<p>WuTangForeva</p>
<p>I am studying biotechnology at Johns Hopkins and I think macroevolution is a crock of crap. Your response is indicative of the same sort of narrowmindedness you are condemning. In terms of explanatory power for origins, evolution has a LOT of progress to make. To date, it is simply the best theory to explain origins if you begin with the a priori assumption that there is no God. 90% of the world begins with a different assumption. </p>
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<p>phear_me, must concur. the theory of macroevolution becomes ever more difficult to swallow, the longer time moves on and the greater the fossil record. The major deterrent to moving on, of course, is $$$. Too many so-called scientists have way too much career and grant $$ wrapped up in its continuance, and they attempt to bury the specifics and consequent fallacies in their dressed-up language which disguises it all. It’s like trying to communicate in Chinese on this forum, and when people fail to understand, the explanation is “well you can’t, you don’t know enough…”</p>
<p>And most choose to ignore the essential scientific principles that must be enlisted to illuminate the scientific truth.</p>
<p>And when all else fails, people like phear me are simply labled ignorant or stupid, and the beat goes on.</p>
<p>btw, even Einstein, considered by many to be among the “smartest” to ever walk the planet …definitely one of the intellects’ “gods”… came to the conclusion that the world was created, and thus a Creator. He tended to then depart from the notion that the Creator remained engaged with his creation, thus some might say E. was a D. Deist. But he’d definitely moved on from the notion that the earth and universe simply evolved over a time period even evolutionists increasingly stumble over.</p>
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<p>Suggest me a different theory, one based on EVIDENCE.</p>
<p>thx</p>
<p>also I do not get the distinction between macro and micro evolution </p>
<p>it’s kind of arbitrary: when does microevolution stop being microevolution? Why this little restraint with “micro”? Kind of … restraining. God allows organisms to change, but not too much?</p>
<p>Maybe you haven’t opened your eyes to the beauty of the large puzzle, because everything together fits with evolution (and believe me I used to be fundamentalist myself).</p>
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<p>This is based on examining things like the “fine-tuned universe” where if you change one of the 28 or so fundamental constants by a little tiny bit (e.g. strength constant of the colour force) you’d basically cause nuclei to implode or explode or atoms to stick together as a bunch of strange matter, so yeah, that’s where he was coming from, implying some greater order to things. Certainly if there is a Creator, not like any Creator any of us know. An interesting thing is that the value of these fundamental constants is perceived to have changed or “evolved” over the years (based on astronomical data), e.g. the speed of light in the past wasn’t always exactly 299,792,458 m/s. It’s interesting, and I’m open to any falsifiable hypotheses out there.</p>
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<p>Have you taken an Evolution and Ecology course? Do you refuse to take it? Are you some sort of conspiracy nut? </p>
<p>Evolution also perfectly meshes with hey! Economics and Nash-Von Neumann game theory. Surely you’ve come across Maynard Smith and Price’s 1973 paper. What, do you think God is also required for markets to function?</p>
<p>While I’m not one to get involved in debates on the subject, I’ll add my agreement with both Phearme and Whistle Pig on this one. We’re heavily involved in the science field and were educated in secular universities and public schools. Macroevolution doesn’t have the evidence behind it. Incidentally, it was another science person who insisted we look into the evidence behind the debate as I was rather adamant that there couldn’t be anything based on my instilled beliefs. There’s a lot of surface stuff to wade through to get to the real evidence on a technical level, but it’s out there.</p>
<p>I also know of plenty of science people - even some in education - who don’t believe in macroevolution at all, but are quiet about it (except in situations where they feel safe) to keep their jobs.</p>
<p>To those who believe evolutionary beliefs are all that popular, google recent polls. Not all those that vote are uneducated. While I haven’t looked into this aspect of what is taught at prospective colleges, I’d definitely be more open to one that was open to consider ALL the possibilities/interpretations based on the evidence. That’s what college should be all about. :)</p>
<p>Wu Tang - the courses I have taken or will take include:</p>
<p>Biology
Chemistry
Biochemistry
Organic Chemistry
Cell Biology
Epigenetics of Human Development Disease
Molecular Biology
Advanced Cell Biology 1
Advanced Cell Biology 2
Virology
Molecular and Cellular Physiology
Molecular Development
Gene Organization and Expression
Neurobiology
Recombinant Protein Expression, Production, and Analysis</p>
<p>Evolution is the assumed origin mechanism for all of these courses … and I still think it’s a crock of crap.</p>
<p>So … wanna to tell us your reasoning for rejecting a peer-reviewed theory? I mean, peer-reviewed theories get overthrown all the time, so let’s hear your science. </p>
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<p>But it’s still not present as a course… it’s quite interesting, because evolution goes beyond biology. For example – language evolution and selective pressures on memes; market evolution and selective pressures on firms and products (invisible hand, etc. etc.), Nash equilibria and game theory. Yeah, implications for those stuck-up finance people.</p>
<p>Also – don’t see a circadian clocks course in there. You’re missing out. The molecular bio – as well as the behavioural bio – of circadian clocks is fascinating, and 8-10% of the human genome is circadian-regulated! (in both transcription and translation) Circadian regulation affects the phase and period of many periodic processes with peaks, many beyond sleep, e.g. toxin processing, appetite, cell growth and regeneration… things you can use for example to synchronise chemotherapy treatments to selectively kill cancer cells over normal cells because the clocks of cancer cells are slightly out of whack so you can target cancer cells when they’re most vulnerable and when normal cells are somewhat protected. The effects of Circadian regulation are dramatic: injecting E. coli enterotoxin into a group of mice when predicted circadian resistance was highest resulted in a mortality rate close to 0%, but the group that got it 12 hours out of phase w/respect to the other group had a mortality rate of over 90%. Add a circadian clocks course!</p>
<p>I also have education and background in finance. I don’t have time to go into it now, but market forces are NOT a proof for evolution. Your continual comparison to intelligent/rational actors as proof of an objective non-rational force is contradictory. You’re seeing the same patterns, but missing the obvious commonality of intelligent design. Oh, and for the record, what exactly do you think a course in Molecular Development covers?</p>
<p>Maybe a superficial coverage of circadian regulation.</p>
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<p>non sequitur</p>
<p>Rationality doesn’t have to exist beforehand, it only has to be selected for, and inherited</p>
<p>I see a lot beautiful common motifs, but why should that be by the awful, vengeful Creator described in the Christian Bible? He doesn’t seem as sophisticated of a creator to do that. I do not rule out the possibility of a great supernatural entity – but certainly it is not one accurately described by any religion.</p>
<p>And oh also, Candide.</p>
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<p>You’re not seriously proposing that since evolution means “change over time” and that with all these things changing over time this means molecules to man HAD to happen are you? If so, that’s the most ludicrous argument I’ve ever heard from anyone claiming to be educated.</p>
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<p>This is absolutely true - and not at all out of line with a creator or evolution within a ‘kind’ via natural selection (which no one argues about). It doesn’t explain molecules to man any better than your economics argument.</p>
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<p>You don’t follow. Okay, for the sake of pleasing you let’s go with your idea that molecules to man is wrong. Yet it would be apparent that many aspects of evolution are correct – otherwise for example mtDNA analysis wouldn’t really work (yet it complements parallels historical linguistic analysis!) and correctly predicts many relationships (confirmed in other ways later). It correctly preducts how ecological environments fragment, unify, and so on. So many aspects of evolution must follow regardless of your theistic alignment. </p>
<p>Now note I used to be quite a fundamentalist Christian and didn’t object to the idea of a god behind the molecules. Of course that is no longer my primary belief for lack of evidence.</p>
<p>I also think you’re not really reading what I said. Evolution is fascinating regardless of your religious beliefs, and can be readily applied across many fields, unless you’re a Young Earth creationist or something.</p>
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<p>Umm, Circadian clocks are just a side note distraction I felt like harping on. Their historical development however is quite fascinating, esp. when you look at the homology between the Drosophila clock and the mammalian clock in terms of molecular clock components, but also how they have diverged significantly – flies phase delay with a light pulse in the early night and advance with a light pulse in the late night just like mammals but PER protein levels (PER is a critical rhythmic protein in the clock circuit – while per is the rhythmic transcript) are lowest in the midday for flies whereas mammals have highest PER levels in the day. </p>
<p>Yet all animals must have the same phase response behaviour or they can’t synchronise their clocks perfectly. No molecular clocks are perfectly 24 hours in period, many animals are slightly over or slightly under in terms of period, prolly cuz the Earth’s rotational period has been changing over time too, which makes phase responses frequent and necessary. (It’s funny cuz you’d think if there was a God he’d create a perfect clock, but apparently these animals have a clock that’s only “good enough”, even if it means putting the animal under phase response stress. but w/e) </p>
<p>But anyway, how this simultaneous convergence and divergence are achieved at the same time is explained by various neat discoveries. Fly PER is indirectly repressed by cryptochrome protein (CRY), which is activated by a light-mediated pathway – CRY destabilises TIM (which in turn stabilises PER and protects it from ubiquitin-mediated degradation by casein-kinase I aka DBT). But in mammals, CRY is found to stabilise PER, taking the place of TIM, and CRY has no light-sensitivity in mammals! The mammals themselves diverge; while the fly is small and transparent enough that light synchronises all the autonomous clocks in all the fly cells simultaneously without the need for a central neuroendocrine signal, birds rely on the pineal gland as a direct light synchroniser (yes, it is photosensitive because enough light reaches the bird brain even when covered with feathers); take out the pineal and the bird free runs. Mammals synchronise via the eyes, via rods and cones (and a third type of cell!) but via melanopsin – an invertebrate-type light receptor protein (whereas colour vision uses different proteins). Interesting choice of protein there, God…</p>
<p>Some organisms don’t even use the same clock circuit at all, but use an analogous circuit. Interestingly, cyanobacteria use a self-phosphorylating protein – the protein when phosphorylated is a phosphatase, but when fully dephosphorylated is a kinase. (This cute little feedback circuit has output signals), and the clock in plants and algae resembles this more. Funny you know, seems to support the endosymbiotic theory …</p>
<p>Merely suggesting that y’all take a Circadian clocks course sometime.</p>
<p>Also the invention of “microevolution” is a crock of crap. Why the arbitrary line? What separates one line of organism from another is a continuum, not a discrete wall. Did God really create a fixed amount of species? What about metapopulations? Subpopulations? Population structure, when the genetic distribution of various alleles is far from homogeneous among the same species. In many species you can see the lines of fissure already.</p>
<p>Paapii and Creekland,
Seattle Pacific University is a good Christian school, and while it isn’t nationally ranked, it has great med school acceptance rates. I couldn’t find a more recent number, but this might be a helpful link: [A</a> Perfect Score for SPU Premeds - etc - Seattle Pacific University](<a href=“Undergraduate Admissions Home - Seattle Pacific University”>Undergraduate Admissions Home - Seattle Pacific University)
Also, it might be worth checking to see if any colleges with top pre-med programs have Christian housing options. I know of several Christian houses that draw students from public schools on the west coast… here’s a link to the University of Washington one: [University</a> Christian Union | Home](<a href=“http://www.ucu.com/]University”>http://www.ucu.com/). Just an idea.</p>
<p>Wutang - I think you’re way off base, both in reasoning for supporting your cause and the place you’ve chosen to debate (not appropriate for this thread). I’m sure there are other more appropriate places for you to move your debate to and find willing participants. Before you start, I highly suggest you look up the obvious answer to your own question from scientists who reject evolution. The fact that you don’t know the answer to this:</p>
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<p>and appear to be alluding to the WRONG answer shows how little you know about the subject you are trying to debate. Your argument that the creator didn’t do particulars the way YOU think they should have been done won’t get you far either.</p>
<p>Continuing a debate on this thread seems more trolllike than anything else to me - esp since you don’t appear to know the facts about the side you are debating against.</p>
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<p>Many thanks for both suggestions! I’ll look into them.</p>
<p>Creekland: You insult the debater instead of actually debating. How anti-intellectual. Religionists: all personal attack and no substance. Typical.</p>
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<p>THEN ANSWER IT INSTEAD OF BEING HAUGHTY AND CONDESCENDING.</p>
<p>I haven’t accused you of ignorance, so please deign not to accuse me of it as well.</p>
<p>arguments please, not dismissals without evidence. Is this how St. Thomas Aquinas would treat a discussion? I think not.</p>
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<p>You miss (or ignore) the point. A thread titled, “Best Pre-Med Programs at christian schools” under “College Admissions and Search” is not the place to have this debate/discussion. If you were truly interested, google is a great resource. If you merely wish to debate, you should find a more appropriate venue. There are plenty out there.</p>
<p>On the contrary this is exactly the place to have the discussion because it is unimaginable to have any sort of rigourous pre-med programme without the study of phylogenetic relationships.</p>
<p>As someone also looking for a well ranked pre med program for this coming fall I can say the arguing on this post is terribly unhelpful. Just name schools that are great and post a link with them. Picking a college is frustrating enough without having to sort through hours of arguements online</p>
<p>Ok, I hesitate to post because of responses BUT… I don’t know about nationally rankings. I am married to an orthopaedic surgeon. He went to Baylor and it prepared him VERY well for med school. He went to Southwestern Medical School in Dallas and was intimidated when a lot of the people were from Harvard, Yale, etc. However, he soon realized that he was just as prepared. He made the honor society at Southwestern his junior year. AS far as Baylor being Christian. It is. My hubby did mission trips with the BSU. I went there as well and the “Baylor Bubble” was alive and well. That said, you could find partying or anything else you wanted to. Welcome Week focused on developing the whole person including church. You have to attend chapel. My suggestion would be to look at the statistics for the college you are looking at for those that have applied vs. those who are accepted and possibly how they do on the entrance exam (MCAT??? I can’t remember anymore.)</p>
<p>Yes, it is just my personal experience, but the OP wanted some responses.</p>
<p>Oh… the researching. His roommate from Baylor went to Southwestern and did the MD/PHD route and I know he did lots of research while he was at Baylor. Baylor prepared him well for that. </p>
<p>Christine</p>