It may be easier to recommend a particular lens if I knew a bit more as to what your goal is or what you want to accomplish.

I have a Nikon D5000 and a D7000 and use both Nikon and off-brand lenses. The make is more personal preference as Canon does a good job with their Rebel line.

Here is an article you may find useful, otherwise let me know if you have further questions.

http://www.nikonusa.com/Learn-And-Explore/Nikon-Camera-Technology/gnhy8b3m/1/Macro-Lenses.html

It doesn't follow, though. The evidence that proves micro-evolution does not prove universal common descent. The evidence for micro-evolution would be evidence for macro-evolution if it could also prove UCD. It is one thing to say species change, or even that they can change into other species. It is quite a different thing to say that all species evolved from a common ancestor. That goes far beyond what you can prove scientifically.

This also is not about drawing an imaginary line about how much change can occur; it has to do with the amount of information in the genome. For bacteria to man evolution, a significant amount of information has to be added to the genome. The information in the bacteria genome, no matter how you shuffle it around, will never produce anything more significantly complex than itself. So then the question is, how does this information get added to the genome? Many people at this point will say "mutations!", but the problem with that is, we have never seen a mutation give rise to an increase in functional complexity. If they do, they are so compartively rare as to completely invalidate evolution as a theory. There simply wouldn't be enough time to account for the millions of changes required.


As the main mechanism for adding information into the genome, you would think that there would be clear evidence to support its actually happening..but you would be wrong:



So these are a few reasons why I do not buy into the evolutionary paradigm. The way it is presented to the public is as a proven fact, but when you start analysing the data and not just listening to the conclusions, you find a giant mess with no clear answers. You also find a chorus of true believers who just know its true and interpret all of the data through the conclusion. They see everything through those glasses and thus that is the way everything looks to them.
In reply to this comment by GenjiKilpatrick:
How do you reconcile accepting the science that substantiates micro-evolution.. but disregarding the SAME SCIENCE that substantiates macro-evolution.

It's sorta like if I said: "I accept the evidence for the divinity of Jesus. But I refuse to accept that Yahweh exists"

If it follows that: Divinty of Jesus = Divinity of Yahweh.

Then it must follow that: Evidence of Micro-evolution = Evidence of Macro-evolution.

How do you reconcile this without talking in circles?

The discussion began when you challenged me with spurious claims that were proven to be false. After that, you scaled back your claims and abandoned your assertions about cytochrome c, never providing any evidence for them , despite being asked twice. That is what people are going to see. The discussion about junk DNA is tertiary to the point, which was, regardless of how it may mutate, is that the more we know about it, the more we see it has function; ie, it isn't junk. The point was really to counter a more sophisticated argument that I thought you were going to make,, but it apparently wasn't in your repitoire. The reality about this conversation is that you've failed to make a coherent argument in support of macro evolution.

As far as being a Christian goes, you never knew Jesus Christ. That's what makes you a Christian. You had a head knowledge, but you weren't born again.

John 3:3

Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

This is why you never saw it. You think it's just something you read about and believe in, because that's all it was to you. Words in a book. You never came to know God personally. I don't blame you for walking away from that, honestly, and it isn't entirely your fault; your parents failed to teach you how to be saved. That's a tragedy.

Listen, God loves you deeply, and wants you to know Him. If you will turn your life over to Him, He will show you that He is more than words in a book; He will show you that He is alive. Pray and ask Him what the truth is. God bless.

How do you reconcile accepting the science that substantiates micro-evolution.. but disregarding the SAME SCIENCE that substantiates macro-evolution.

It's sorta like if I said: "I accept the evidence for the divinity of Jesus. But I refuse to accept that Yahweh exists"

If it follows that: Divinty of Jesus = Divinity of Yahweh.

Then it must follow that: Evidence of Micro-evolution = Evidence of Macro-evolution.

How do you reconcile this without talking in circles?

"Ok, you need to understand two different concepts........the odds of getting so much similarity by accident is exceedingly small.

So in light of this reality.....supposedly bring down evolution."

Minor disagreements? I'm having a hard time believing that you've seriously investigated this subject if you are now claiming (scaled back from your prior claim of perfect agreement between "scores" of them) that molecular and morphological phylogonies typically have a high level of agreement. They don't. Agreement is the exception, not the rule. Even worse, molecular phylogonies don't agree with eachother either:

As morphologists with high hopes of molecular systematics, we end this survey with our hopes dampened. Congruence between molecular phylogenies is as elusive as it is in morphology and as it is between molecules and morphology. . . .

Partly because of morphology’s long history, congruence between morphological phylogenies is the exception rather than the rule. With molecular phylogenies, all generated within the last couple of decades, the situation is little better. Many cases of incongruence between molecular phylogenies are documented above; and when a consensus of all trees within 1% of the shortest in a parsimony analysis is published (e.g. 132, 152, 170), structure or resolution tends to evaporate

Congruence Between Molecular and Morphological Phylogenies

http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.es.24.110193.001101

"If only you were a bit better at it. Even the quotes you chose to mine serve to undermine your point. I think my point can be summarized by the following quote from your reference"

“On one side stand traditionalists who have built evolutionary trees from decades of work on species' morphological characteristics. On the other lie molecular systematists, who are convinced that comparisons of DNA and other biological molecules are the BEST way to unravel the secrets of evolutionary history.”

The relevant part here is the word “best.” These people are clearly just trying to decide what the most accurate method of phylogenetic determination is and this article represents nothing more than a discussion of one of the many battles that go on in the constant refinement of science. And this disagreement does nothing at all to disprove evolution""

Your charge of quote mining is false. Quote mining is the logical fallacy of quoting something out of context, distorting its intended meaning. The quote I provided was very much in context, and showed support for the assertion that molecular and morphological phylogenies do not have "perfect" agreement, and now I have further supported that assertion (and disproven your scaled back claim of very statistically significant agreement) that their agreement is actually very superficial. It is far more significant how little agreement there actually is.

The very reason there is a contention about which is the "best" method is precisely because there is so little agreement. In any case, molecular homology appears to be winning the battle, perhaps because the evolutionists are getting tired of never finding any evolution in the fossil record.

Which brings us to the many issues with molecular homologies, specifically, their lack of falsifiability:

"We believe that it is possible to draw up a list of basic rules that underlie existing molecular evolutionary models:

All theories are monophyletic, meaning that they all start with the Urgene and the Urzelle which have given rise to all proteins and all species, respectively.

Complexity evolves mainly through duplications and mutations in structural and control genes.

Genes can mutate or remain stable, migrate laterally from species to species, spread through a population by mechanisms whose operation is not fully understood, evolve coordinately, splice, stay silent, and exist as pseudogenes.

Ad hoc arguments can be invented (such as insect vectors or viruses) that can transport a gene into places where no monophyletic logic could otherwise explain its presence.

This liberal spread of rules, each of which can be observed in use by scientists, does not just sound facetious but also, in our opinion, robs monophyletic evolution of its vulnerability to disproof, and thereby its entitlement to the status of a scientific theory.

The absolute, explicit and implicit, adherence to all the monophyletic principle and consequently the decision to interpret all observations in the light of this principle is the major cause of incongruities as well as for the invention of all the genetic sidestepping rules cited above."

A Polyphyletic View of Evolution

Schwabe and Warr

This is why Schwabe, a biochemist, wrote:

Molecular evolution is about to be accepted as a method superior to paleontology for the discovery of evolutionary relationships. As a molecular evolutionist I should be elated. Instead it seems disconcerting that many exceptions exist to the orderly progression of species as determined by molecular homologies; so many, in fact, that I think the exception, the quirks, may carry the more important message

It's a shell game where virtually any kind of data can be accomodated, and at no point is the theory questioned. Ad hoc explanations can be invented for any kind of discrepency.

""There are analogous debates going on in nearly all branches of academic study. Taking an example with fewer existential implications for religion, look towards the Holocaust. There is an ongoing effort by Yad Va Shem, a jewish organization, to catalogue all those who died under the Nazi regime as well as those who aided jews in various ways (http://www1.yadvashem.org/yv/en/remembrance/hall_of_names.asp). Now at the moment they have verified only three million names and something like 24000 people who helped, and details on each vary. But wait, oh no! We all know that there were roughly six million victims! And we don’t even have complete information about the paltry three million we’ve catalogued. Does this mean that the Holocaust did not happen? Of course it doesn’t. You need to take the internal debate in context and realize that the total sum of evidence is overwhelming. Creationists, however, can not be so objective with such a threatening theory as evolution.""

A mountain of weak, circumstantial evidence (much of which contradicts itself) does not prove macro evolution. "We're working on it" does not somehow validate that evidence. We know the holocaust happened; there is no proof for macro evolution.

""As for your junk DNA article, you similarly blow the relevance way out of proportion. Here’s the last sentence from the text that summarizes the relevance of the article:

“The present study suggests that some selfish DNA transposons can instead confer an important role to their hosts, thereby establishing themselves as long-term residents of the genome.”

Here it states simply that some of the junk DNA, not all of it, can become useful to the cell. This sentence proves you wrong in two ways. First, it admits that they have only found a few instances of utility for this junk DNA, which is a far cry from the evidence that would be necessary for the slow death you speak of. Second, the acknowledges that this as an instance of Junk DNA incorporating itself into the genome and taking on novel and useful roles. In other words, evolution!

The genome is huge and nowhere in biology does it say that all of the DNA we have designated as junk is most certainly junk. Again, this is just another example of incrementally refining our understanding about how things work, but it is not revolutionary and it still demonstrates a clear framework.

And regardless or whether or not your article shows that a lot of Junk DNA has function (which is common knowledge, by the way), it does not at all disprove the fact that junk DNA shows typically exhibits much higher rates of mutation because its specific sequence is less rigidly constrained than coding DNA (http://www.nature.com/nrg/journal/v12/n11/full/nrg3098.html?WT.ec_id=NRG-201111). It is not a complete lack of function that demonstrates evolution, but simply a higher rate of mutation that results in sequences that will be more varied the more distantly related two species are.""

There are numerous sources showing that junk dna is not junk:

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2011/04/28/1103894108.full.pdf+html

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/10/071025112059.htm

http://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/transposons-or-jumping-genes-not-junk-dna-1211

Based on your earlier argument, "we're working on it", you should realize that what some scientists consider to be junk dna stems entirely from ignorance. The idea that it got in there by "viral dna insertions" and the like is simply another ad hoc explanation among many.

""And finally, read these articles if you want a more complete understanding about how the comparisons between phylogenetic trees are indeed imperfect, but well supported and constantly refined:

http://cmgm.stanford.edu/phylip/consense.html
http://taxonomy.zoology.gla.ac.uk/rod/cplite/ch4.pdf
http://www.mathnet.or.kr/mathnet/paper_file/McGill/Bryant/03ConsensusAMS.pdf
http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2105/10/423
http://bioinformatics.oxfordjournals.org/content/23/12/1556.full

There are literally hundreds of thousands of these articles detailing what is essentially a whole, distinct area of study. Just search the term “consensus trees” and you’ll see what I mean.

http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=consensus+trees&hl=en&btnG=Search&as_sdt=1%2C5&as_sdtp=onhttp://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=consensus+trees&hl=en
&btnG=Search&as_sdt=1%2C5&as_sdtp=on""

I have already demonstrated that the consensus is very weak. What you need to provide is data backing up your claims regarding cytochrome c. I am awaiting the "scores" of phylogonies that will match that data.

My characterization of the theories of abiogenesis and macro evolution as based on weak, circumsantial evidence, thus regulating them to the realm of metaphysics is entirely accurate and a proper usage of those terms. Posting a couple of videos which you feel substantiates both theories, even if they did substantiate them, does not prove I used the terms incorrectly. At best it would mean I was mistaken about the sufficiency of the evidence. In any case, clearly you feel I am mistaken, so rather than rebut other peoples videos, I am interested to hear what you personally feel substantiates those theories.


>> ^GenjiKilpatrick:
So.. these statements show you have no comprehension of the words you strung together.
"Investigating" articles published on "Christian Science" Monitor or reviewing Kurt Cameron's Banana Atheist Nightmare video does not count as research.
>> ^shinyblurry:
However, what spurred me to change my mind.. ..was simply investigating what the evidence for macro evolution actually was. I was profoundly shocked to find that it was based on nothing more than weak, circumstantial evidence,

A "weak" inductive argument is one which has little evidence to support its claim.
Hence, the more evidence.. the stronger the argument. I'll let AronRa take over from here
>> ^shinyblurry:
and like abiogenesis, it dwelled solely in the realm of metaphysics..

Again, your ignorance is showing man.
The term "Metaphysics" is the study of existence and relies on Ontology, the study of entities that exist or don't exist.
Not only is abiogenesis possible.. there's more evidence to prove the existence of abiogenesis than there is to prove Adam Eve or Yahweh exist(ed).
That is to say. Yahweh & Adam are purely metaphysical. Abiogenesis is not.