Not to start this *again*, but I'm gonna...

[S.C. Watson]

For those who claim you can not witness evolution:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7093487/

:wink:


----
-=OFFICIAL THREAD ICON=-
http://images.animationfactory.com/animations/buildings/playground/merry_go_round/merry_go_round_lg_nwm.gif
As posted by Jetpack42
:tihi: :teeth: :P

[darth massacre]

ARRRRRGGGGHHHHH!!!! NOOOO MOOOOREEEE!!!


**Stabs Oregano**











In case you were wondering....yes I think evolution works....if you can't see it for yourself or accept it, at least don't deny it doesn't exists.

[fukifino]

Poor one nad beatle. :(

[|NTeRN]

beatles have testicles???? WTF????


i thought they just had an organ on the inside that does all that fun stuff. not straight up family jewls.... :$

[SJ Bennighof]

This is hysterical, yes, but it is not evolution. It's small-time natural selection, or micro-evolution. That beetle is not going to replace all other beetles of its type with mono-gonad sex machines, it's going to survive among a host of other variations of the same beetle. And the same beetle will keep living, all the while oscillating around the core genotype of the species, which in itself reamins constant. God's in his heavan, all's right with the world.

And yes, I realize the primary reason for posting this thread, and no, I coudn't resist getting my logic on anyway. :confident :bashful:

[young paddy1]

you go tell the beetle with one nad that all's right with the world.

on a side note, a friend of mine only has one nut, a horse stamped on the other one (he now has a small blue plastic egg in there apparently) :nohope:

[S.C. Watson]

This is hysterical, yes, but it is not evolution. It's small-time natural selection, or micro-evolution.

Um... that is precisly *what* evolution is.

If you are thinking fish to lizards to mammals to shrews to mice to rats to small primate to monkey to ape to human: that is incorrect.

If you are thinking that evolution has an end in "mind", or a desired final design or output, that is also incorrect.

Evolution is the snowballed collection of minor variations on an organic theme, regardless of what that theme is, or how minor. After many minor variations collect in a given biological group, you have a branch species. Or evolution. Evolution is heralded by Natural Selection.

Here, we have a perfect example of a minor variation taking place, which beautifully refutes those who say that you can not witness evolution take place.

As for "small time natural selection" - evolution *is* natural selection you git :tihi: LOL

Cheers,
~Shane

[S.C. Watson]

beatles have testicles???? WTF????


i thought they just had an organ on the inside that does all that fun stuff. not straight up family jewls.... :$

LOL - yeah, I kind of was surprised as well. I think I knew that from somewhere, but I'm no entomologist :dur: /m\

[LaPalida]

Oregano are you done??? LOL, you crack me up man. Just when I thought it was all over ... there you go again. When am I supposed to draw between these posts?????

What the heck is a "core genotype of the species" SJ Bennighof? I mean what do you mean by that phrase?


That beetle is not going to replace all other beetles of its type with mono-gonad sex machines, it's going to survive among a host of other variations of the same beetle

Maybe, maybe not, we will only have to wait to find out. Evolution never claimed that mono-gonad sex machines (nor, in fact, did this article) will replace duo-gonad?? sex machines. I wouldn't be so certain as to say that IT WILL necessarily survive (as you seem to be) nor would I be as certain to say that IT WILL NOT survive, only time will tell. After all the dodo didn't make it, did it? So much for God loving all his creatures... huh?

[S.C. Watson]

Oregano are you done??? LOL, you crack me up man. Just when I thought it was all over ... there you go again. When am I supposed to draw between these posts?????

LOL -- Sorry. Slightly obsessive/compulsive here :blah: :^^;:


Draw quickly :tihi:















Oh. Have you updated your thread yet? :P

[MuffinMan]

there is no god, it was evolution all along.

[Slash]

god is in the tv....

[Daunting]

That beetle is not going to replace all other beetles of its type with mono-gonad sex machines, it's going to survive among a host of other variations of the same beetle

Just because they aren't going to replace the whole ecosystem of beetles. Just like the neandertals were a part of human evolution, but didn't outlive us smarter more adaptable humans. Doesn't mean they aren't evolution just because they didn't beat out somebody else.

neandertals

[SJ Bennighof]

Um... that is precisly *what* evolution is.

If you are thinking fish to lizards to mammals to shrews to mice to rats to small primate to monkey to ape to human: that is incorrect.

If you are thinking that evolution has an end in "mind", or a desired final design or output, that is also incorrect.

Evolution is the snowballed collection of minor variations on an organic theme, regardless of what that theme is, or how minor. After many minor variations collect in a given biological group, you have a branch species. Or evolution. Evolution is heralded by Natural Selection.

That's a large leap from that beetle. You'll notice that the change allows the beetle to continue functioning in his current genotype while changing as little as possible. I can hardly see that snowballing.


Here, we have a perfect example of a minor variation taking place, which beautifully refutes those who say that you can not witness evolution take place.

I don't say that microevolution cannot take place. I say that macroevolution cannot take place. What you posted was not in any way an example of macroevolution.


As for "small time natural selection" - evolution *is* natural selection you git :tihi: LOL

The result of, yes, according to the theory.


Cheers,
~Shane

Cheers,
~SJ


Oregano are you done??? LOL, you crack me up man. Just when I thought it was all over ... there you go again. When am I supposed to draw between these posts?????

What the heck is a "core genotype of the species" SJ Bennighof? I mean what do you mean by that phrase?

Humans have a general genotype that can represent all humans, give or take variations on a minute percentage of it, right? You've got the full skin color scheme from African to Irish, the full hair color scheme from black to blonde, wide variations in intelligence levels and various proficiencies in various trades, and we're still all humans. There are still parts of the genotype that don't get altered except by birth defect or something, in which case the person leads an assisted life, and generally, forgive my callousness, a short one as well. The un-alterable characteristics that define a species are its core genotype.


Maybe, maybe not, we will only have to wait to find out.

So this is not proof of macro-evolution.


Evolution never claimed that mono-gonad sex machines (nor, in fact, did this article) will replace duo-gonad?? sex machines. I wouldn't be so certain as to say that IT WILL necessarily survive (as you seem to be) nor would I be as certain to say that IT WILL NOT survive, only time will tell. After all the dodo didn't make it, did it? So much for God loving all his creatures... huh?

The Dodo died out because it didn't adapt to its environment. God didn't make evolution work in the universe he created, according to my unprovable beliefs, so he should have no reservations about letting the Dodo die out, right? I mean, if he made gravity work in this universe, he certainly realized that all kinds of injury and death would be possible through the exploitation of it, right? Doesn't mean he doesn't love his creatures, it just means he makes them play by certain rules.

[jetpack42]

ok kids, hop on.
http://images.animationfactory.com/animations/buildings/playground/merry_go_round/merry_go_round_lg_nwm.gif

[MoP]

Doesn't God need a capital H on "He"? 8)

Sorry, I don't really see the point of this thread...

[SJ Bennighof]

Doesn't God need a capital H on "He"? 8)

Usually that's what people do, but I've never subscribed to the notion that God really cares whether you capitalize personal pronouns with "God" as the antecedent. It's most useful in the Bible, to clarify when it is and isn't talking about God.


ok kids, hop on.
http://images.animationfactory.com/animations/buildings/playground/merry_go_round/merry_go_round_lg_nwm.gif

:bashful:

[S.C. Watson]

Sorry, I don't really see the point of this thread...
that's okay. Neither do I. but it's a fun merry-go-round :teeth:

[Prometheus|ANJ]

I wanna ride!!!

Isn't macro-evolution a concept christians came up with to disprove evolution anyways? Germ->Fish->Human, impossible!

Germs/viruses are pretty keen evolvers.

[S.C. Watson]

No, not specifically. Probably a gross misunderstanding, but the definition is here: macroevolution (http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?va=macroevolution)

edit: technically, you could make the argument that this relates to speciation, and not small scale change within an established group. So, my understanding would be more of a longer view of evolution, not the minute changes that build up to speciation.

[darth massacre]

ok kids, hop on.
http://images.animationfactory.com/animations/buildings/playground/merry_go_round/merry_go_round_lg_nwm.gif



WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!

[Prometheus|ANJ]

No, the definition is here:
macroevolution (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macroevolution)

Macroevolution seems to be the result of many microevolutions over time, or a shitload of luck, or an act of god.


Anyways, sorta half on topic:
I decided to write another little life program! My programming fingers itches everytime the word evolution comes up.

Screenshot: http://itchstudios.com/psg/junk/life1.gif

My idea was simple, I wanted predators and smaller prey, but without programming it specifically, so I designed a generic creature with 2 stats that mutate occasionaly @ births:

Weapons (pink)
Belly size (blue=empty, cyan=eaten)

There's also grass to eat, but it doesn't have much energy. Creatures can eat each other if they have more weapon and the prey mass (w+b) fits inside the belly. Moving costs more energy for a creature with more mass. A creature might give birth if the belly is full.

So I was hoping to see smaller, shortlived but quickly reproducing prey and large predators, and maybe 'whales' that have no weapons but a huge belly and thus are so big they can't be eaten. I wanted the program to surprise me with stuff like that.

It didn't work. The creatures developed weapons even though there were no predators. Maybe my program isn't working, I'm not sure yet. Having weapons costs so it doesn't make sense to have weapons without predators.

Then it occured to me. It's self defence for those occasional predators that exist briefly. Maybe the program did surprise me after all...



Edit: I lowered to nutrition in the grass to see what happened. Now I finally got a little diversity!

Screenshot: http://itchstudios.com/psg/junk/life1c.gif

- Bulls: 50-50 weapons and belly, could be predators, but the weapons are probably there as a defence (to eat someone they have to fit in the belly and have less weapons).

- Wales: A lot of belly (blue) so the bulls can't eat them.

- Turtles: A lot of weapons as defence, like I got last run. I didn't get any of those this run.

- Prey: Little belly and weapons. It would obviously be an advantage but this run there's just too much dangerous creatures out there.


Maybe I need a larger map with some isolated areas to get more diversity.


Edit: I increased the nutrition they get from eating each other so I would get more predators, but that made them all into turtles because no one likes to be eaten!

Screenshot: http://itchstudios.com/psg/junk/life1d.gif

Oh predator where art thou?


Last edit: If I add solarpanel(free energy) and legs(move) I could also make plant creatures and skip the fake grass. That'd make 4 stats for the evolution to balance and I think I'd get more diversity.

[acuna_read]

ok kids, hop on.
http://images.animationfactory.com/animations/buildings/playground/merry_go_round/merry_go_round_lg_nwm.gif

I prefer swings! Got any swings mister? :teeth:

[young paddy1]

I find any evolutionary arguement hilarious, especially since one side has a vast basis in scientific evidence to back it up, and the other has a book that was written by some unknown bloke thousands of years ago and the belief that it must be true because it says so in the very same book.


I'm still upset for the beetle with one nut. :x

[S.C. Watson]

Prometheus|ANJ - that is an awesome little program you have there. I had no idea you were a programmer as well! too cool. I love stuff like that.

It occured to me that you were ending up with a plain-jane creatures because of no real variance in your environment. Predators will develope because of a decline in vegetation over time: As the herbavores consume the available flora, you still have a population to deal with, so this gives rise to new predatory creatures. I also think that part of the problem (may) be in that the vegetation is being treated as a resource instead of a creature. Plants evolve and change, and affect their environment as well.

Perhaps, instead of giving them movement right off, allow for it to develope, sort of like weapons. this way you can go from a "single celled" creature that can evolve into either some sort of stationary "filter feeder" (vegetation) or an ambulatory "animal", or perhaps something something inbetween...? It would be interesting if you could designate definate environments, such as land/water/sky in which they have to adapt to as well.

Hope you keep working on this, and if you do, feel free to hijack this thread. I'd also love to get a copy of it :bashful:

acuna_read - i think the swings are located over in the political thread :D

young paddy1 - I'm right there with ya man.

~Shane

[SJ Bennighof]

I find any evolutionary arguement hilarious, especially since one side has a vast basis in scientific evidence to back it up,

Circumstantial evidence will not convict a man in court. Will science accept a conclusion as fact without empirical data to support said conclusion? The "vast basis in scienctific eveidence" is merely a mountain of circumstantial evidence. "See! This type of mutation observed in Plant X under condition Y allowed it to better thrive in its environment! Perhaps creatures have been using those same types of mutations and genetic variations to develop and evolve into the creatures wee know today!"...a pause, for the mental leap of fallacy to occur..."And so it must have happened that way! The potential for a beneficial mutation or genetic variance within a geneology of a species to occur has been proven to exist, therefore it must have occured, many, many, many times over millions of years to eventually form, from microbes in a primordial pool of possibilities, the genetic material that yields the nuthatch, the orca, the California Condor, and William Shakespeare! It's so simple!"

And because I have the potential to learn how to play the piano, I must have learned how to play the piano. The presence of the potential proves that I did. I never learned how to play the piano, though.

The masses ask for some disproof of Religion, and Science obliges them with a pat on the shoulder and a signed, sealed and stamped reply of "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus."


and the other has a book that was written by some unknown bloke thousands of years ago and the belief that it must be true because it says so in the very same book.

I do not hold the the Bible can be proven to be correct. I only hold that it cannot be proven to be incorrect or, at least, that it has yet to be proven incorrect.

[Redder]

I prefer swings! Got any swings mister? :teeth:

Google Results 1 - 10 of about 55,300 for "love swing". (0.21 seconds) :teeth:

[acuna_read]

For those of you curious, dont, I repeat, DONT be tempted to put "love swing" into google then hit images!

I'm not sure whether its bad or not, but im trying to keep your innocent eyes clean for the time being! :nohope:

Edit: Ive just re-checked those pictures very quickly, whilst standing a large distance from my screen, and have come to the conclusion that it's your personal choice whether you choose to use a love swing. However in the interet of safety please ensure your ceiling can withold the stress, especially you slightly chubby people out there! :)

[Prometheus|ANJ]

Oregano> Yeah, you're right about the enviroment being to monotonic (I did point it out in my post aswell). I had this grand plan for the program, but then I realized SimLife did the complexity thing much better. My only advantage was the simplicity, and the program did surprise me with the self defence thing so I'm happy with it.

I'm pretty subtandard at coding. It's written in BlitzBasic Demo, and it's very slow. I can't compile into EXE with the demo version either, and I'm afraid to show my quick and dirty code.

I started with a Space Invaders clone instead. 4 grand colors, 8 different alien sets, amazing movie-like intermissions. Out soon!

[emily g]

SJ Bennighof,

Please, sir, check out the evolution of the horse (http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/horses/horse_evol.html).

The horse has evolved from a small, dog-like creature into the horses we have today, and we can see it in the fossil record. This is not just "perhaps" or "potential."

emily

[gasmask]

interesting find oregano but i dont see what it has to do with evolution, plus the fact that there is simply not enough info for evoulution to be true to be more than just a simple theory like most other sciences.

[SJ Bennighof]

SJ Bennighof,

Please, sir, check out the evolution of the horse (http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/horses/horse_evol.html).

The horse has evolved from a small, dog-like creature into the horses we have today, and we can see it in the fossil record. This is not just "perhaps" or "potential."

emily

This is going to sound very close-minded, but those changes are relatively minor. One species becomes larger, rises off toes in favor of hooves, and many other things, but that's still an awfully far cry from microbe-to-homo Sapiens, or even microbe-to-horse, or even microbe-to-saltwater-fish, or even microbe-to-plant. That's not even addressing how the microbe or its proteins or its amino acids or its spark of life or its will to survive got there in the first place.

The geneology of the horse, while well-documented and well-founded, is nothing even close to proof. If this supposedly happened to every single species over a much wider stretch of many times more generations, why do we have a very good and complete fossil record for only one speices, and that one of only a glimpse of its total evolution from, possiblty, smaller mammals to rodents to amphibians to fish to microbes? Why this really, really good chunk over here and next to nothing everywhere else?

[Tad]

why did I read that whole thing!?!

SO much discussion about "TESTIS"

ughhhhhhhhhh... :nohope:

[S.C. Watson]

interesting find oregano but i dont see what it has to do with evolution, plus the fact that there is simply not enough info for evoulution to be true to be more than just a simple theory like most other sciences.
Hey Gasmask,

I'm not even going to get into it at this point. We've posted the facts, gone over the data, reviewed the evidence in two other threads.

Evolution is a fact. The fact of evolution is, in fact, indesputable, except by those who fail to comprehend what it is, which to me is a rather remarkable feat considering how basic it is. Whether people accept it or not really doesn't matter to me anymore. I started this thread more as a joke, because I thought a one-nutted beatle was funny, but also touched on a some points that had been made in a couple of the other threads. I thought it was, and still think it is, a humorous way of viewing the evolutionary process. You never know what you are going to come up with. I certainly would not have anticipated a mono-naded beatle.

Ask Lapilada to forward links for studying evolution if you like. She is indespensible for valuable resources. How she comes up with the stuff is truly remarkable.

See if she still has the link for people with tails, too.

Bottom line is that we in the states have such a piss poor educational system that is driven in large part by special interests groups and religeous nut-jobs that our history, geography, earth sciences, humanities, mathmatics, and English (how many of spell "a lot" as "alot", for instance? I mean, come on) are the laughing stalk of the world. We don't have a world class educational system. We have a world class mess. It's no wonder why we have no capacity for critical thinking, much less no comprehension of the most basic natural sciences by and large.

So, at this point, whatever.

Cheers,
~Shane

[SJ Bennighof]

Uh-huh. So how has evolution been proven, given my argument? Once again, last time I checked, empirical data was kind of a prerequisite for proving a theory...

[S.C. Watson]

LaPalida - you had an excellent resource on the facts of evolution in one of our previous threads. Would you mind posting that here for the pleasure of Mr. Bennighof, please? I'll PM you as well.

Thank you :teeth:
----
Prometheus|ANJ - man, I can't find SimLife for love nor money. I've been looking everywhere for it, but all I come up with are cheats. Maxis doesn't appear to be making it anymore :(

[S.C. Watson]

SJ Bennighof, this might serve as a very basic jumping off point to help you grasp what evolution is about : Evolution Happens (http://www.evolutionhappens.net/)

I came up with this just with a quick google search. If you don't trust google, you can always go hit up the library, assuming they haven't banned the books, which does happen from time to time.

~S

[S.C. Watson]

HAH! Found it: http://www.talkorigins.org/

never mind LaPalida, I have found it meself!

SJ Bennighof, please refer to the above website.

[edit]
You will want this: http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/faqs-mustread.html
and this: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-misconceptions.html specifically.

Thank you! :confident

[emily g]

This is going to sound very close-minded, but those changes are relatively minor. One species becomes larger, rises off toes in favor of hooves, and many other things, but that's still an awfully far cry from microbe-to-homo Sapiens, or even microbe-to-horse, or even microbe-to-saltwater-fish, or even microbe-to-plant. That's not even addressing how the microbe or its proteins or its amino acids or its spark of life or its will to survive got there in the first place.
Hmm, how about microbe-to-algae? Whoo-hoo, you're halfway to plant already! I think small-doggish-creature-to-horse is pretty good.


The geneology of the horse, while well-documented and well-founded, is nothing even close to proof. If this supposedly happened to every single species over a much wider stretch of many times more generations, why do we have a very good and complete fossil record for only one speices, and that one of only a glimpse of its total evolution from, possiblty, smaller mammals to rodents to amphibians to fish to microbes? Why this really, really good chunk over here and next to nothing everywhere else?
The horse is not the only example, just one of the better ones. Anyhow, Darwin predicted that the fossil record would be somewhat spotty. He was right on--it is. But we have plenty of examples from fossils that have survived.

emily

EDIT: please check out these links.

29+ Evidences for Macroevolution (http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/section1.html#pred4)
Transitional Vertebrate Fossils FAQ (http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional.html) (species-to-species transitions here)

[gasmask]

sorry oregano but ur links still dont prove evolution as fact and obviosly anything for evolution is bias, lets face it, there is no way of proving religion or evolution, all the stuff we have to test evolution is so shoddy and vague, like carbon dating, what a joke. im sure adaptation occurs throughout time if the climates change or animals move/migrate but thats very minor, the bottom line is no writings out there can make evoulution sound anymore true than scientists have been trying to for years, they simply have no means to prove much at all.

[|NTeRN]

i have a harder time believing that all animas and man just appeared one day then microbes to animals.


i saw a show on discovery where they were able to create new microbes (new species even tho thats a bad analogy) in a controlled experiment. they were not technically alive but they did show signs of life eeven thp there where chemical compounds. they were made in the same conditions as it would have been when earth was forming.

[emily g]

sorry oregano but ur links still dont prove evolution as fact and obviosly anything for evolution is bias, lets face it, there is no way of proving religion or evolution, all the stuff we have to test evolution is so shoddy and vague, like carbon dating, what a joke. im sure adaptation occurs throughout time if the climates change or animals move/migrate but thats very minor, the bottom line is no writings out there can make evoulution sound anymore true than scientists have been trying to for years, they simply have no means to prove much at all.
Umm, excuse me while I butt myself in here, but have you actually read the material? And by that I mean, are you actually doing any work here?

I'm saying this to you and to anyone else in this thread that this applies to, how can you assume to step up to the table in this discussion if you haven't even studied the material? And I mean really studied it, really gone in depth, really read what all those scientists have to say. Even if what they say is completely false, how can you presume to discuss it if you haven't read it? If you have read it, you are really not showing it, especially based on what you have posted so far.

I have studied the material and read the information. We've had this discussion several times before and it gets kind of annoying after awhile when people just say, "Blah, your links don't prove anything. Nobody can prove evolution to be true."

If you're going to say something like that, at least put in the work first, hello! I've put in the work.

emily
(oh no, emily is actually getting a little ticked off here!)

[bRyaN]

i have a harder time believing that all animas and man just appeared one day then microbes to animals.


And this the key right here....Common sense tells me that we just didn't blink into existence...

I mean do babies blink into existence, in a crib....

[acuna_read]

I think everyone here is intelligent enough to know baby's are brought to their parents by Storks. They even do it for elephants, and im assuming all other animals!

[LaPalida]

The geneology of the horse, while well-documented and well-founded, is nothing even close to proof. If this supposedly happened to every single species over a much wider stretch of many times more generations, why do we have a very good and complete fossil record for only one speices, and that one of only a glimpse of its total evolution from, possiblty, smaller mammals to rodents to amphibians to fish to microbes? Why this really, really good chunk over here and next to nothing everywhere else?

Yeah wtf is up with that? Why don't we have complete recorded history of the Roman Empire??? What do you mean it got lost, decayed, burned, destroyed, buried, decomposed, dissappeared, recycled....etc. How is that possible???? I know! It's because it didn't exist!!!! The evidence is all circumstantial. Pffft what kind of proof is a Colosseum? I need COMPLETE UNDENIABLE PROOF!!!

[Q.] If evolution is true, then why are there so many gaps in the fossil
record? Shouldn't there be more transitional fossils?
[A.] Due to the rarity of preservation and the likelihood that speciation
occurs in small populations during geologically short periods of
time, transitions between species are uncommon in the fossil record.
Transitions at higher taxonomic levels, however, are abundant.

[gasmask]

what work is there to put in? evolution is a theory simple as that, nothing more nothing less, no matter how much you study and ive studied it quite a bit, amoung other things like religion, it will never go on past the point of being a theory until someone can get some solid factual evidence.

[LaPalida]

This is going to sound very close-minded, but those changes are relatively minor. One species becomes larger, rises off toes in favor of hooves, and many other things, but that's still an awfully far cry from microbe-to-homo Sapiens, or even microbe-to-horse, or even microbe-to-saltwater-fish, or even microbe-to-plant. That's not even addressing how the microbe or its proteins or its amino acids or its spark of life or its will to survive got there in the first place.

Hold on there for a sec. Relatively minor? What exactly is your definition of a species? Are you trying to say that those "doglike" creatures that are the ancestors of the modern day horse are the same species as the modern day horse?

[Q.] Then why has no one ever seen a new species appear?
[A.] Speciation has been observed both in the laboratory and in nature.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.html


Circumstantial evidence will not convict a man in court. Will science accept a conclusion as fact without empirical data to support said conclusion? The "vast basis in scienctific eveidence" is merely a mountain of circumstantial evidence

Just because a court won't convict a man solely on circumstantial evidence (and I would like to see proof of that statement just in case it wasn't a received idea on your part) doesn't mean that courts are the last authority on the matter (eyewitness reports used to convict people in courts all the time! Did you know that sometimes convicted felons on death row go free and commit more crimes? The legal system isn't perfect (perhaps very imperfect)) nor does it mean that circumstantial evidence is any more inferior than direct (empirical) evidence, of which there is plenty, btw, in case of Evolution (for example paleontological and genetic evidence).

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/


sorry oregano but ur links still dont prove evolution as fact and obviosly anything for evolution is bias, lets face it, there is no way of proving religion or evolution, all the stuff we have to test evolution is so shoddy and vague, like carbon dating, what a joke.

I C. So do you believe that the Roman Empire existed? Because you know they use carbon dating on that too. Where did you get that idea from anyway, that carbon dating is "shoddy and vague"? Please point me to a site or book etc so that I can read for myself where it has proof that carbon dating is as "shoddy and vague" as you claim it to be.

[LaPalida]

what work is there to put in? evolution is a theory simple as that, nothing more nothing less, no matter how much you study and ive studied it quite a bit, amoung other things like religion, it will never go on past the point of being a theory until someone can get some solid factual evidence.

Well evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape-like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered.

[gasmask]

i can understand what ur trying to say but the thing is, the data we have for evolution is so obscure and vague there just isnt enough information or the means to gather such information to even test such ideas, the methods we use are to obscure like i just said. its very possible and perhaps likely but at the same time its so far off from being factual data that it makes it hard for even scientists to justify it even today, thats all im saying. i can understand why people beleive it but thats typical of westurn thinking, we are based on a society of principles set forth thousands of years ago, even tho christinaity takes a big part of that cake, the thought of evoultion is in everyone so its been programmed in us to make sense to a certain degree but you just have to read the facts, and that is that there are none really when it comes to evolution or religion.

[Chris J. Anderson!]

SO IT BEGINS AGAIN!!!!

So be it. I'll be back later. :pirate:

[LaPalida]

"Blah, your links don't prove anything. Nobody can prove evolution to be true."

A classic case of a logical fallacy.


i can understand what ur trying to say but the thing is, the data we have for evolution is so obscure and vague there just isnt enough information or the means to gather such information to even test such ideas, the methods we use are to obscure like i just said. its very possible and perhaps likely but at the same time its so far off from being factual data that it makes it hard for even scientists to justify it even today, thats all im saying. i can understand why people beleive it but thats typical of westurn thinking, we are based on a society of principles set forth thousands of years ago, even tho christinaity takes a big part of that cake, the thought of evoultion is in everyone so its been programmed in us to make sense to a certain degree but you just have to read the facts, and that is that there are none really when it comes to evolution or religion.

But .... you still don't have any proof that shows that carbon dating is "shoddy and vague or obscure". Or ...do you mean you don't understand how it works so you have no idea what you're talking about so it's obscure to you? Can you then perhaps propose a better less "obscure" or "shoddy" way to test the age of bones etc? Which scientists are you talking about that are having trouble to justify what? Typical western thinking? You mean it's typical logical reasoning and sound investigation as opposed to mystical magical tea reading or bs astrological forecasts. But I have read the facts and to me it's quite clear that you haven't, otherwise you wouldn't say these things unless you have a mental block or you are just a religious bigot.... with a mental block.

[S.C. Watson]

i can understand what ur trying to say but the thing is, the data we have for evolution is so obscure and vague there just isnt enough information or the means to gather such information to even test such ideas, the methods we use are to obscure like i just said.

I suspect that LaPalida has already addressed, or will very shortly.

However, your statement here shows how little, if any research, much less study, you've done. It is painfully uninformed.

At best, it shows serious laziness on your part in regards to the discussion. At worst, it demonstrates my previous statement regarding the state of U.S. schools.

btw, just for clarification, I don't make these statements in anyway to attack you or SJ Bennighof. It is a criticism delivered in the same spirit as a critique on a piece of artwork. There are some gross errors here that need to be addressed. You've been provided resources to address the situation, and yet the argument on your part remains the same and does not advance, nor does it show any indication of having even remotely reviewed the material provided.

There is a method for making good illustrations. If you are serious about what you do, you will study it.

There is a method for understanding natural sciences. If you are serious about gaining a larger, more scientific understanding of biology, you will study it.

Art is a science, just as much as science is an art. Both disciplines require the same approach. It has nothing to do with what you believe to be true. Someone can believe that their art is beautiful and masterfully done. However, when peer reviewed in the finished section, it is shown that it doesn't hold.

The same process applies here.

[Ssenkrah Semaj]

I Do Not Understand What The Problem Is!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Obviously a magical being who has existed forever and has always been all powerful and all knowing decided to make us.

It took 6 days, we know this from the Bible, forget about all that "evidence" called carbon 14 dating, geology, archealogy, and paleontology, thats says it was in fact millions of years.

Why don't people believe in the Bible????? It was written by great men during times when dragons, leviathans, and supernatural beings existed (which do not today for some odd reason???). I mean its not like those who existed long ago had a flare for creating fictional stories our stretching the truth to mythical proportions!

You can show me all the proof in the world that the Bible is wrong and scientists are right about the creation of the world and I will still know that God exists! You know why because unlike all the other religions who's Gods aren't real yet people still pray to because they believe their prayers are answered, mine actually are. I can feel God in my soul I know he is real just like I used to know Santa Claus was real!

[S.C. Watson]

I Do Not Understand What The Problem Is!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Primarily a fundemental misunderstanding of the process of evolution, the definition of evolutionary theory vs. evolutionary fact, and the confusion of facts as perpetuated by creationists, compounded by the lack of critical thinking skills fostered by U.S. school systems because of lack of funding.

Simply a small matter of clearing these up. :confident

[Ssenkrah Semaj]

I didn't finish at the time Oregano. Read above again dude for some real logic.

[S.C. Watson]

Gotcha.

[jetpack42]

People who don't believe in evolution are dummies.

People who make fun of religious beliefs are cool.

[gasmask]

people post to much on conceptart are dummies

people that kiss ass on message boards are cool

[S.C. Watson]

and people who use an ironic device to illustrate the absurdity of a situation are mocked by the masses.

[Ssenkrah Semaj]

"I'm doing this }------- as hard as i possibly can......."

[Carnifex]

"thank god i'm an atheist"
:blahblah:

[LaPalida]

Heh not sure about your analogy Oregano. Art is subjective and beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Science is very much objective otherwise the mystical magical art of tea leaves reading would also be science. I think what you are trying to say is that before you go off talking about something you don't know about you should first do your research and clarify how many things that you suppose are true are actually received ideas. Before you break the rules you should first know what they are, otherwise it's a mistake not new exploration of ideas.

Anyway. Some people who don't believe in evolution are not stupid, they just haven't examined their beliefs yet to realize their error. If those people truly examined things they believe in they would come to startling conclusions. Like astrology and chiropractice etc are just silly beliefs that people are happy to go on believing because they never thought of actually challenging those beliefs. Or things like afrocentrism. All those things are in fact perpetuated by ignorance or laziness (and ofcourse propaganda by overzealous fanatics that wish them to be true).

Gasmask I'm still waiting for that proof. You do have it right?

Jetpack... making fun of someones comments/beliefs and making fun of them personally are 2 different things. I do hope you realize the difference. Whereas some of us do attack peoples comments in a rude and a derisive way we still retain the respect for their persons. I hope that you do the same for us. Usually people resort to name calling when they have no valid points available concerning a topic under the discussion, or can no longer defend their point of view in said topic. They refuse to acknowledge their defeat, as a drowning man grasps at straws, they grasp at anything (like for instance a persons appearance or their intelligence or any other number of things pertaining to that person including their sexuality or sexual orientation). This is commonly referred to as an ad hominem attack which is a logical fallacy.

Quote:
The point here is that the merits of an argument do not depend on the character of the speaker. All arguments should be weighed for their own sake, based on their own evidences and logical consistencies.

[gasmask]

proof of what, im the one waiting for you guys to prove evolution is a fact, if anyone here could do that you would be a millionaire and probably the most famous person in all the world if you could prove evolution as a fact, that would put an end to all religion as well but no one can. thats my whole point is that evolution is not a fact its a theory which is obvious to everyone so i dont see why this is going further, no amount of material you read we currently posess is going to prove otherwise so you really have no arguments

[jetpack42]

I'm starting to lose quite a bit of respect for a few people in this post.

Why does it have to be one way or the other? Certainly, you can believe Creation or Evolution is the absolute if you want. Why couldn't a higher power be the mastermind behind evolution? Certainly there is evidence suggesting evolution, but I don't know if there is a way to prove a higher power didn't orchestrate it, unless he comes down and tells us so (or not). Why does it even matter to the rest of you if people believe in Creation, Evolution, or somewhere in the middle? It's cool to discuss (if for the 5th time), but why do you need to resort to attacking the other side to prove your own side (and how does that really prove anything)?

I guess the plus side of these threads is it shows you who is capable of discussion, and who is capable of demonstrating thier (obviously very limited) powers of intelligence and respect (I'm lookin at you Yutani and Semaj).

:yawn:

[Ssenkrah Semaj]

People who don't believe in evolution are dummies.

People who make fun of religious beliefs are cool.

Lo and Behold! The most powerful example of the capability to retort intelligently on this entire thread.


I guess the plus side of these threads is it shows you who is capable of discussion, and who is capable of demonstrating thier (obviously very limited) powers of intelligence and respect.

Indeed it is Jetpack, indeed it is.

[jetpack42]

Show me a singular example of how you've contributed to this discussion.

You can't, because there isn't one.

[Ssenkrah Semaj]

You do realize the exact same can be said for yourself Jetpack....?????
No......wait!!! The gif image of the carousel was the most profound post so far, I think everyone would agree!

LMFAO The hypocrisy is astounding!!!!!

[Ssenkrah Semaj]

I Do Not Understand What The Problem Is!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Obviously a magical being who has existed forever and has always been all powerful and all knowing decided to make us.

It took 6 days, we know this from the Bible, forget about all that "evidence" called carbon 14 dating, geology, archealogy, and paleontology, thats says it was in fact millions of years.

Why don't people believe in the Bible????? It was written by great men during times when dragons, leviathans, and supernatural beings existed (which do not today for some odd reason???). I mean its not like those who existed long ago had a flare for creating fictional stories or stretching the truth to mythical proportions!

You can show me all the proof in the world that the Bible is wrong and scientists are right about the creation of the world and I will still know that God exists! You know why because unlike all the other religions who's Gods aren't real yet people still pray to because they believe their prayers are answered, mine actually are. I can feel God in my soul I know he is real just like I used to know Santa Claus was real!

I did bring something to the discussion. I might have been a bit rude with my use of irony to prove a point and I apologize for that. I do believe though I posed an interesting way at looking at the belief in creationism. Maybe some background history will help explain why I used irony (poor use of it as well). I was once a born again christian and I now use the thinking I once had to prove thinking I have now. But you should never answer rudeness with rudeness it will only bring the level of the discussion lower and thats exactly what we have done.

Now if their are any more points anyone would like to show for either side please continue to do so and hopefully we can all become enlightened.

[jetpack42]

How does an off topic mockery contribute? What does that have to do with evolution? What does your sarcastic rant validate about evolution?

Reading comprehension is at an all time low.

[endregan]

My weeny is much bigger than yours is!!!

[emily g]

Why does it have to be one way or the other? Certainly, you can believe Creation or Evolution is the absolute if you want. Why couldn't a higher power be the mastermind behind evolution? Certainly there is evidence suggesting evolution, but I don't know if there is a way to prove a higher power didn't orchestrate it, unless he comes down and tells us so (or not).
There is not a problem with what you describe. I believe in God and believe that he could have made the earth in any way he chose. If he chose evolution, so be it. Evolution is fascinating, and if God is the mastermind behind it then I think that's pretty cool.

No one can prove God does or does not exist. I think belief in God is a personal choice. There is some evidence that evolution is true, however. That evidence should at least be considered before being dismissed.

emily

[Ssenkrah Semaj]

Granted then I will remove the sarcasm and perhaps it might make more of a point instead of a mockery.

I Do Not Understand What The Problem Is?

How can you believe that an omnipotent and omniscient being has always existed?

The Bible says that the universe as we know it was created in 6 days. How is this still believed when we have carbon 14 dating, archealogy, geology, and palentology all showing a clear contradiction.

Why do people believe in the Bible or any other religious document for that matter? They were all written during times when men created stories about wonderous creatures and beings that were always passed on as true when in fact we only now know that to be the contrary (speaking of hercules and myths of the like).

I guess it simply comes down to personal beliefs no matter how much proof there might be to the contrary. Even though there are religions throughout the world, who if your beliefs are correct theirs are wrong, sight personal testimony of how their God(s) exists, just as you do. Which God is real then if both provide blessings? Perhaps you are all hardwired since childhood to attribute good things with God and bad with evil. I believe if you tell someone early enough on in their development they believe it to be true no matter how outrageous the claim. For instance Santa Claus, a lot of people once believed in him and through imagination he became real and of course the desire that he be true. I beleieve through the same imagination people make their God(s) real, once again because of the desire that there is an afterlife and someone up above is such a wonderful thought.

[acuna_read]

I thought Jetpacks roundabout was the best, although me being led to find out what love swings were by Redder was also very informative.

Damn endregan, thats pretty impressive! I commend you.

I personally dont see how god (if he exists, convert me quick!) could have made humans just like that. Imagine the scene if you will, kicking some gravel around on earth, graffing on some shutters etc...

God:Hello Mr frog.
Frog:Hello god.
God: A good morning is it not.
Frog: T'is a good morning indeed. (all animals and god used to speak in a ye olde English accent, it was the vogue at the time apparently).
God: You seen that B**tard snake about recently, Ive come up with this engenious plan but he's gonna ruin it and then ill have the wrath of........ well the wrath of god!
Frog: Aye (northen Uk accent), He went by not long ago....

And so the conversation continued....

Then he just clicked and made the people,

God: Alright Adam, if I was gay id comment on your nice c*ck. But I made Eve as well, she's for you, but when I get bored im gonna fondle her ample breasts if you dont mind.
Adam: As your god im guessing it's ok.
God: Cheers Adam, fancy a pint.
Adam: Yep, ill just get Eve to put the oven on and remind her of the washing shes got to do.

Im hoping this helps....... I think im nearly converted........




EDIT: Yes I do need to take my medication and get out more but Ive got to spend my money on bike insurance and its cold.

[LaPalida]

proof of what

Proof that carbon dating is "shoddy and vague" as you claim it to be.


im the one waiting for you guys to prove evolution is a fact

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/evolution-fact.html <- Read this
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-intro-to-biology.html <- This
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-misconceptions.html#proof <- and this

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/ <- Read this for evidence of Evolution


if anyone here could do that you would be a millionaire and probably the most famous person in all the world if you could prove evolution as a fact, that would put an end to all religion as well but no one can.

Q: If evolution is true, why don't you take Dr. Kent Hovind's $250,000 challenge and make yourself rich?
A: Kent Hovind's $250,000 challenge is a propaganda ploy and nothing more, rather like the "doctorate" Hovind claims from Patriot University. See: Kent Hovind FAQs: Examining "Dr. Dino."

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/hovind/ <- Read this
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/hovind.html <- Read this specifically


thats my whole point is that evolution is not a fact its a theory which is obvious to everyone

Really? Nice blanket statement there. Obvious to EVERYONE huh?

http://www.adamsmith.org/logicalfallacies/000618.php



so i dont see why this is going further, no amount of material you read we currently posess is going to prove otherwise so you really have no arguments

Really? Such fatalism. And the basis for these claims is where exactly? If, when given plenty of evidence and well reasoned logical conclusions, a person denies them as valid he is commiting "invincible ignorance" logical fallacy.

The arguer defends a position simply by refusing to acknowledge the force of the arguments supporting the opposing view. Statements like "I really don't care what the experts say; no one is going to convince me that I'm wrong"; "nothing you say is going to change my mind"; "yeah, okay, whatever!" are examples of this fallacy.

This is a fallacy of circularity because it assumes what is in question, namely the truth of the position being defended. In general, one should defend ones own beliefs. Consistency is a better policy than being too gullible and indecisive. Moreover, since people who have thought a position through tend to be fairly loyal to their conclusions, a person who holds to a position can sometimes appear to be more rational and thoughtful than someone who is too easily swayed by every argument he hears. The fallacy of Invincible Ignorance mimics the consistency that comes from having a well-thought-out position. However it asks us to overlook the distinction between rational consistency and sheer stubbornness.

[LaPalida]

My weeny is much bigger than yours is!!!
http://www.adamsmith.org/logicalfallacies/000635.php

[endregan]

I like your rhetoric, congratulations, but a joke is a joke. Lighten up silly!

[LaPalida]

heheh i had to pick an example of that and you were it. :)

[endregan]

Oh yeah. hehe. Yeah that was a pretty good example I guess :)!!!

Irrelevant humour can be ridiculous at times though, I use it a lot. Some people get me some dont, thats what makes me me :0.

[SJ Bennighof]

Hold on there for a sec. Relatively minor? What exactly is your definition of a species? Are you trying to say that those "doglike" creatures that are the ancestors of the modern day horse are the same species as the modern day horse?

No. What I'm saying is that the diffrences observed in the ancient and modern horses, while drastic, is nothing even slightly close to seeing life from amino acids in prehistoric Earth all the way to Humans. Or even slightly close to seeing life from microbes to plants, an, in itself, extremely small part of the chain. I contend that the presence of three links of chain and so forth scattered around does not in any way prove that all the chains are interconnected. It makes it seem very, very likely, but it does not prove it.


[Q.] Then why has no one ever seen a new species appear?
[A.] Speciation has been observed both in the laboratory and in nature.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.html

Ah, but by "observed" you mean "inferred about the past from remains". That's not empirical data.


Just because a court won't convict a man solely on circumstantial evidence (and I would like to see proof of that statement just in case it wasn't a received idea on your part) doesn't mean that courts are the last authority on the matter (eyewitness reports used to convict people in courts all the time! Did you know that sometimes convicted felons on death row go free and commit more crimes? The legal system isn't perfect (perhaps very imperfect)) nor does it mean that circumstantial evidence is any more inferior than direct (empirical) evidence, of which there is plenty, btw, in case of Evolution (for example paleontological and genetic evidence).

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/

Empirical? Like they went out and saw it happen, they saw the amphibian come out of the oceans and develop legs and all that stuff? They saw much evidence that it might have happened that way. You accept it as fact. You assume it to be fact (I know, I said the A-word, sorry guys), but you cannot correctly say that it has been proven. Circumstantial evidence is evidence of non-impossibility of a past event in one specific area. The lack of an alibi for a crime is circumstantial evidence. It forestalls disproof in the form of an alibi. A man cannot be convicted on those grounds alone, because even if he is guilty, he has not been proven guilty. That's why the legal system is in place, and that's why scientists are generally so meticulous and conservative about their work: they don't want to proclaim true something that is not true. You can't say "The court system is skewed because it let that felon go free, when it's clear that he did it!" Well, that begs the question that the felon was in fact guilty. It doesn't matter whether he is guilty or not, it matters whether it can be proven.

Note that I am certainly not trying to prove that Evolution is an incorrect theory. I'm also not trying to prove that Creationism is a correct theory. I'm saying that there's no proof for either. No one living saw it happen and documented it in generally acceptable ways, so there's no proof. None.

AND FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO THINK I AM TRYING TO PROVE CREATIONISM:


Obviously a magical being who has existed forever and has always been all powerful and all knowing decided to make us.

Um, no, it's not obvious. It's my unprovable personal belief.


Why don't people believe in the Bible????? It was written by great men during times when dragons, leviathans, and supernatural beings existed (which do not today for some odd reason???). I mean its not like those who existed long ago had a flare for creating fictional stories our stretching the truth to mythical proportions!

*Sigh* Please know what you're talking about before you say things like that. "Leviathan" was symbolic. It was not literally saying that such a creature existed. Mentions of dragons were always in the context of dreams or prophecies, in this case the prophecies in Revelation, which are, again, symbolic, and not meant to be taken literally. Supernatural beings, on the other hand, well, have you looked everywhere in the entire universe and not found one? You have? Sorry, not enough. They could be invisible to our plane of existence. They are, after all, supernatural beings, they can do that kind of thing, assumign they exist. Which is an assumption, not a fact. And you can't prove it wrong.


You can show me all the proof in the world that the Bible is wrong and scientists are right about the creation of the world and I will still know that God exists!

I don't think that it has been disproven, see the above. And I don't "know" that God exists. I believe that he exists, which is akin to saying "I think he exists."


You know why because unlike all the other religions who's Gods aren't real yet people still pray to because they believe their prayers are answered, mine actually are.

Bingo. That's exactly what I think.


I can feel God in my soul I know he is real just like I used to know Santa Claus was real!

I never believed in Santa Claus.

[Nimrod]

Sorry, but as this article clearly and unassailably proves, theistic evolution is "the intellectual basis for two of the biggest devils of the 20th century: Hitler's Naziism and Mark's communism."

http://www.av1611.org/kjv/mevolu1.html

So don't try to push that 'God created evolution' commie-nazi b.s. on me.

Pinko.

:bashful: :nohope: :nohope: :nohope:

p.s. j/k

[gasmask]

carbon dating is shoddy because dirt deposits come in many layers, for example, say you have a bone that they dig up, part of that bone is going to read that its alot older than another part because of the dirt, plus not only that but ask any scientist and they will tell you how shitty the carbon machines are, most of they give off some sort of time signiture but there is no way to tell if its even close or not, all it can do is estimate a general age due to limited date with the machines we posess and the fact that like i said, it will pick up multiple layers of dirt adding further confuzion to the whole time from which the bone for example came from

[darth massacre]

Well evolution may not be proven, but at least its observable.

It really depends on what each wants to believe.

If this discussion is about proving/disproving evolution, the discussion holds weight. When anyone bring in religious beliefs, bible, whatever, then the discussion becomes.....errr......un-discussable. You can't discuss logic/science/theories when one party only wishes to see what they want to see.

When someone says "why can't people accept the bible" it really means "religious fundalmentalism".

[the_blur]

SJ Bennighof,

Please, sir, check out the evolution of the horse (http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/horses/horse_evol.html).
The horse has evolved from a small, dog-like creature into the horses we have today, and we can see it in the fossil record. This is not just "perhaps" or "potential."
emily


EmilyG to this day I don't know what to make of you....

A rational, religious person? How do you make the ends meet on that?!

=)

[Prometheus|ANJ]

I'm just gonna leave a short comment regarding the word 'theory'.


There's two meanings for that word. Most people use it as 'guess'.

--- It's my guess/theory that the sound I just heard from the closet is a monster.

Then there's the scientific 'theory'. As an example, it's not called the gravitational fact, it's called the gravitational theory. A theory is a working model that describe a system and can make predictions.

I guess I should also mention Occam's razor here since scientifical theories are tested by it. The use varies but I think of it like this:

--- Gravity will pull an apple to the ground if someone in China recently farted.

After Occam's razor:

--- Gravity will pull an apple to the ground.

Another example:

--- The shoe footprint in the snow was not made by a man, but a 300 foot polar bear that morphed its foot into an addidas shoe just as it put its foot down.

This 'theory' would require that there are 300 foot polar bears that walk, probably are invisible, and can morph their feet and probably alter their weight. It will set off a chain reaction of redicilous assumptions.

[Scubasteve]

I have 2 problems with evolution. The first being, if we (human beings), were originally little organisms that lived in the ocean, then evolved into fish, then into mammals and so fourth, then why is their still all forms of these type of organisms around, from the simple little one celled organisms, to the very complex, ourselves. And also, during the process of a fish becoming a mammal, there has to be some point where the species is neither a fish, or a mammal, but something in between. My point is, could such a species survive and thrive? Anyway, what are your opinions?

[S.C. Watson]

I have 2 problems with evolution. The first being, if we (human beings), were originally little organisms that lived in the ocean, then evolved into fish, then into mammals and so fourth, then why is their still all forms of these type of organisms around, from the simple little one celled organisms, to the very complex, ourselves. And also, during the process of a fish becoming a mammal, there has to be some point where the species is neither a fish, or a mammal, but something in between. My point is, could such a species survive and thrive? Anyway, what are your opinions?

two words, because I'm really very tired tonight: Lung Fish. Secondly, Fish didn't become mammals. There's too many stages inbetween. Review www.talkorigins.org.

Also, take a look at amphibians, which are a biological step inbetween a full aquatic creature and full land animal.

Also, review the development of frogs. You can watch the morphology take place, literally before your eyes. Which brings us to another point, which is that you can *see* evolution literally in the development of the fetus from a single cell to a full human and pretty much all stages in between, includiing the fact that at one stage the fetus has gills and a tail.

Most people in my experience don't like to discuss this aspect though. Makes them uncomfortable, I guess.

Good night. I need to go collapse.
~S

[SJ Bennighof]

EmilyG to this day I don't know what to make of you....

A rational, religious person? How do you make the ends meet on that?!

=)

That's damned offensive, my good sir. I consider myself to be very rational. I am the first to criticize a member of my own faith for taking a stance on any practical issue solely on what the Bible says. I do not use any religious basis in my debating whatsoever if the debate is not about theology or other topics which mutually beg the question of the existence of a god. I have debated Evolution, Abortion, Gay Marriage, and many other issues online which Christians are known to be outspoken on, and I have never once used the teachings of my religion to justify my arguments. The only time I have brought religion into the picture in this thread is to refute someone's statements about the blindness of my beliefs and my intentions as such. I defy anyone to prove that to be untrue.

[LaPalida]

I


Sorry, but as this article clearly and unassailably proves, theistic evolution is "the intellectual basis for two of the biggest devils of the 20th century: Hitler's Naziism and Mark's communism."

Actually communism is atheistic at the core. What with the religion being "opiate of the masses".

Very funny link... haha "black people are related to monkeys", as opposed to the white people who were created in the "image of God". I'm sure they appreciate these comments lol. It's not Evolution! It's Evilution!!!

II



What I'm saying is that the diffrences observed in the ancient and modern horses, while drastic, is nothing even slightly close to seeing life from amino acids in prehistoric Earth all the way to Humans.

You are making a mistake in the assumption that the ancestor of the horse is an "ancient" horse. It is not. It is not even the same species. It is a distant relative of the horse but it is NOT a horse. But still, what is species to you? There is a scientific definition for that (I know what it is) but, since you are a religious person, what is a definition of a beast or creature according to the Bible. What makes one so specially different from another? How do you know how to differentiate one from another? Would you say that tigers and lions are different species? Horses and donkeys? Dogs and wolves? Elephants and impalas? What makes them so different from each other?


Ah, but by "observed" you mean "inferred about the past from remains". That's not empirical data.

No. By observed I mean observed as by the naked eye and recorded. That's empirical data. Did you look at the link??? It has examples of observed speciation there. http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.html


Empirical? Like they went out and saw it happen, they saw the amphibian come out of the oceans and develop legs and all that stuff? They saw much evidence that it might have happened that way. You accept it as fact. You assume it to be fact (I know, I said the A-word, sorry guys), but you cannot correctly say that it has been proven.

Hmmm. So to take that analogy further "since the scientists didn't actually see an amphibian come out of the ocean therefore it didn't happen" then according to that logic we cannot then convict anyone of a crime unless there was someone there that saw him do it? Oh but the there was much evidence found by the police that it might have happened that way but hey no one saw him do it so I guess he didn't do it. It's funny how reason just flies out the window when talk comes to evolution.


You can't say "The court system is skewed because it let that felon go free, when it's clear that he did it!" Well, that begs the question that the felon was in fact guilty. It doesn't matter whether he is guilty or not, it matters whether it can be proven.
I think you can very much say that the legal system is skewed, maybe not only on one example. I am also a bit muddy on your definition of a good legal system. It doesn't matter if he is guilty or not? I don't understand... do you really mean that when you say it? Isn't a legal system faulty/bad if an innocent person can be "proven" of commiting a crime which he didn't commit? Isn't a good legal system the one that errs on the side of guilt as opposed to innocence. What happened to "innocent until proven guilty"?

And he (I am talking about Robert Kleasen) was proven guilty... he walked on a technicality (the police didn't have a warrant to search his place, but they did anyway, so he was released because they were technically not allowed to do what they did - even though he was convicted beyond reasonable doubt and put on the death row based on the "illegaly acquired" evidence).
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/humber/3195506.stm

Many innocent people were "proven" guilty. Up until very recently a person could be convicted based solely on an eyewitness testimony. We all know how reliable those are...


Supernatural beings, on the other hand, well, have you looked everywhere in the entire universe and not found one? You have? Sorry, not enough. They could be invisible to our plane of existence. They are, after all, supernatural beings, they can do that kind of thing, assumign they exist. Which is an assumption, not a fact. And you can't prove it wrong.

Ofcourse, you can't prove a negative. You can't prove that pink flying elephants dont' exist because you can't prove a negative. It's a logical fallacy. The point is it's not our job to disprove your claim. If you claim that they (mystical magical animals etc) exist it's up to you to give evidence for such claims. Since the evidence is sadly lacking all I can say is that it's nothing but wild imagination on your part.

III


Quoting a large chuck off this site for jetpack's question "why does it matter who's right?" http://www.ffrf.org/about/bybarker/kalam.php:

Christians think we should treat others nicely because we were all created in the "image of God." This gives us value, they suppose.

But they don't explain why. Why does the image of a god provide greater value than some other image? Why does it give any value at all? What does "image of God" mean?

"God is a Spirit," Jesus supposedly said; but what is that? The word "spirit" has never been defined, except in terms that tell us what it is not: immaterial, intangible, noncorporeal, supernatural. No one has ever described what a spirit is. "To talk of immaterial existences," Jefferson wrote, "is to talk of nothings. To say that the human soul, angels, God, are immaterial, is to say, they are nothings, or that there is no God, no angels, no soul. I cannot reason otherwise." (To John Adams, August 1820. This does not mean Jefferson was an atheist: he conceived of God as a material being, or as nature itself, which is consistent with Deism.)

Since "god" has never been defined, much less proved, its "image" can't be used as a basis for anything. "Nature," on the other hand, means something. Darwinism shows us that all living organisms are the result of a natural evolutionary process. We have been fashioned by the laws of nature.

This revelation can only fail to impress you if you have been taught that there is something wrong with nature, something shameful about being a mere animal in a debased realm beneath the supernatural, whatever that is. Many theists seem eager to play this game of nature-bashing. The "blind chance" of evolution, they say, is a brute force incapable of producing something as "lofty" as us humans.

But evolution is not blind chance: it is design that incorporates randomness--not intelligent design, but design by the laws of nature, by the limited number of ways atoms interact mathematically and molecules combine geometrically. It is design by extinction, by the way a changing environment automatically disallows organisms that happen not to be adapted, leaving the "fittest" behind, if any. The randomness of genetic variation is a strength of evolution, providing a greater chance that something will survive.

This is amazing. Instead of speculating about an unknown "creator," we can actually look at our origins. Evolution shows how complexity arises from simplicity: creationism can't do that. Creationism tries to explain complexity with more complexity, which only replaces one mystery with another mystery. If functional complexity requires a designer, then how do you account for the functional complexity of the mind of the designer?

Darwin's enlightening concept is empirical, testable, provable, and relevant to creatures that inhabit a physical planet. It shows us who we really are. We are not above nature. We are not just a part of nature. We are nature. We are natural creatures in a natural environment. Through the startlingly sloppy, painfully unpredictable, part-random, part-determined process of natural selection, life, imperfect yet doggedly hanging on, has become what it is.

And that's what makes life valuable: it didn't have to be. It is dear. It is fleeting. It is vibrant and vulnerable. It is heart-breaking. It can be lost.

It will be lost.

But we exist now. We are caring, intelligent animals, and can treasure our brief lives. Why is eternal better than temporal, or supernatural "higher" than natural? Doesn't rarity increase value? God is an idea, not a natural creature. Why should his "image" be more valuable than our own "nature"? What right would an immaterial existence--a ghost in the sky--have to tell us natural creatures what is valuable? Has he ever felt the pain of giving birth? Does he struggle to pay the rent?

If we were created in his unknowable image, then we have no idea who we are. But being fashioned in the "image of nature," we do know who we are, and we can find out more. Right in our backyard, here on earth, we can investigate, study, and continue to improve conditions on this planet. It wasn't faith that eradicated smallpox. Contemplating the "image of god" will not cure cancer or AIDS.

Science has given us much. What has theology ever provided?

Theology has given us hell.

The threat of damnation is designed to be an incentive to right action; but this is a phony morality. Humanists think we should do good for goodness' sake, not for the selfish prospect of reaping individual rewards or avoiding punishment. Any ideology that makes its point by threatening violence is morally bankrupt. (Hitler's ovens, at least, were relatively quick. The torment Jesus promised is a "fire that shall never be quenched.") Anyone who believes in hell is at heart not moral at all.

If the only way you can be forced to be kind to others is by the threat of hell, that shows how little you think of yourself. If the only way you can be motivated to be kind to others is by the promise of heaven, that shows how little you think of others.

Most atheists will say, "Be good, for goodness' sake!"

IV


Scubasteve many of your questions have already been addressed. First of all humans never were little organisms that lived in the ocean. Life's distant ancestor/s was/were (according to the common descent theory anyway). Second, if a population of deer got separated on two different islands why should one population on the first island suddenly die out/become extinct if the one on the other island evolves into something new? Where is the logic in that? Also I dunno about your claim that humans are the "most complex" species on Earth. Do you mean cellularly complex? Socially complex? What do you mean? Third, there are "transitional fossils" out there such as the Archaeopteryx (from lizard to bird). http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/archaeopteryx/info.html. Why wouldn't they survive/thrive?

[darth massacre]

Everybody go read November 2004's issue of National Geographic.


It may not go into details, but it does have some interesting information. Genetical theories and Evolutionary theories might have first come from religious scholars at around the same time Darwin shouted eureka.




Clearly something funny's going on here.

[Prometheus|ANJ]

As for Nimrod's article, it's a short list of PRATTS, Points Refuted A Thousand Times. If anyone is interested, I could post the refutals. (There's no refutals to the refutals available, which is striking to this whole debate.) From the article:

The sun is continuously burning out at a rate of 5 feet per hour. This means that the sun would have been TWICE the size that it is now only 100,000 years ago! Only 20,000,000 years ago, the sun would have been so large that it would be touching the earth!

1: The 5 feet single sample figure has been handpicked from a long list of data that overall does not show any shrinkage. It's like saying a 2 headed baby is representative for how humans look.

2: Stars pulsate.

3: It's interesting how they assume that a star, which is a sphere, linearly shrinks with 5 feet per hour. Maybe the author should've spent a little less time in bible class and more in math class.

---

Scuba>

It is likely that some genres like half-something have a tougher time, so once they're finished being half something they get replaced by the full-something.
Early land-fish could dodge predators by crawling out of the water, and there were no competition on land so being half good at two things was affordable. Later it wasn't. Once land animals were established it must've been much harder for fish to attempt the land thing again, which makes it hard for us to find transition fossils. There's just that short window long ago when they did it for the first time. To do it again they need an advantage like an isolated environment or an edge of some sort.

Aslo, older forms of life aren't neccesarily inferior. Fish are pretty good at what they do. Rats too. You can't say that rats are better than fish cuz they evolved from the fish. Design efficiency is relative to the given environment.

[SJ Bennighof]

You are making a mistake in the assumption that the ancestor of the horse is an "ancient" horse. It is not. It is not even the same species. It is a distant relative of the horse but it is NOT a horse.

That's what I meant; I only said "ancient horse" to mean "genetic ancestor of the horse".


But still, what is species to you? There is a scientific definition for that (I know what it is) but, since you are a religious person, what is a definition of a beast or creature according to the Bible. What makes one so specially different from another? How do you know how to differentiate one from another? Would you say that tigers and lions are different species? Horses and donkeys? Dogs and wolves? Elephants and impalas? What makes them so different from each other?

The Bible is not a Biology textbook, it's a thesis of faith. I don't base definitions of anything scientific on the words of the Bible. I consider a species to be a group of living organsims that share a common genotype, up to a certain defined range of variation.


No. By observed I mean observed as by the naked eye and recorded. That's empirical data. Did you look at the link??? It has examples of observed speciation there. http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.html

Ah, but I mean empirical in terms of what happened in the past.


Hmmm. So to take that analogy further "since the scientists didn't actually see an amphibian come out of the ocean therefore it didn't happen"

No, "cannot be proven to have happened, barring other extremely specific and comprehensive evidence"


then according to that logic we cannot then convict anyone of a crime unless there was someone there that saw him do it? Oh but the there was much evidence found by the police that it might have happened that way but hey no one saw him do it so I guess he didn't do it. It's funny how reason just flies out the window when talk comes to evolution.

I don't care whether he committed the crime or not. I don't care whether Evolution is correct or not. I never said that I did. I care whether it can be proven to have happened. That's as far as I'm going.


I think you can very much say that the legal system is skewed, maybe not only on one example. I am also a bit muddy on your definition of a good legal system. It doesn't matter if he is guilty or not?

Not if you can't prove it to the jury, no, it doesn't matter. What does truth matter in terms of the justice system if it cannot be proven as truth? Not one iota, and that's how it should be.


I don't understand... do you really mean that when you say it? Isn't a legal system faulty/bad if an innocent person can be "proven" of commiting a crime which he didn't commit? Isn't a good legal system the one that errs on the side of guilt as opposed to innocence. What happened to "innocent until proven guilty"?

Um, I think you just agreed with me. Prove it or send the man home. I say the same of Evolution.


And he (I am talking about Robert Kleasen) was proven guilty... he walked on a technicality (the police didn't have a warrant to search his place, but they did anyway, so he was released because they were technically not allowed to do what they did - even though he was convicted beyond reasonable doubt and put on the death row based on the "illegaly acquired" evidence).
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/humber/3195506.stm

That's quite irrelevant, as scientists are not legally limited in the studies that they can make.


Many innocent people were "proven" guilty. Up until very recently a person could be convicted based solely on an eyewitness testimony. We all know how reliable those are...

So eyemitness testimony is inaccurate and unreliable, yet you ask me to believe that Evolution occured to bring us out of the primordial mudpits based on no first-hand evidence whatsoever?


Ofcourse, you can't prove a negative. You can't prove that pink flying elephants dont' exist because you can't prove a negative. It's a logical fallacy. The point is it's not our job to disprove your claim. If you claim that they (mystical magical animals etc) exist it's up to you to give evidence for such claims. Since the evidence is sadly lacking all I can say is that it's nothing but wild imagination on your part.

Could be, it's a very real possibility. Of course, my imaginary angels and so forth, like I said, can become invisible, so you can't prove that they don't exist in the room you're in right now, much less the whole universe. Doesn't prove they're real, just proves that they can't be disprove to be real.


Quoting a large chuck off this site for jetpack's question "why does it matter who's right?" http://www.ffrf.org/about/bybarker/kalam.php:

Christians think...

Please don't tell me what I believe. I know what I believe, and if I feel that any of my dogma is relavent to this debate, I'll be the first one to let you know. But please don't kill straw men with begged questions and submit it for our approval in this Evolution debate thread. If yo want to debate Christianity, start a new thread. I'll oblige you as far as defining for your the principles and beliefs of the Christian faith. I won't attempt to prove them, because it cannot be done. But for absolutely the last time, don't attack Christian beliefs in a thread about Evolution and expect me to logically respond, I'm not going to play the game where you show me how unprovable my beliefs are, because I already know how unprovable my beliefs are. This is about Evolution, not religious dogma.

[jetpack42]

LaPalida- I read it, but I don't quite understand how it answers my question. To sum that large bit up, "Religion cannot be observed like science". so? You can't quantify Christians or Atheists or whatever. You can quantify the movement, the fundamental ones pushing for their side, but the people themselves range from your local pastor to this guy
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/mercurynews/news/nation/11054705.htm

the only difference is in what they believe. there will always be exceptions to the rule (knockout ned). you can debate christianity if you want, but you can't lump christians into a single whole. it's the same as trying to lump all of _____ in a whole...but back to my point, how does this affect us being able to live and let live? It doesn't make any difference to me what you all believe...so why should it matter to you?

[emily g]

carbon dating is shoddy because dirt deposits come in many layers, for example, say you have a bone that they dig up, part of that bone is going to read that its alot older than another part because of the dirt, plus not only that but ask any scientist and they will tell you how shitty the carbon machines are, most of they give off some sort of time signiture but there is no way to tell if its even close or not, all it can do is estimate a general age due to limited date with the machines we posess and the fact that like i said, it will pick up multiple layers of dirt adding further confuzion to the whole time from which the bone for example came from
Umm, you don't test the dirt, you test the actual bone sample.

EmilyG to this day I don't know what to make of you....

A rational, religious person? How do you make the ends meet on that?!

=)
Heh, sometimes I don't know how I do it, myself. :)

but back to my point, how does this affect us being able to live and let live? It doesn't make any difference to me what you all believe...so why should it matter to you?
Yes, you could say it doesn't really matter what people believe on this issue because it doesn't really affect us.
But the people who hold opinions about evolution (pro or against) are the people who vote for out leaders and create our laws.
People don't care what other people think as much as they care how they think.

If someone hasn't done the research on an issue and is just believing what someone else told them, that is a problem. We might have a vote on water flouridation next week, and I'd hope that my voting neighbors have done the appropriate research.

Note that I'm not saying that believing in evolution makes you smart and believing in religion makes you dumb. If my neighber believes in evolution just because his science teacher told him to, I would be worried. Will he vote for something just because someone tells him to?
What about my neighbor who studies out his religious beliefs and makes his choices for himself? I will not be as worried about him, because I know he will look into an issue carefully before making a decision.

People get all bent out of shape about other people's beliefs when they suspect that those people have not come to those beliefs through responsible means.

Of course, everyone believes their ideas are right or else they wouldn't believe them. So when you meet someone who believes differently, you may jump to the conclusion that they are dumb. (Because if they were smart like you, they would believe like you do, right?) But spend some time talking to them and you can find out how that person came to those beliefs. If they did it through lots of thought and research (where appropriate), at least you can respect them though you do not agree with them.
If they believe what they do just because someone told them to or through some other questionable method, you then may want to convince them to try thought and research. You hope they will come to the same conclusion you did (because you're right, remember?) but you can accept it if they don't because at least you will know they studied it out.

Some people get confused and think that the what matters more than the how. But how someone makes decisions and chooses beliefs can matter just as much and is what people often get concerned about.
emily

[S.C. Watson]

Please don't tell me what I believe. I know what I believe, and if I feel that any of my dogma is relavent to this debate, I'll be the first one to let you know. But please don't kill straw men with begged questions and submit it for our approval in this Evolution debate thread. If yo want to debate Christianity, start a new thread. I'll oblige you as far as defining for your the principles and beliefs of the Christian faith. I won't attempt to prove them, because it cannot be done. But for absolutely the last time, don't attack Christian beliefs in a thread about Evolution and expect me to logically respond, I'm not going to play the game where you show me how unprovable my beliefs are, because I already know how unprovable my beliefs are. This is about Evolution, not religious dogma.

I don't think anyone is telliing you what you believe. However, there are, by and large, certain assumptions and generalizations that can be made for the sake of argument about both the Christian community and the Scientific community.

However, your faith in terms of this argument would not even be part of the issue had you not brought it up in the first place:


The Dodo died out because it didn't adapt to its environment. God didn't make evolution work in the universe he created, according to my unprovable beliefs, so he should have no reservations about letting the Dodo die out, right? I mean, if he made gravity work in this universe, he certainly realized that all kinds of injury and death would be possible through the exploitation of it, right? Doesn't mean he doesn't love his creatures, it just means he makes them play by certain rules.

During a the course of each of the debates, this being the third, if not fourth, that has taken place recently in this forum, we run a certain cycle, which I find interesting.

A link will be provided, or a question asked, a few initial pot shots are fired into the debate, the group quickly polarizes and we witness the rapid drawing of lines for two distinct camps: The faith based, and the science based.

From there, many, many, many links are provided by the science camp in order to bolster their position, while the religeous camp provides none that I can recall. Further, during the course of the dialog, the faith based are questioned as to what they believe, asked to provide proof of their beliefs, asked to examine what they believe, provided with information as to why those in the science camp hold issue with what the faith camp holds to be true and things quickly degrade into a yelling match.

This is done so that those in the science camp can understand where the faith based group is coming from. They have a hard time just accptings things.

Three times. If not four.

I find this of utmost interest.

SJ Bennighof, you say not to tell you what you believe. No one presumes to do so. You could believe in purple-headed schnorkle-whackers that fly around on pink hyenas handing out Groucho Marx glasses and bottles of Mountain Dew for all I care. I'd be interested in *how* you came to this belief, but ultimately, it's your deal. Have fun with it.

However; we offer you what we know, and yet you dismiss this seemingly out of hand, calling on us to prove our position time and again. I wonder why this is? Our position has been proven. It's not our responsibility to *prove* anything here. However, we open our resources to your so that you may find what we've found, see what we see, and know what we know.

I could take and walk you through the process of evolution, complete with graphics, and completely illustrate the marvelous branchings of life from one species to another, show how we share certain physical characteristics, such as the structure of our limbs for example, with almost every other mammal, reptile, fish and bird. Or, the fact that we all have the same number of vertibrae in our neck, or any number of other connections, but I think you already know this, so it would ulitmately be pointless. But I'm not sure, based on what you've posted, that you'd really care to see it either.

Further, most of in the science camp come from a relligeous background, meaning that we were raised within the parameters of some sort of church, went to Sunday school, bible class, what have you. So, we have some personal experience in this area. Not all of us, but I'd wager most.

The fact of the matter is that Christians do think what LaPalida posted. You, however, may not. You might be Morman, or Jehova Witness, or Roman Catholic. What faith you adhere to is irrelevant. However; in terms of the dogma being relevant to this debate, I posit that it is very important. Why? Because it creates a scenario in which we have a fundemental bypass. As long as it is there, and really *any* dogma, political or religeous or scientific, the debate is at a stall, because the dogma is held onto in favor of the examining of the data.

Beyond that, that particular piece was posted for Jetpack to clarify certain issues that the science camp has with the faith based camp. Almost all of which I personally have run into either on these boards or off, so I found it relevant, and frankly well written.

So, to sum up, your personal faith isn't at issue here, unless you bring it in. Dogma vs. science is because it clogs the mechanism of clear debate.

Cheers,
~Shane

[Scubasteve]

I mean't cellularly complex. I didn't say that it should become extinct nessecarly only that it should evolve too. (sorry about spelling) How can you say we arent decendants of the simple one celled organisms if all life was derived from them? You can't have it both ways can you? According to evolution all life began this way, so you can't detach it.

How about thinking about this for a second. Even evolution implys some from of general devine inspiration. When will a species evolution end? Are all species evolving towards a common perfect species? What controls or dictates the process? I guess what I want to know, will other species who seemingly to use act purely on instinct and inborn nature, will they one day be building cities and driving cars? Why is there not more evidence of other mammals or any other organism showing progress like that.

I know chimps and dolphins are smart, but hey so are dogs and cats. You can train a parrot to sing too. But compared to humnan intelligence there doesn't seem to me to be a large enough variance for me to believe I have chimp relatives.

[S.C. Watson]

I suspect that someone else (LaPalida) has already jumped on this, but...


How about thinking about this for a second. Even evolution implys some from of general devine inspiration.

No. It doesn't. It's assumed by the Creationist that there is. But it does not imply that. Quite the opposite, actually.


When will a species evolution end?

It doesn't. Except in the case of extinction, or the world blowing up. So, assuming that neither of those are the case, as long as the species is viable, it will continue to evolve, or modify as needed, dictated by environmental factors.

Are all species evolving towards a common perfect species? What controls or dictates the process?

No. There is no "perfect" state for evolution, except that which promotes the survival of the species. Natural selection is the control which dictates the process.

I guess what I want to know, will other species who seemingly to use act purely on instinct and inborn nature, will they one day be building cities and driving cars? Why is there not more evidence of other mammals or any other organism showing progress like that.

You could argue that it's possible, however unlikly. Primates, by and large, have capacity of language and the use of abstract ideas, as well as certain marine mammals. However, each is lacking some factor at present. Most notably, marin mammals (meaning whales, dolphines, etc.) have lost the use of their limbs over time in favor of an aquatic environment. Primates didn't develop the same characteristics as we did. But the possibility remains that the *could* as some undetermined point in the future. Or, they may simply become extinct, which looks like the most possible of the scenarios at presnet unfortunately.


I know chimps and dolphins are smart, but hey so are dogs and cats. You can train a parrot to sing too. But compared to humnan intelligence there doesn't seem to me to be a large enough variance for me to believe I have chimp relatives.
Chimps use tools. Care for their young. Make war. Patrol terriotories. Trade. Exchange favors. Have intimate friends. Have sworn enemies. Gather and hunt. Use shelter. Make makeshift hats from large leaves when it rains. Become sad and depressed when a loved one dies. Share joys. Get angry, frustrated, happy and silly.

Take away your technology for a little bit and look again. :)

[Nimrod]

Originally Posted by Scubasteve
I guess what I want to know, will other species who seemingly to use act purely on instinct and inborn nature, will they one day be building cities and driving cars? Why is there not more evidence of other mammals or any other organism showing progress like that.

I think you could also make the argument that building cities and driving cars represents a lack of progress. Does having a philosophical debate over the internet while a war is being fought halfway around the world sound a whole lot more advanced than frolicking in the ocean?

Or rather think of it this way. Cities and cars, etc. is not a product of evolution. Evolution is changing and adapting to work most efficiently in your environment. Humans change the environment to suit them. You know, throw a naked human anywhere in the world and forbid them to use any tools or alter their surroundings, and they're toast.

[LaPalida]

I mean't cellularly complex.

The most cellularly complex organism on Earth currently is not homo sapien, it's the largest creature which is the blue whale.


I didn't say that it should become extinct nessecarly only that it should evolve too. (sorry about spelling)

Ok now it's clearer. Some evolve alot, some very little, and some don't. If you take the example of sharks, they evolved very little throughout the ages (almost stayed the same). The theory of evolution does not say that all organisms must evolve. In an unchanging environment, natural selection would tend to keep things largely unchanged morphologically. What I was saying is that it's a common mistake for people to assume that the older species must die out if a new one evolves. That is not true. Both can coexist alongside each other evolving or otherwise.


How can you say we arent decendants of the simple one celled organisms if all life was derived from them? You can't have it both ways can you? According to evolution all life began this way, so you can't detach it.

I never did. What I said was that humans weren't once a bacterium living in the ocean that grew appendages, vertebra etc. and walked out of the ocean. That's an incorrect view.


It is likely that some genres like half-something have a tougher time, so once they're finished being half something they get replaced by the full-something. Early land-fish could dodge predators by crawling out of the water, and there were no competition on land so being half good at two things was affordable. Later it wasn't. Once land animals were established it must've been much harder for fish to attempt the land thing again, which makes it hard for us to find transition fossils. There's just that short window long ago when they did it for the first time. To do it again they need an advantage like an isolated environment or an edge of some sort.


Good point on the fact that the animals attempting to do what their ancestors have done in the past may no longer work (I think it's an excellent point actually) because of the state of the Earth back then as opposed to now. Although take a look at the mudskipper (http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&q=mudskipper&btnG=Search) and more mudskipper goodness (http://www.naturia.per.sg/buloh/verts/mudskipper.htm)

[SJ Bennighof]

I don't think anyone is telliing you what you believe. However, there are, by and large, certain assumptions and generalizations that can be made for the sake of argument about both the Christian community and the Scientific community.

What possible relevance does it have to an Evolution debate, though? So my beliefs are unprovable. So what? My beliefs aren't on trial here. Yours are, because you posted this thread about Evolution, your belief. It does not matter how absurb what I believe is if all I'm trying to say is that your belief cannot be proven as fact. I'm already giving you that mine can't, because I know it can't.

And yet "Evolution Debate" Threads too often turn into "Demonstrating Chrisitanity to be a Dogma That is not Supported By Scientific Testing"...Threads, as shown here:


However, your faith in terms of this argument would not even be part of the issue had you not brought it up in the first place:

The post of mine that you quoted was in direct response to this point of LaPalida's:


Maybe, maybe not, we will only have to wait to find out. Evolution never claimed that mono-gonad sex machines (nor, in fact, did this article) will replace duo-gonad?? sex machines. I wouldn't be so certain as to say that IT WILL necessarily survive (as you seem to be) nor would I be as certain to say that IT WILL NOT survive, only time will tell. After all the dodo didn't make it, did it? So much for God loving all his creatures... huh?

So, no, I didn't bring it up. And all I did in answering this post in the way that I did was to redefine my beliefs in accurate terms. I did not, do not, and will continue not to beg the existence of God during a debate about Evolution.


During a the course of each of the debates, this being the third, if not fourth, that has taken place recently in this forum, we run a certain cycle, which I find interesting.

A link will be provided, or a question asked, a few initial pot shots are fired into the debate, the group quickly polarizes and we witness the rapid drawing of lines for two distinct camps: The faith based, and the science based.

From there, many, many, many links are provided by the science camp in order to bolster their position, while the religeous camp provides none that I can recall. Further, during the course of the dialog, the faith based are questioned as to what they believe, asked to provide proof of their beliefs, asked to examine what they believe, provided with information as to why those in the science camp hold issue with what the faith camp holds to be true and things quickly degrade into a yelling match.

This is done so that those in the science camp can understand where the faith based group is coming from. They have a hard time just accptings things.

I don't have to support my faith logically, because I have not once contended that my faith is correct in these proceedings as a provable argument. I never drew the line.

Can't you see that I'm taking the null position here, and I just happen to be a Christian on the side? I'm staring from zero logically here, and I'm arguing whether explanations for "how-did-we-git-hurr" can be proven or not.

Chrisitanity? Naw, can't be proven. Let's move on to the next theory:
Evolution? Well, I really don't see that it has. How has it?

And then suddenly my Christian beliefs are under assault? Why?


SJ Bennighof, you say not to tell you what you believe. No one presumes to do so. You could believe in purple-headed schnorkle-whackers that fly around on pink hyenas handing out Groucho Marx glasses and bottles of Mountain Dew for all I care. I'd be interested in *how* you came to this belief, but ultimately, it's your deal. Have fun with it.

I wasn't saying that you guys were telling me what to believe, I was pointing out that Chrisitian views were being explained in reasoning and motivation by a non-Christian, and then they were compared to Darwin, and then I was being made to look unreasonable because I believe in all that stuff. First off, a non-Christian is not qualified to define Christian principle in reasonign and motivation, and Second Off, I contended that this was irrelevant because my position in this debate is and has always been and will continue to be: The Null. Phi. Zero with slashy thing.


However; we offer you what we know, and yet you dismiss this seemingly out of hand, calling on us to prove our position time and again. I wonder why this is? Our position has been proven. It's not our responsibility to *prove* anything here. However, we open our resources to your so that you may find what we've found, see what we see, and know what we know.

So why do people not just post a bunch of links and run away? Why debate? I ask you, sir, did anyone see it happen? Not evolution today, evolution then, in the specifics patterns outlined by the Theory?


I could take and walk you through the process of evolution, complete with graphics, and completely illustrate the marvelous branchings of life from one species to another, show how we share certain physical characteristics, such as the structure of our limbs for example, with almost every other mammal, reptile, fish and bird. Or, the fact that we all have the same number of vertibrae in our neck, or any number of other connections, but I think you already know this, so it would ulitmately be pointless. But I'm not sure, based on what you've posted, that you'd really care to see it either.

I already have a general understanding of how this is supposed to work, and while it is cursory, I get the picture. Show me a completed jigsaw puzzle, and I'll ask you to prove your claims of how it was assembled.


Further, most of in the science camp come from a relligeous background, meaning that we were raised within the parameters of some sort of church, went to Sunday school, bible class, what have you. So, we have some personal experience in this area. Not all of us, but I'd wager most.

Doesn't matter in the slightest. I didn't come here to talk Theology. I came to talk Evolution, and so did you. Let's rap.


The fact of the matter is that Christians do think what LaPalida posted. You, however, may not. You might be Morman, or Jehova Witness, or Roman Catholic. What faith you adhere to is irrelevant. However; in terms of the dogma being relevant to this debate, I posit that it is very important. Why? Because it creates a scenario in which we have a fundemental bypass. As long as it is there, and really *any* dogma, political or religeous or scientific, the debate is at a stall, because the dogma is held onto in favor of the examining of the data.

My Postion for the Purpose of Debate is the Null.


Beyond that, that particular piece was posted for Jetpack to clarify certain issues that the science camp has with the faith based camp. Almost all of which I personally have run into either on these boards or off, so I found it relevant, and frankly well written.

I thought it well written, but off the mark. In a lot of areas. Why do I not venture to outline these areas? Because I'm not a Christian in this debate, I'm an advocate of the Null. Any mention of Christianity in my posts in this thread has been either to correct people on the beliefs of the dogma or to say (this is more common) that I am not trying to prove Christianity. Doing both is getting old, and both are off-topic in my view. You interested in my analysis of Jet's bit? PM me, or post another thread, one about Christianity.


So, to sum up, your personal faith isn't at issue here, unless you bring it in. Dogma vs. science is because it clogs the mechanism of clear debate.

I didn't bring it up. And I agree.


Cheers,
~Shane

Cheers,
~SJ

[Prometheus|ANJ]

Yeah, I think many people give humans too much credit. We're not that advanced, we just barely got over the threshold of toolmaking and were able to communicate our memes. Memes are like genes but the content is ideas and they spread though communication. This allowed us to build on earlier stuff, which proved to be a huge advantage.

Now take an average human. Does she know how to make iron? Where do you find iron ore, how do you dig it up? You need to be able to make up a fire with just sticks and stones, construct a furnace, build an air feeding system. Then you must know how to make molds. You must know how to mix in coal and other metals to make proper metal.

Now try to build a computer. With plastics, power supply, nano scale processor parts and instruction sets.

The average human can just barely drive her car to the supermarket and put food and things in a wagon. Then she goes home to look at a box with moving pictures.

Mankind owes all progress to a few geniuses and the accumulated small efforts by billions over thousands of years. A single human doesn't have much of an edge over animals if you stip the memes away.

[Scubasteve]

Those are silly statements Prometheus|ANJ. Most people don't know how to make fire from sticks because we don't need to. If we get cold we turn on the heat. I don't know any chimps that can do my job.

[dogfood]

Those are silly statements Prometheus|ANJ. Most people don't know how to make fire from sticks because we don't need to. If we get cold we turn on the heat. I don't know any chimps that can do my job.

No, but conversely, I'll bet you can't do their jobs, either. We can certainly be proud (and ashamed) of our species' accomplishments, but unless you're a porn star or microvascular surgeon, too much pride in one's own accomplishments may seem a little less than generous to those who paved the way.

I was feeling mildly distressed a few years ago, because I came to the realization that I was unable to produce man's basic technology (arguably). Being a non-smoker, I was without fire-making tools. Now, with the survival courses I've been through, I've done it the hard way, but man, that was exhausting. Sauntering around with my cell phone, Palm, and all the other modern conveniences (thanks, memes), I got over it.

[LaPalida]

God's in his heavan, all's right with the world.

Didn't bring up God? Oh really then who said the above? Nice little thorn you throw into the converstaion and then deny you even started it .... sure.


I wasn't saying that you guys were telling me what to believe, I was pointing out that Chrisitian views were being explained in reasoning and motivation by a non-Christian, and then they were compared to Darwin, and then I was being made to look unreasonable because I believe in all that stuff. First off, a non-Christian is not qualified to define Christian principle in reasonign and motivation, and Second Off, I contended that this was irrelevant because my position in this debate is and has always been and will continue to be: The Null. Phi. Zero with slashy thing.

Who are you referring to when you say a non-Christian?


So why do people not just post a bunch of links and run away? Why debate? I ask you, sir, did anyone see it happen? Not evolution today, evolution then, in the specifics patterns outlined by the Theory?

Not evolution today but then? What is that? That's the equivalent of asking "Has anyone seen rain 60000 years ago, not today but then". Huh? What's the logic behind that?

That's a weak argument. You are saying that you have to see something happen with your eyes for it to be proven true. Do you see air? Do you see atoms? Do you see plants grow? Do you see continents move? Do you see gravity? I know it's hard to grasp but not everything can be seen. Some things are invisible to the naked eye while others happen so slowly as to be unnoticeable in a relatively short period of time (such as human life in regards to Evolution). All you see are their effects. Or are you saying since there was no one at the time to see something happen then it didn't? Well then did anyone actually see the Roman Empire? No? Well guess it didn't exist then. That's the most absurd argument against Evolution I have heard up to this day.

And yes we do post links. If you want to know the answer to your question then you should follow up on them. They answer what you asked in a very concise way (better than I can). You challenged the theory and we send you the links that defend our view.

[S.C. Watson]

SJ Bennighof, okay. I accept your position as starting from the "null" point.

If will allow me a day or two, I will get back to you a little more fully on some of the points / questions that you bring up. For my part, there will be no mention of religeon or faith in my following post. However, in the above, what I had attempted to do was to show *how* we came to the bypass that we were at.

I've got to head out the door to work, and can't address them right now, however I did want to let you know that I saw your post.

Cheers,
~S

[dfacto]

thats my whole point is that evolution is not a fact its a theory

First, lets do the old dictionary.com trick and drudge up the definition of theory.

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=theory

The common usage of the word is that of #4-6, and those that do not believe in evolution, and attempt to debunk it, seem to think of evolutionary theory with definition #6 in mind. This, however, is a mistake that shows a fundamental lack of knowledge. The theory of evolution (definition #1) is a theory based on an overwhelming amount of physical evidence, and is widely accepted. It isn't "just a theory", as I've heard many people say, it is a scientific theory, which has a very different meaning from what many dumb it down to.

I think this is best said here: http://www.vuletic.com/hume/cefec/7.html#7_11


RESPONSE: This criticism conflates the colloquial use of the word "theory" with the scientist's use. In colloquial usage, the word "theory" is used to designate a mere guess or conjecture. But scientists do not call guesses and conjectures "theories" -- scientists call them "hypotheses." In scientific circles, the word "theory" designates something far strong that a hypothesis. As zoologist Tim Berra explains,

a theory in the special scientific sense is not "just a theory," as creationists are fond of saying. A scientific theory is the endpoint of the scientific method, often the foundation of an entire field of knowledge, and is not to be confused with the sort of "theory" we so easily propose in everyday conversation. (Berra 1990:4)

To say that evolution is "just a theory" is at best to make a mistake comparable to saying that Copernican theory, electromagnetic theory, quantum theory, the theory of relativity, and round-earth theory, are just guesses. Evolution is a theory only in the same robust scientific sense as all of these other theories.

Evolution is a fact. The basic points cannot be disproven if the evidence is taken into account. What can be argued over is the mechanisms through which evolution occurs. Survival of the fittest is one way of putting it, but it is incomplete and simplistic, and there are many other mechanisms that could drive evolution forward. That is where evolutionary theory is incomplete.

What you cannot disprove is the basics of evolution. Change through mutation is observable in a laboratory setting, and evolution itself, in a perverted form, can easily be seen when one looks at dog breeding. There's far more than that though.


I didn't come here to talk Theology. I came to talk Evolution, and so did you

Slow down, it isn't that simple. Evolution would go mostly unquestioned if it wasn't for theology, and it is basically impossible to talk about the validity of one without including the other. They go hand in hand, unfortunately.



what work is there to put in? evolution is a theory simple as that, nothing more nothing less, no matter how much you study and ive studied it quite a bit, amoung other things like religion, it will never go on past the point of being a theory until someone can get some solid factual evidence.

That factual evidence exists. What do you call antibiotic resistant strains of TB? I call that evolution, and that's what it is. Miniscule, but still evolution. As for the "only a theory", see above. Scientific theory is not "just a theory" as you so handily dismiss it. Would you call the theory of relativity "a theory simple as that, nothing more nothing less?" I'm sure the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki would have been very relieved to know that they were getting hit by nothing more than a bit of theoretical fancy.


When examining evolution, you have to look at all of the supporting evidence, and there is a lot of it. (Go look it up, it's on talkorigins, and other sites. Can't miss it.) That evidence supports evolutionary theory, and that is why evolution is the scientifically accepted theory, because it works with the evidence. There is evidence, and it is overwhelming. If you look at it's most vocal opponent, creationism, you come up against a theory with mostly verbal evidence. Literature is not an acceptable form of evidence when dealing with something physical, like the earth and it's inhabitants.

Creationism relies on written stories as a source of a theory. This theory is clearly contradicted by the physcal evidence available, but is still persists, along with apologetics to try and explain it all away. This is because it can't be disproven. You can explain away anything with heavenly intervention, and this doesn't allow for a conclusive dismissal of creationism. However, just because something cannot be disproven doesn't mean that it is automatically proven. (After all, I can claim that I am a superpowerful extra-dimensional being who is living as a human for kicks, and nobody could disprove what I say if I wrap up my story in a bulletproof blanket of apologetics. Doesn't mean I'm not lying through my teeth though.)

If you can't disprove it, then you have to look at the proof, and the theory with the most proof wins, which is why evolution is scientifically accepted as the best explanation.

[LaPalida]

Evolution is a fact. The basic points cannot be disproven if the evidence is taken into account. What can be argued over is the mechanisms through which evolution occurs. Survival of the fittest is one way of putting it, but it is incomplete and simplistic, and there are many other mechanisms that could drive evolution forward. That is where evolutionary theory is incomplete.

What you cannot disprove is the basics of evolution. Change through mutation is observable in a laboratory setting, and evolution itself, in a perverted form, can easily be seen when one looks at dog breeding. There's far more than that though

Exactly. I am not even trying to prove the theory (of which I don't know nearly as much as I should). It boils down to this: Fact is what actually happens. Theory is the explanation of how it happens. The fact of evolution is undeniable.

***Example***

Gravity is a fact: The force of attraction between all masses in the universe

Evidence for Gravity: Planets revolving around the Sun; apples falling on physicists.

Evolution is a fact: Life evolved throughout the ages from one or more common ancestors undergoing various changes.

Evidence for Evolution: Morphological Evidence, Genetic Evidence, Paleontological Evidence, Geological Evidence, Embryonic Evidence.

The Theory of Gravity: n : (physics) the theory that any two particles of matter attract one another with a force directly proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them.

The Theory of Evolution: Life evolves through natural selection, random genetic drift, mutation etc.

[Nike]

carbon dating is shoddy because dirt deposits come in many layers, for example, say you have a bone that they dig up, part of that bone is going to read that its alot older than another part because of the dirt, plus not only that but ask any scientist and they will tell you how shitty the carbon machines are, most of they give off some sort of time signiture but there is no way to tell if its even close or not, all it can do is estimate a general age due to limited date with the machines we posess and the fact that like i said, it will pick up multiple layers of dirt adding further confuzion to the whole time from which the bone for example came from

as an archaeologist I want to add something to that:

carbon (c-14) dating is not that shitty anymore. It used to be very vague, but the technology has improved a lot during the past years and still is improving. Actually it has become quite precise and we are using it a lot even for findings of - say -classical to hellensitic greek epoche. Our results have been quite good during the last campaigns. 20 years ago this would have been quite useless for that small time span.
It is a question of money though. c-14, exspecially the precise version is not cheap, so usually only a bit more important things are going through the precise tests, while for others the vague tests are enough.
There are a few things to take care of when trying to do carbon based datings:
a) don't touch what you want to have dated. It's quite easy, you put the finding into aluminium foil and don't touch it anymore. The machines have become precise enough that that even doesn't matter that much anymore if you touch a finding or not.
b) work clean and precise, take your time if necessary to avoid confusion. Document everything before you remove it, so you are quite save even though things can turn out to be different later - you have documented it.
c) usually the bigger the organic findings are, the better. very small pieces of carbon are way harder to work with than bigger ones.

Covered by dirt? Hey, that "dirt" is even more imprortant than the findings itself. The "dirt" is what we are calling archaeological stratum, and that stratum can tell you a lot. Actually, the stratigraphy is the most important thing on excavations.
Of course, strata can be disturbed. But that's something you realise. Because everything that has happend on that place, that is disturbing of forming strata is leaving traces.
The stratigraphy is providing a relative chronology : it is telling you that startum 1 is younger or older than stratum 2 and so on - basically, you try to understand what has been happening at the paces you are excavating, that it is looking like it is. Then there is an absoloute chronology and the absolute chronology is recieved by findings that can be dated. Like pottery, or architectural elements, or organic material - a piece of carbonated wood etc. We usually take researches on the "dirt" too, as it can contain organic elements like pollen or wood or small fragments of bone or teeth that can be pretty interesting. The samples we are taking are going directly to the certain specialists - botanics, anthropologists, animal bone specialists etc.
Of course there *could* happen situations that are confusing - that happens, if archaeologists aren't working well and precise. It happens, of course, but it can be avoided by working clean and precise.
After all, c-14 is no the only dating methods we have. It's becoming more and more. We still have dendrochronology which is very precise if the situation allows it to be used.
And finally you have comparison to other excavations, to other findings.

Of course mistakes can happen. And they do happen. That's why comparison, cooperation of different fields of science, specialisation etc. is a must. And if the relative chronology is correct, then the worst mistakes have been avoided already.

If you want to read something about how we digging folk are working nowadays, you might check some of the books listed there:
http://www.harrismatrix.com/
or check that (very) brief explainations of stratigraphy with some illustration: http://www.library.csi.cuny.edu/siias/archaeology.html
http://www.pastperfect.info/archaeology/stratig.html (http://http://www.pastperfect.info/archaeology/stratig.html)

Now, a few words on evoloution, merely human evolution.
It's quite out of question. The real question, however, is, if the was one point on the earth where the first humans developed, and from which they began to spread the world and because of the environment developed differently or if the same phenomenon occured at more points - say africa, asia, and so on, about the same time.
This is, as far as I know, the main question in that field. But this time is not the field I am specialised on, so I can't say much more about it.
Personally, evolution as a fact is out of question for me. Of course everyone has the freedom to ignore the facts that geology, zoology, archaeology etc. are providing and that really make it hard to imagine anything different.
And many of the scientists I personally know, who are working in that field, do not have a problem to combine evolution with religious belief. Why not?

[Scubasteve]

LaPalida - I don't dispute that there is some form of evolution, meaning, species adapt and change due to there enviornment. But as far as cross-species evolution, I don't believe in it. The dog breeding analogy, there are all still dogs. They maintain certain qualities that all dogs have. They will never become cats.


Ummm. dogfood... Chimps don't have jobs, except perhaps those on Lancelot Link.... Anyway.... This is a waste of time and energy, I'm jumping off the Merry-Go-Round! PEACE!!!!!!!!

[LaPalida]

Oh yeah I forgot about that. Yes I looked up carbon dating. It's not used to test fossils that are millions of years old (only up to 50, 0000 years old). There is a large misconception I think that Carbon Dating is the only technique used to test the age of an object. This is not so. There are several different methods of doing this and they are consistent with each other supporting Evolution. Scientists use Potassium isotopes (potassium-40) to date older fossils, it's half-life is 1.28 billion years and Uranium-238 which is used to determine the age of cores. The relative age of fossils is determined from their position in sedimentary rock.

http://bioweb.cs.earlham.edu/text/evolution/

The absolute age of a fossil is determined by dating the fossil with radioactive isotopes. Radioactive isotopes have unstable nuclei that break down, or decay, and form other elements. These isotopes decay at a constant, known rate. The period of time it takes for one-half of the radioactive material to decay is called the half-life of the isotope. Remember that isotopes of an element differ in number of neutrons Carbon-12, the most common and stable isotope of carbon, has 6 protons and 6 neutrons and therefore has an atomic mass of 12. Carbon-14, an unstable, radioactive isotope of carbon has 6 protons and 8 neutrons and an atomic mass of 14. Carbon-14 decays to nitrogen-14. The half-life of carbon-14 is about 5,700 years. The ration of carbon-14 to carbon-12 in the atmosphere is assumed to be constant over time. Organisms take up the two isotopes of carbon in about the same ratio that the isotopes are found in the atmosphere. Thus, when an organism dies, the ratio of carbon-14 to carbon-12 in its remains will be the same as that in the atmosphere. As time goes by, the amount of carbon-14 will decrease as it changes into nitrogen-14. However, carbon-12 does not decay. By comparing the ratio of carbon-14 to carbon-12 in a fossil with the ratio of these isotopes in the atmosphere, scientists can date fossils that are up to 50,000 years old.

Common Creationists Claims:
Yes I said Creationists because their claims are your questions as well.
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-age-of-earth.html#creacrit

On Radiometric Dating:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/dating.html

On Carbon Dating:
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CD/CD011.html
http://science.howstuffworks.com/carbon-14.htm

Claim:
Carbon-14 dating gives unreliable results.

Response:
1. Any tool will give bad results when misused. Radiocarbon dating has some known limitations. Any measurement that exceeds these limitations will probably be invalid. In particular, radiocarbon dating works to find ages as old as 50,000 years but not much older. Using it to date older items will give bad results. Samples can be contaminated with younger or older carbon, again invalidating the results. Because of excess 12C released into the atmosphere from the Industrial Revolution and excess 14C produced by atmospheric nuclear testing during the 1950s, materials less than 150 years old cannot be dated with radiocarbon (Faure 1998, 294).

In their claims of errors, creationists do not consider misuse of the technique. It is not uncommon for them to misuse radiocarbon dating by attempting to date samples that are millions of years old (for example, Triassic "wood") or that have been treated with organic substances. In such cases, the errors belong to the creationists, not the carbon-14 dating method.

2. Radiocarbon dating has been repeatedly tested, demonstrating its accuracy. It is calibrated by tree-ring data, which gives a nearly exact calendar for more than 11,000 years back. It has also been tested on items for which the age is known through historical records, such as parts of the Dead Sea scrolls and some wood from an Egyptian tomb (MNSU n.d.; Watson 2001). Multiple samples from a single object have been dated independently, yielding consistent results. Radiocarbon dating is also concordant with other dating techniques (e.g., Bard et al. 1990).

On Isochron Dating:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/isochron-dating.html

Ice Core Dating:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/icecores.html

On Age of the Earth and how we know it:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-age-of-[B]earth.html

[Nike]

La Palida - thanks -
this sums it up pretty well.
Forgot to mention the til 50.000 bc limitation-my bad. Even though even here there are some little steps of improvement as I've recently heard.
All in all, c-14 and most of it's very recent developments is a very reliable method, if the situation actually allows to use it.

[LaPalida]

LaPalida - I don't dispute that there is some form of evolution, meaning, species adapt and change due to there enviornment. But as far as cross-species evolution, I don't believe in it. The dog breeding analogy, there are all still dogs. They maintain certain qualities that all dogs have. They will never become cats.

I'm not sure you understand animal taxonomy. Cats and dogs are not just different species, they are not even the same family (Felidae vs Canidae). Cats and lions are not the same species but are of the same family. http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/index.html. Click on any name of the animal kingdom and then scroll down to see how the branches of the tree of life split (according to the scientific classification). What Evolution claims is that we descended from other simpler life forms. It doesn't work like this : bacteruim -> slug -> shark -> frog -> snake -> eagle -> monkey. All these creatures are alive today and we are all distant cousins. We didn't descend from them they descended from something else at the same time as we did. We are all descendants of those early creatures, our ancient ancestors.

First off a dog will never become a cat nor anything of the sort (dogs didn't evolve from cats nor will they evolve into them, dogs are actually distant relatives of the bear). This is a misconception. This is not what evolution claims happens (it is akin to saying that you will evolve into your second cousin eventually - does this make any sense to you?). Consider this: If you accept that we change over time and adapt to our environment if we are isolated from each other (for example we live on different planets) then it's not a leap of logic to assume that we will be different from each other (and we are in many minor ways) in the future to such a point that we won't be able to interbreed with each other anymore. Since speciation has been observed in our life time - and this means a certain species is so different from the original species they descended from that they can no longer breed and create offspring (there are exceptions to this rule ofcourse, such as hybrids, but in general this is what a different species means) why is it so difficult to grasp that over a much longer period of time we will be even more different from each other that we will not only be of different species but of a different family, and if you go longer still we will be so different from each other that we will no longer be of the same order even, etc.

Different dog breeds is a bad example because dogs (from the Great Dane to the Chihuahua) are still dogs. They are not different species. If you compared dogs to wolves they are different species (Canis Familiaris and Canis Lupus).

[dogfood]

Hey, Scubasteve, I know you're not in anymore, but I wasn't implying that a chimp puts on a tie, grumbles about public transportation on the way to the office, then starts designing new coversheets for TPS reports, all the while stroking his red stapler. It was more a comment that each species is successful in its environment. If they're not, they get sacked, or die out, as the case may be (or push themselves out of existance, like the NHL).

I love the recent evidence that points to the whale as the hippo's closest relative (vice the pig, as was popularly held). There must have been some harsh nasties swimming around to push things out of the pool, but what slathering, stomping beast was padding around to push them back in? I shudder to think what the fossil record hasn't reocrded (or hasn't been found).

Fantastic posts, Lapalida!

[dfacto]

The dog breeding analogy, there are all still dogs. They maintain certain qualities that all dogs have. They will never become cats.

A few thousand years of forced evolution cannot under any circumstances match a few million years (at least) of natural evolution. It is laughable to even compare the two, because a few million years is a hellova long time, and a great deal can, and does happen in that time frame. I'm not sure when Canidae and Felidae diverged from their common evolutionary root, but it wasn't recently, and there has been plenty of time for the two to diverge into the two separate families that we know today.

Given a million years, dog breeding will produce a new species, maybe even a new genus. It hasn't happened yet, but claiming that as a proof against evolution is as absurd as claiming that the failure to reproduce abiogenesis within a short amount of time is proof against it. It takes time, and you can't get around it. At least not yet. ;)

[SJ Bennighof]

SJ Bennighof, okay. I accept your position as starting from the "null" point.

If will allow me a day or two, I will get back to you a little more fully on some of the points / questions that you bring up. For my part, there will be no mention of religeon or faith in my following post. However, in the above, what I had attempted to do was to show *how* we came to the bypass that we were at.

I've got to head out the door to work, and can't address them right now, however I did want to let you know that I saw your post.

Gotcha, and it's all good. And I think LaPalida and I figured out how we got there, see below.


Cheers,
~S

Cheers,
~SJ


Didn't bring up God? Oh really then who said the above? Nice little thorn you throw into the converstaion and then deny you even started it .... sure.

Ah, I see the source of the misunderstanding. That was a miscalculation of my part, nothing more. I'll explain:

The words "God's in his heaven, all's right with the world" are a quote from the last lines of a poem:


Pippa Passes:

The year's at the spring
And day's at the morn;
Morning's at seven;
The hill-side's dew-pearled
The lark's on the wing;
The snail's on the thorn;
God's in his Heaven -
All's right with the world!

I think these same lines were quoted in one of the Bertie and Jeeves stories by PG Wodehouse. In any event, that's just something I tend to say, simply to mean "everything is cool", in a casually literary sense rather than a religious sense. But the coincidence is noted, and I should have been more discriminate in my references to God in an Evolution debate thread, especially given that I'm already extremely outspoken as a Christian on certain parts of these boards. So, the fault was mine, but not in that I was consciously trying to shift the focus to Christianity, just in that I carelessly name-dropped the Big Guy.

So, moving past that...


Who are you referring to when you say a non-Christian?

The author of that passage. I don't care what religion anyone is or anything, but I don't think a Christian would have written that passage, at least not in those terms. If they are, well, my mistake. But in any event, actual discussion of that passage belongs in PM or another thread.


Not evolution today but then? What is that? That's the equivalent of asking "Has anyone seen rain 60000 years ago, not today but then". Huh? What's the logic behind that?

The laws of physics don't change over the course of time, but specific occurrences of specfic events are hardly laws of physics. I agree that natural selection can and does bring about microevolution and even macroevolution, given the right circumstances, but observence of evolution in species today is not direct evidence that creatures evolved in the ways that the Theory of Evolution says that they did. They may have evolved in some way or other, and it would make sense for the same sort of phenomenon to occur then that occurs today, but there is not compelling evidence to my mind to prove that things did evolve this way from microbes in the primordial soup. Continuing and modifying my Piano analogy, just because I can play the Piano, does that prove that I ripped through all of Mozart's Piano Concertos, one a day, last year? I could have been playing Handel, or Beethoven, or anything.


That's a weak argument. You are saying that you have to see something happen with your eyes for it to be proven true. Do you see air? Do you see atoms? Do you see plants grow? Do you see continents move? Do you see gravity? I know it's hard to grasp but not everything can be seen. Some things are invisible to the naked eye while others happen so slowly as to be unnoticeable in a relatively short period of time (such as human life in regards to Evolution). All you see are their effects. Or are you saying since there was no one at the time to see something happen then it didn't? Well then did anyone actually see the Roman Empire? No? Well guess it didn't exist then. That's the most absurd argument against Evolution I have heard up to this day.

You're still missing it. I'm not trying to prove that the Theory of Evolution is incorrect. I'm trying to show that it has not been proven correct. And we have no first-hand evidence. None.

That being said, I certainly understand that many phenomena are invisible to the naked eye when observed directly. I may have said "observed" rather than "seen", but I thought the meaning to be clear enough.


And yes we do post links. If you want to know the answer to your question then you should follow up on them. They answer what you asked in a very concise way (better than I can). You challenged the theory and we send you the links that defend our view.

I do follow them, and I understand that it's useful to post them, but the purpose of a message board debate is for one party to prove their thesis. Posting a link is not proof. Proof constitutes a statement (Evolution has been proven correct), evidence (this link to what some edumacated dudes have to say on the subject), and grounds, that which relates the evidence to the statement. I'm not debating the guys you link me to, I'm debating you. I read what they say, but I take exception to some of it? Why do I not say whcih parts? Because I'm not talking to them, I'm talking to you. I can't raise an "au contraire!" to them, and you didn't write the thing, so it wouldn't make much sense to direct a refutations of their words to you. You tell me how it proves your case, and I'll refute that if I can.


Slow down, it isn't that simple. Evolution would go mostly unquestioned if it wasn't for theology, and it is basically impossible to talk about the validity of one without including the other. They go hand in hand, unfortunately.

No, I'm afraid it is that simple. I am defined in a debate by the arguments I bring to the table. I haven't brought one iota of Christian dogma to the Evolution table in this thread. I have mentioned Christianity multiple times in this thread, but never in the context of the Evolution debate. Don't come to me with your qualms about Christian dogma. I'm an Advocate of the Null, remember?

And even if I wasn't, even if I was trying to prove Evolution wrong with a Book that proclaims itself to be true (which would be stupid), don't presume that all Christians think alike, especially on dicey issues like this one. The general "You're a Christian, defend Christianity to me. Oh, here's this essay I found online by a Christian. Defend that, because it's relevant to the Evolution debate and you're a Christian. Oh, some Christian told me this. Prove that statement to me because you're a Christian." Yeah, last time I checked, most historical scholars are pretty sure that a bunch of Christians were busy killing each other in Europe over squabbles about how best to practice the faith a really long time ago. Some classify it as a war. Most simply refer to it as the Protestant Reformation. In this day and age, I, a Protestant, am currently involved in a friendly E-mail Theology debate with my Catholic cousin. So we all definitely agree with each other about everything, us Christians.

[emily g]

Hey, thanks for the post, Nike! It's nice to hear from someone who has training in the field.

Ah, LaPalida, you have more stamina than I. Can I just copy and paste some of my posts from the other threads? :) :)

emily

[NoUseFrAName]

There is a Nature of nature
There is an Awareness of awareness
There is a Creation of creation

All physical things have an origin in the non physical.

God is the Nature of nature
I am the Awareness of my awareness
Evolution is the Creation of creation

The non physical is a mirror of the physical.

nature comes from Nature
awareness comes from Awareness
creation comes from Creation

Truth doesn't change. Truth changes.
A conundrum wrapped in a paradox.

-Rob(because poetry doesn't seem to have been tried yet)

[Prometheus|ANJ]

The hunter-gatherer human had no job, car or PDA. Yet she were as intelligent. My very point was that 'memes' are a separate organism and is not built into our geners or a part of our biology. We live in symbiosis with it.

Memes sort of qualify as life. They are exposed to pretty much the same mechanisms.

You don't invent religion from scratch, that would be impossible with all the arbitrary details. Christianity got popular cuz it seems like a plausible explaination, and it has a reproduction mechanism that both temps and threatens. Christianity would not have been as big as it is today without a thousand years of crusades, indocrination and threats of torture. It's very agressive against other religion (memes). The bible also has interesting stories which makes it an chimera of sorts. The message of Love certainly isn't enough for efficient reproduction.

(No, I'm not saying that christianity is false because people acted as assholes in the past, I just wanted to point out that evolution and Darwinism apply to religions (as memes) aswell. Christianity has certainly changed (a better word for evolve?) and adapted to it's environment. Some might argue that it's just our interpretation that has changed, but that is the memes.)


Edit: Maybe one could say that humans are like cells in a memetic macro organism?

[dogfood]

You're still missing it. I'm not trying to prove that the Theory of Evolution is incorrect. I'm trying to show that it has not been proven correct. And we have no first-hand evidence. None.


I'm wondering how you catagorize the fossil record if not as first-hand evidence? I'm not sure if it's cognitively prudent to simply cast away scientifically valid discovery.

I don't think this thread has evolved (devovled?) from a one line post about a uni-nutted bug to an in-depth origin theory discussion in order to convince everyone that evolution is the only way. I think it started getting hot (as many of the rest have) from the statements indicating that evolution is just a guess, has no proof, or is equal in weight to other hypotheses. There have been several of these peppered through this post, showing a willful, almost pride-soaked, ignorance. Not knowing something is ignorance and I am the king (I don't even know how much I don't know), and while it's unwise to weld oneself to an idea before one is ready, it's intellectual folly to discard valid evidence simply because it doesn't jibe with one's world view. That's why the debate gets so heated. Links to well-established evidence are presented, then disregarded out of hand, "yeah, that doesn't prove anything; the science is shoddy; science isn't very exact in the first place, and I'm not really interested in proof."

I apologize if this seems inflammatory, but after so many of these, it seems to spiral down until everyone gets defensive and raises screens to protect their views, vice entertaining the possibilty of some other view. It seems that not only do these threads not convince anyone of evolution's actions, they actually storm up the barriers against it. Of course, I like the interchange in the Pratchett book Little Gods where a movment in a restrictive religion whispers, "The Turtle Moves", as that world is flat and goes through space on the back of a large turtle (the religion insists the world is a spinning sphere, rotating around a sun). The philosopher explains that it doesn't matter whether you believe it or not, the turtle doesn't care.

[Prometheus|ANJ]

Relevant to the discussion I think:

Extract: Charles Townes, the UC Berkeley professor who shared the 1964 Nobel Prize in physics for his work in quantum electronics and then startled the scientific world by suggesting that religion and science were converging, was awarded the $1.5-million Templeton Prize on Wednesday for progress in spiritual knowledge. | Article (http://www.latimes.com/features/religion/la-na-prize10mar10,1,3797863.story?coll=la-news-religion&ctrack=1&cset=true)

[Ssenkrah Semaj]

You're still missing it. I'm not trying to prove that the Theory of Evolution is incorrect. I'm trying to show that it has not been proven correct. And we have no first-hand evidence. None.


I'm wondering how you catagorize the fossil record if not as first-hand evidence? I'm not sure if it's cognitively prudent to simply cast away scientifically valid discovery.

That's a damn good question, I would like to know as well?

[LaPalida]

Prometheus the article doesn't work, you gotta register. Any chance you can quote it?

[dfacto]

He probably means first hand eyewitness accounts. Which, surprise surprise, we do have evidence of too. I mentioned a few in my previous posts.

[SJ Bennighof]

I don't think this thread has evolved (devovled?) from a one line post about a uni-nutted bug to an in-depth origin theory discussion in order to convince everyone that evolution is the only way. I think it started getting hot (as many of the rest have) from the statements indicating that evolution is just a guess, has no proof, or is equal in weight to other hypotheses.

Opposing views are detrimental to the quality of a debate thread...wait, what?


There have been several of these peppered through this post, showing a willful, almost pride-soaked, ignorance. Not knowing something is ignorance and I am the king (I don't even know how much I don't know), and while it's unwise to weld oneself to an idea before one is ready, it's intellectual folly to discard valid evidence simply because it doesn't jibe with one's world view.

The Advocate of the Null does not have a world view. I simply don't find the evidence compelling. I've seen it, and I don't think that it proves evolution as tightly as everyone says. You want to prove events from the past? You'll need more than fossils. Ignorance and a declination to accept evidence as proof are two entirely different things.


That's why the debate gets so heated. Links to well-established evidence are presented, then disregarded out of hand, "yeah, that doesn't prove anything; the science is shoddy; science isn't very exact in the first place, and I'm not really interested in proof."

That's not what I said, not in the slightest. I will not, however, go through these links and then apply them to that debate myself. That's not my job. That's the job of the person who brings forth the link as evidence to support their position.


I apologize if this seems inflammatory, but after so many of these, it seems to spiral down until everyone gets defensive and raises screens to protect their views, vice entertaining the possibilty of some other view. It seems that not only do these threads not convince anyone of evolution's actions, they actually storm up the barriers against it. Of course, I like the interchange in the Pratchett book Little Gods where a movment in a restrictive religion whispers, "The Turtle Moves", as that world is flat and goes through space on the back of a large turtle (the religion insists the world is a spinning sphere, rotating around a sun). The philosopher explains that it doesn't matter whether you believe it or not, the turtle doesn't care.

That's what's called Begging the Question. The same thing that Neils Bohr pulled on Einstein:


God doesn't play dice.


Don't tell God what to do.


Same goes for you, Niels.


He probably means first hand eyewitness accounts. Which, surprise surprise, we do have evidence of too. I mentioned a few in my previous posts.

That's what I did in fact mean, and I'm talking about eyewitness accounts from back then. And yes, that's a tall order, and yes, it's unattainable. But what the Theory states is not only that organisms can do this but that they did do this in very specific way quite a long time ago. I'll admit that Evolution "works" to some degree or other. But that's not evidence of the origin of species as defined by that Theory. That is, again, like saying that because I can play the Organ I most definitely played Bach's Little Fugue in G Minor yesterday.

[Prometheus|ANJ]

Strange that the article doesn't work, I nabbed it from google/sci-tech section and it just worked. The latimes article was the most informative of the ones (3) I checked.

This site (http://bugmenot.com/view.php?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.latimes.com) will give you a login to any need-to-register site.

Otherwise you can scroll down a bit on Google sci-tech (http://news.google.com/news?ned=us&topic=t).


Edit: fixed bugmenot link. There's a Firefox extension for it I think.

Here's a link to the same article in Christian science monitor (http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0310/p12s02-lire.html) .

[LaPalida]

You want to prove events from the past? You'll need more than fossils. Ignorance and a declination to accept evidence as proof are two entirely different things.

Hey. Well that's where you are wrong. There is more than fossils for evidence. Poor fossils always get bashed...
Ahem ... the evidence for Evolution (particularly Macro-Evolution) is as follows as quoted from talkorigins.org (commence extensive copy pasting, you said no links, sigh):

1. Universal Phylogeny

Phylogenetics is the scientific discipline concerned with describing and reconstructing the patterns of genetic relationships among species and among higher taxa. Phylogenetic trees are a convenient way of visually representing the evolutionary history of life. These diagrams illustrate the inferred relationships between organisms and the order of speciation events that led from earlier common ancestors to their diversified descendants.

1. The fundamental unity of life

Prediction: According to the theory of common descent, modern living organisms, with all their incredible differences, are the progeny of one single species in the distant past. In spite of the extensive variation of form and function among organisms, several fundamental criteria characterize all life. Some of the macroscopic properties that characterize all of life are (1) replication, (2) heritability (characteristics of descendents are correlated with those of ancestors), (3) catalysis, and (4) energy utilization (metabolism). At a very minimum, these four functions are required to generate a physical historical process that can be described by a phylogenetic tree.

If every living species descended from an original species that had these four obligate functions, then all living species today should necessarily have these functions (a somewhat trivial conclusion). Most importantly, however, all modern species should have inherited the structures that perform these functions. Thus, a basic prediction of the genealogical relatedness of all life, combined with the constraint of gradualism, is that organisms should be very similar in the particular mechanisms and structures that execute these four basic life processes.

Confirmation: The structures that all known organisms use to perform these four basic processes are all quite similar, in spite of the odds. All known living things use polymers to perform these four basic functions. Organic chemists have synthesized hundreds of different polymers, yet the only ones used by life, irrespective of species, are polynucleotides, polypeptides, and polysaccharides. Regardless of the species, the DNA, RNA and proteins used in known living systems all have the same chirality, even though there are at least two chemically equivalent choices of chirality for each of these molecules. For example, RNA has four chiral centers in its ribose ring, which means that it has 16 possible stereoisomers—but only one of these stereoisomers is found in the RNA of known living organisms.

Thousands of new species are discovered yearly, and new DNA and protein sequences are determined daily from previously unexamined species (Wilson 1992, Ch. 8 ). At the current rate, which is increasing exponentially, over 20,000 new sequences are deposited at GenBank every day, amounting to over 34 million new bases sequenced every day. Each and every one is a test of the theory of common descent. When I first wrote these words in 1999, the rate was less than one tenth what it is today (in 2004), and we now have 20 times the amount of DNA sequenced.

2. A nested hierarchy of species

Prediction: Since common descent is a genealogical process, common descent should produce organisms that can be organized into objective nested hierarchies. Equivalently, we predict that, in general, cladistic analyses of organisms should produce phylogenies that have large, statistically significant values of hierarchical structure (in standard scientific practice, a result with "high statistical significance" is a result that has a 1% probability or less of occurring by chance [P < 0.01]). As a representation of universal common descent, the universal tree of life should have very high, very significant hierarchical structure and phylogenetic signal.

Confirmation: Most existing species can be organized rather easily in a nested hierarchical classification. This is evident in the use of the Linnaean classification scheme. Based on shared derived characters, closely related organisms can be placed in one group (such as a genus), several genera can be grouped together into one family, several families can be grouped together into an order, etc.

3. Consilience of independent phylogenies

Prediction: If there is one historical phylogenetic tree which unites all species in an objective genealogy, all separate lines of evidence should converge on the same tree (Penny et al. 1982; Penny et al. 1991; Zuckerkandl and Pauling 1965). Independently derived phylogenetic trees of all organisms should match each other with a high degree of statistical significance.

Confirmation: Well-determined phylogenetic trees inferred from the independent evidence of morphology and molecular sequences match with an extremely high degree of statistical significance. Many genes with very basic cellular functions are ubiquitous—they occur in the genomes of most or all organisms. An oft-cited example is the cytochrome c gene. Since all eukaryotes contain the gene for this essential protein, neither its presence nor its function correlates with organismal morphology. Additionally, because of the fact of DNA coding redundancy, parts of certain DNA sequences have absolutely no correlation with phenotype (e.g. certain introns or the four-fold degenerate third-base position of most DNA codons). Due to these two aspects of certain DNA sequences, ubiquity and redundancy, DNA sequences can be carefully chosen that constitute completely independent data from morphology. (See point 17 and 18 for more background about the molecular sequence evidence and for more detail about how it is independent of morphology.) The degree of phylogenetic congruence between these independent data sets is nothing short of incredible.

The stunning degree of match between even the most incongruent phylogenetic trees found in the biological literature is widely unappreciated, mainly because most people (including many biologists) are unaware of the mathematics involved.

A precision of just under 1% is pretty good; it is not enough, at this point, to cause us to cast much doubt upon the validity and usefulness of modern theories of gravity. However, if tests of the theory of common descent performed that poorly, different phylogenetic trees, as shown in Figure 1, would have to differ by 18 of the 30 branches! In their quest for scientific perfection, some biologists are rightly rankled at the obvious discrepancies between some phylogenetic trees (Gura 2000; Patterson et al. 1993; Maley and Marshall 1998 ). However, as illustrated in Figure 1, the standard phylogenetic tree is known to 38 decimal places, which is a much greater precision than that of even the most well-determined physical constants. For comparison, the charge of the electron is known to only seven decimal places, the Planck constant is known to only eight decimal places, the mass of the neutron, proton, and electron are all known to only nine decimal places, and the universal gravitational constant has been determined to only three decimal places.

4. Intermediate and transitional forms: the possible morphologies of predicted common ancestors

Prediction: All fossilized animals found should conform to the standard phylogenetic tree. If all organisms are united by descent from a common ancestor, then there is one single true historical phylogeny for all organisms. Similarly, there is one single true historical genealogy for any individual human. It directly follows that if there is a unique universal phylogeny, then all organisms, both past and present, fit in that phylogeny uniquely. Since the standard phylogenetic tree is the best approximation of the true historical phylogeny, we expect that all fossilized animals should conform to the standard phylogenetic tree within the error of our scientific methods.

Confirmation: We have found a quite complete set of dinosaur-to-bird transitional fossils with no morphological "gaps" (Sereno 1999), represented by Eoraptor, Herrerasaurus, Ceratosaurus, Allosaurus, Compsognathus, Sinosauropteryx, Protarchaeopteryx, Caudipteryx, Velociraptor, Sinovenator, Beipiaosaurus, Sinornithosaurus, Microraptor, Archaeopteryx, Rahonavis, Confuciusornis, Sinornis, Patagopteryx, Hesperornis, Apsaravis, Ichthyornis, and Columba, among many others.

We also have an exquisitely complete series of fossils for the reptile-mammal intermediates, ranging from the pelycosauria, therapsida, cynodonta, up to primitive mammalia.

One of the most celebrated examples of transitional fossils is our collection of fossil hominids (see Figure 1.4.4 below). Based upon the consensus of numerous phylogenetic analyses, Pan troglodytes (the chimpanzee) is the closest living relative of humans. Thus, we expect that organisms lived in the past which were intermediate in morphology between humans and chimpanzees. Over the past century, many spectacular paleontological finds have identified such transitional hominid fossils.

Another impressive example of incontrovertible transitional forms predicted to exist by evolutionary biologists is the collection of land mammal-to-whale fossil intermediates. Whales, of course, are sea animals with flippers, lacking external hindlimbs. Since they are also mammals, the consensus phylogeny indicates that whales and dolphins evolved from land mammals with legs. In recent years, we have found several transitional forms of whales with legs, both capable and incapable of terrestrial locomotion.

Seacows (manatees and dugongs) are fully aquatic mammals with flippers for forelimbs and no hindlimbs. Evolutionary theory predicts that seacows evolved from terrestrial ancestors with legs, and that thus we could find seacow intermediates with legs. Recently, a new transitional fossil has been found in Jamaica, a seacow with four legs.

For a more complete list go here http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional.html

5.Chronological order of intermediates

Prediction: Fossilized intermediates should appear in the correct general chronological order based on the standard tree. Any phylogenetic tree predicts a relative chronological order of the evolution of hypothetical common ancestors and intermediates between these ancestors. For instance, in our current example, the reptile-mammal common ancestor (B) and intermediates should be older than the reptile-bird common ancestor (A) and intermediates.

Confirmation: The reptile-bird intermediates mentioned above date from the Upper Jurassic and Lower Cretaceous (about 150 million years ago), whereas pelycosauria and therapsida (reptile-mammal intermediates) are older and date from the Carboniferous and the Permian (about 250 to 350 million years ago, see the Geological Time Scale). This is precisely what should be observed if the fossil record matches the standard phylogenetic tree.

The most scientifically rigorous method of confirming this prediction is to demonstrate a positive corellation between phylogeny and stratigraphy, i.e. a positive corellation between the order of taxa in a phylogenetic tree and the geological order in which those taxa first appear and last appear (whether for living or extinct intermediates).

This is just Phylogeny. Do you still wish me to post this in the forums or will you just go to the site and read. This isn't something you can disagree with. It's just evidence and there's lots of it. More than I can post on these boards. Talkorigins is dedicated to this very much and if you are interested you can visit it anytime to find out for yourself. So briefly all the other proof which you can read about in detail on the site.

2. Past History

1. Anatomical vestiges (ostriches flightless wings, blind fish, flightless beetles with wings)

2. Atavisms (whales with hind limbs, humans with tails)

3. Molecular vestigial characters (malfunctioning pseudogenes)

4. Ontogeny and Development of Organisms (mammalian ear bones and the reptilian jaw, vertebrate pharyngeal pouches and branchial arches, hindlimbs in snake and whale embryos, the embryonic human tail, marsupial eggshells and caruncles)

5. Present biogeography

6. Past biogeography

3. Anatomical parahomology

1. Morphological parahomology

2. Molecular parahomology

3. Morphological analogy

4. Molecular analogy

5. Morphological suboptimality

6. Molecular suboptimality

4. The Molecular Sequence Evidence

1. Protein functional redundancy

2. DNA functional redundancy

3. Transposons

4. Redundant pseudogenes

5. Endogenous retroviruses

5. Change and Mutability

1. Genetic change

2. Morphological change

3. Functional change

4. The strange past

5. Stages of speciation

6. Speciation events

7. Morphological rates

8. Genetic rates

So this is the proof that's there so far. If you somehow have beef with Evolution I suggest you read this before saying anything ignorant. This is the main problem. Because it's science and it's a wealth of information many people just don't bother. They like to settle on simple answers/urban myths/misconceptions instead of the truth.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/

I am going to post a reply tomorrow (I left it at work) for some of your previous questions/qualms.

[SJ Bennighof]

Well, all that looks quite good and detailed and so forth. I'll go ahead and bring up the remaining presence of large holes in the fossil record, as well as many incomplete fossils and so forth, but this is quite a bit more than I was aware had been found. I can't give all of this an extremely detailed look at the moment, but I've scanned through it and some related sections of the site and I'm impressed. When I give it a more thorough look-though I'll have a go at it.

All right, let's bring up a splinter issue here: What of humans? As of yet, we have very little in the way of fossils. Where's the connection there?

Oh, and by the way, I'm not saying that I refuse to look at links and you have to post everything. I'm just saying that it's not unreasonable for someone to ask that excerpts or summaries of bits and pieces of content from evidence links be posted alongside such links. Not only does it provide the person in question with a more tangible argument to look at, it also makes it a lot easier for the person to get the relevant information from the links. Thanks for posting excerpts like you did there, and that was very helpful, but all I'm really asking for here is a "check this section for example, and also this one, and this one, and you'll see what I'm talking about" Just makes it easier on me.

[emily g]

but this is quite a bit more than I was aware had been found.
I'm glad you said this. I find that most people (I'm not talking about you or anyone specifically) who don't believe in evolution say they have looked at the research, but in reality they haven't or they would be aware of how much there really is.
This is not to say that someone who has read the research will automatically believe in evolution (though I think the evidence is pretty overwhelming)--but it's frustrating to debate with people who haven't read the research (and continue to insist that it doesn't exist).

emily

[dfacto]

What of humans? As of yet, we have very little in the way of fossils. Where's the connection there?

Actually, the human family tree is fairly complete.

http://www.mnh.si.edu/anthro/humanorigins/ha/a_tree.html

It's a short page, so I'm not going to bother copying and pasting anything. But basically, there is a phylogenetic tree for humans, and it does have an umber of species in it. What is missing, quite famously, is the missing link between humans and apes, though that will most likely also be found with time.

Also, you may disregard some fossil evidence, as many people do, but if you look at the fossils, you can see the transitions from ape to human. My anatomy professor showed us a slide of pelvises from great apes, and early humans through modern humans, and you can clearly see the relation, as well as the changes through time that brought us to the modern stage.

There is also the matter of mitochondrial DNA which is rather confusing to anyone who doesn't know much about cell biology and genetics, so I'll put up the link and you can decide if you want to read it. http://www.actionbioscience.org/evolution/ingman.html

[dogfood]

SJ, I apologize if that all sounded like it was pointed at you. You have certainly explained your null view, but yours was merely an example of statements made by a few people declaring the almost complete lack of evidence or sometimes even the impossibility of evolution (while later muttering the distant possibility, under a furious series of kidney punches). It's not the variety of arguments, but the complete, tenacious denial of accepted, sound scientific evidence that raises the frustration level. While I respect your intelligence and point of view, I still revel that you find Lapilda's latest post so thought-provoking. It is gratifying in a completely illogical, maybe even improper, way. I'm not dancing around the fire in my Einstein/Don King wig swinging a blood-soaked Texas Instruments chanting, "Yay verily, great Darwin, a convert!", but for even the null view to admit the amount of evidence has scope as well as scale is still a kind of little victory.

Lapalida, you, my dear, are a machine (in a good way).

[S.C. Watson]

Well, goodness. Thank you Lapalida, Dogfood, Dfacto, emily g, Prometheus|ANJ for doing my work for me.

SJ, thank you as well for taking the evidence provided into serious contemplation. And while I do not suspect that this will convert you over in a blinding flash, I do know that it takes a little a while to assimilate the body of data provided. (*I'm* still realing from it, if it's any consolation :wink: ) We're here to answer any questions, I'm sure :yayca:

I'm far too much of a generalist to have done what Lapalida has done, so you are actually better off with what she has provided you than anything I ever could, so in my opinion, this worked out quite well for you. Lapalida is fantastic if you need to find something out. <3 :groupie2: :groupie1:

Wowzers. Props to all.

[LaPalida]

Hehe, thx dogfood and Oregano. It would be this or playing videogames...drawing? what's that? some kinda taco?

This is from yesterday so some of it maybe redundant. Sorry :)

Hmm I think he means that no one actually saw first hand something evolve. Like from point a -> point b (fish -> amphibian). Which is a rediculous demand (in my opinion). First off the entire humanity as we know it wasn't around long enough to see something evolve, as per his definition, (oldest known human skull belongs to this gentleman (http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2003/06/11_idaltu.shtml) from Ethiopia of 160,000 years old), second our known recorded history is only 5,500 years old (and this is based on a fragment of pottery (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/334517.stm) found in Pakistan) which is sparse and unreliable at times (some ancient writers used to lie about an outcome of a battle, for example, or myths and legends - stories that are most definitely grossly exaggerated). So considering this, the age of Earth (http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-age-of-earth.html) is estimated to be 4.55 billion years old. Do you understand that figure? Let me elaborate (all these numbers are estimations ofcourse):

Age of Earth = 4,550,000,000 years

Age of Life (and this is ofcourse dependant on the spotty fossil record so chances are that it may have been around even earlier than so far estimated) = 3,550,000,000 years at least

Time it took for a horse to evolve from a dog-like creature (as an example from Hyracotherium/Eohippus to Old & New World Equus) = 55,000,000 years (although note not everything evolves at a same rate. Some evolve faster some slower and some not at all depending on the changes in their environment relative to them). Also note, after all this time, and 55 mil years is a long long time, they are still all considered within the same family of Equidae although they are of different species (like lions, jaguars, tigers, cheetas, and domestic cats are all in the same family, Felidae, but are all of different species).

Age of Modern Humans = 160,000 years

Age of Unreliable Recorded History = 5,500 years

Average Lifespan of a Human = 80 years

Now you see my point that Evolution (with the kind of definition that you are referring to - a fish evolving into an amphibian) is so slow that it cannot be possibly observed by a mere human, nor a generation of humans nor all humanity itself up to this point.

Now let us define empirical evidence as per Merriam-Webster (http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=empirical&x=0&y=0) definition:

1 : originating in or based on observation or experience <empirical data>
2 : relying on experience or observation alone often without due regard for system and theory
3 : capable of being verified or disproved by observation or experiment <empirical laws>
4 : of or relating to empiricism

So if we take empirical evidence to mean something (based on observation or experience) that can be verified/disproved by observation or experiment then we can safely say that Evolution stands solid.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-misconceptions.html

"Evolution has never been observed."

Biologists define evolution as a change in the gene pool of a population over time. One example is insects developing a resistance to pesticides over the period of a few years. Even most Creationists recognize that evolution at this level is a fact. What they don't appreciate is that this rate of evolution is all that is required to produce the diversity of all living things from a common ancestor.

The origin of new species by evolution has also been observed, both in the laboratory and in the wild. See, for example, (Weinberg, J.R., V.R. Starczak, and D. Jorg, 1992, "Evidence for rapid speciation following a founder event in the laboratory." Evolution 46: 1214-1220). The "Observed Instances of Speciation" FAQ in the talk.origins archives gives several additional examples.

Even without these direct observations, it would be wrong to say that evolution hasn't been observed. Evidence isn't limited to seeing something happen before your eyes. Evolution makes predictions about what we would expect to see in the fossil record, comparative anatomy, genetic sequences, geographical distribution of species, etc., and these predictions have been verified many times over. The number of observations supporting evolution is overwhelming.

What hasn't been observed is one animal abruptly changing into a radically different one, such as a frog changing into a cow. This is not a problem for evolution because evolution doesn't propose occurrences even remotely like that. In fact, if we ever observed a frog turn into a cow, it would be very strong evidence against evolution.


I do follow them, and I understand that it's useful to post them, but the purpose of a message board debate is for one party to prove their thesis. Posting a link is not proof. Proof constitutes a statement (Evolution has been proven correct), evidence (this link to what some edumacated dudes have to say on the subject), and grounds, that which relates the evidence to the statement. I'm not debating the guys you link me to, I'm debating you. I read what they say, but I take exception to some of it? Why do I not say whcih parts? Because I'm not talking to them, I'm talking to you. I can't raise an "au contraire!" to them, and you didn't write the thing, so it wouldn't make much sense to direct a refutations of their words to you. You tell me how it proves your case, and I'll refute that if I can.

True enough, but, although I do sometimes just post links, quite often I also post the relevant quote to which I am referring to. You can refer to the quote (which I usually put in italics - for offsite quotes as opposed to direct message board quotes) I'm posting if you like in case you raise an objection (for if I selected it I am in total accord with it). So point duly noted.


Ah, I see the source of the misunderstanding. That was a miscalculation of my part, nothing more. I'll explain:

The words "God's in his heaven, all's right with the world" are a quote from the last lines of a poem:

Ah. Well then it was a misunderstanding (as they are wont to occur on the internet) on my part as well since I am not familiar with that poem and therefore did not know what you meant and took it at face value.


The author of that passage. I don't care what religion anyone is or anything, but I don't think a Christian would have written that passage, at least not in those terms. If they are, well, my mistake. But in any event, actual discussion of that passage belongs in PM or another thread.

The author of that passage was in fact a Christian for a long time. He was a preacher for 19 years and then became Atheist. He details his letting go of faith in this passage: http://www.ffrf.org/books/lfif/?t=lostfaith in case you were curious.


I agree that natural selection can and does bring about microevolution and even macroevolution, given the right circumstances, but observence of evolution in species today is not direct evidence that creatures evolved in the ways that the Theory of Evolution says that they did. They may have evolved in some way or other, and it would make sense for the same sort of phenomenon to occur then that occurs today, but there is not compelling evidence to my mind to prove that things did evolve this way from microbes in the primordial soup.

Indeed you are right that the "how we got here" is still a theory (the workings of Evolution are theoretical, for example natural selection, random genetic drift, mutation, punctuated equilibrium etc). It was not what I was referring to in the first place. I was referring to the fact of Evolution (the fact that we did evolve/still evolving from an original simpler life form - aka the ancestor/s of all life). The Darwinian theory of Natural Selection as the only means of Evolution has long been updated btw.


What of humans? As of yet, we have very little in the way of fossils. Where's the connection there?

Dfacto is right. Luckily hominids have some of the most complete fossil records available to us. http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/. Also of note is the fact that humans share 99% of their DNA with chimpanzees.

Humans have 46 chromosomes, chimpanzees have 48, they have one more pair of chromosomes - we have 23 pairs, they have 24. There are some differences in the arrangements of the genes on the chromosomes. The second human chromosome is split (or two of the chimp chromosomes are fused). In particular, there are a number of inversions, in addition to that fusion. The important thing is that the chromosomes are remarkably similar, and cytologically the differences can be pinned on a few discrete changes.

[SJ Bennighof]

It is gratifying in a completely illogical, maybe even improper, way. I'm not dancing around the fire in my Einstein/Don King wig swinging a blood-soaked Texas Instruments chanting, "Yay verily, great Darwin, a convert!"

Oh holy crap. I'm still reading through the info, (while contructing a website on the side) but that caused the Cherry Limeade to exit via the nose. Just the mental picture.

:7up:

Drink hearty! :hatsoff:

[dfacto]

Someone should draw that. :wink:

[SJ Bennighof]

Dibs. Crappy MS Paint mouse stuffs, activate!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v460/SABERinBLUE/darwin.gif

Someone please show me up. :bashful:

[S.C. Watson]

LOL - *that's* what this damn thread has been missing! ARTWORK! Love it! >:D

Post 'em if ya got'em :blind: (we need an evolution smiley!)

[darth massacre]

EVOLUTION SMILEY COMING RIGHT UP!!


http://www.digitalcreme.com/~jerry/evolution.gif http://www.digitalcreme.com/~jerry/evolution.gif http://www.digitalcreme.com/~jerry/evolution.gif http://www.digitalcreme.com/~jerry/evolution.gif http://www.digitalcreme.com/~jerry/evolution.gif


DOH!!!

[S.C. Watson]

It needs to EVOLVE!!! :teeth: :P :tihi:

[darth massacre]

Give it time :teeth: I say...a couple million years :dur:

[SJ Bennighof]

Okay, guys, I've looked things over, and--for now at least, I've got nothing to say to it. So...barring any random bursts of intuition or other information or something, I concede. Good debating, everyone.

I'm not saying that I now believe that we evolved from a lower form of life, but I am saying that Evolution can and has been proven, barring further scientific discoveries that may change the paradigm. I'm holding out for that, but my logic now sides with you guys.

[Ssenkrah Semaj]

Okay, guys, I've looked things over, and--for now at least, I've got nothing to say to it. So...barring any random bursts of intuition or other information or something, I concede. Good debating, everyone.

I'm not saying that I now believe that we evolved from a lower form of life, but I am saying that Evolution can and has been proven, barring further scientific discoveries that may change the paradigm. I'm holding out for that, but my logic now sides with you guys.

Holy Shit....now that is incredible.

[dogfood]

Everybody needs to purchase some heavy-duty unmbrellas; those flying pigs drop large stinkies (now that a forum subject has actually influenced someone's belief system, they're going to be clogging up the runway approaches).

[S.C. Watson]

If pigs are flying, does that mean Hell just froze over? :x

[SJ Bennighof]

Clarificationzorz: As far as my actual belief system goes, the jury is still out, but for all practical purposes, I admit that Evolution has, for the time being, been scientifically proven.

EDIT: And no, I never did think I'd see the day. You guys are awesome... :hatsoff:

[S.C. Watson]

Yup. Hell has a glacier. :P

[darth massacre]

I wanted to say something but decided I shouldn't.


Anyway.

http://www.digitalcreme.com/~jerry/evolution.gif
http://www.digitalcreme.com/~jerry/evolution.gif
http://www.digitalcreme.com/~jerry/evolution.gif
http://www.digitalcreme.com/~jerry/evolution.gif
http://www.digitalcreme.com/~jerry/evolution.gif
http://www.digitalcreme.com/~jerry/evolution.gif

[dogfood]

As far as my actual belief system goes, the jury is still out

No, no, no, merely influenced, merely influenced. Had you come hard over, the Earth would have cracked open and Mephastopheles would have started dating Alice from the Brady Bunch, The Rock would play George Washington in America vs. the Whole Fucking World, and Ashley Simpson would've swept the Grammies.

[SJ Bennighof]

And Ralph Nader would be President right now, yes.

[dusty imp]

LaPalida has actually done it. :angel: :cheerleader: :hatsoff:

[Prometheus|ANJ]

Dammit, and I who just changed to creationism... now we have to start all over!

[LaPalida]

:bashful: thx guys, but come now it wasn't all me, sheesh there must have been 10 more ppl at least that contributed from different fields. I'm just glad that at least SJB decided to consider it. I hope it was all enlightening and in good fun for everyone, I know it was for me. Now I can finally go and play CS and dumb myself down a little! ... and yes I agree, hell has a glacier.