientists need to answer the small questions first (like what exactly defines a species) before they claim they can answer the much bigger questions.

Is Noam Chomsky helping terrorists plan attacks on America? This is crazy and it makes it nearly impossible to ever take you seriously.

If there’s no evidence that humans evolved from nonhuman life forms, then why wasn’t Barbara Forrest called on that little tidbit during the trial?

Are you saying there was a global flood? Ahem.

“good to see the UK going deeper into its moral decline by embracing militant atheists, anti-americans, and other members of the fringe (youve got to wonder whats wrong with people today).”

This is awful. How can you call someone a “militant atheist?” Is Richard Dawkins taking up arms and burning down churches (like this guy: http://www.al.com/news/huntsvi.....038;coll=1

“Not good when Christians dismiss the scientific evidence for human evolution. It is very strong, a few good books below, they are all available at your local university library:”

So how much DNA and epigenetic information do we have in common with, say, Lucy. Is it more or less than us and chimps? How many chromosomes does Lucy have – the same number as we do or the same number as chimps?

Get back to me when you know. Otherwise, don’t tell me how strong the evidence is because it’s a bit on lame side once you don’t have living tissue and/or intact DNA to examine. It’s really a history. A narrative.

We are clearly related to all other living things from bacteria to baboons. That’s pure experimental biology on living tissue and you can take it to the bank given how many organisms have the genetic code in common. How the relationship was established is theoretical biology. You know the difference between experimental and theoretical science, right? Random mutation plus natural selection is dead in the water. A bit player. Stephen J. Gould was right about that much and so is Lynn Margulis. Nobody knows quite what the hell is going on yet. Get used to it.

as for religion and human origins- of course religion can say a lot about human origins. science has very little to say about human origins in a sense that were dealing more with history than science. the science isnt nearly empirical in any manner, and youre simply working with data that can be interpreted ten differrnt ways (common design, common ancestry, supernatural, natural, etc)