Evolution? How?

How succint and powerful ... "Evidence trumps belief any day" ... I like it ... from Post: 1940796. I'm still amazed there are 786 pages, 785 too many.

Creationists, ID persons and anti-evolutionists have scant regard for evidence and the scientific method.

I'll come back when you hit the magic 1,000 pages.

0 Replies

BTW, here's an interesting website for all readers of and contributors to this thread ...

http://www.butterfliesandwheels.com/

0 Replies

TheUndonePoet wrote:

Anthony Flew is the name of the atheist turned creationist. I am sure there are many people who have started out on one side and gone to the other. However, that doesn't prove one side or the other; it simply proves that humans are rational creatures.

I never talked about people turning from Atheism to Creationism, so why bring it up? If an atheist becomes a Creationist, that does not prove he/she is a rational creature. It merely proves that after a lot of thought, the person cannot explain something they do not understand and have taken to believing in a myth instead of slogging it out for a true answer.

Quote:

If memory serves me correctly, Social Darwinism refers to a theory developed during the early 20th century that suggested that a person was born into an upper, middle or lower class through a process of socialized evolution.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Darwinism

I will say no more on the subject.

As for the terms Macro and micro evolution, they indeed can be found in an Evolution text book, but Creationists use them in a way that suggests they're completely different. They're not.

Macroevolution refers to a series of microevolutionary events that result in a change in species. Microevolution refers only to the single event that does not result in a change in species.

Creationists make it sound as if macroevolution is pure bollocks and flawed. It is not. The logic, as you once stated, is sound. There is no evidence to disprove it and there is evidence to prove that it has happened.

0 Replies

Macro and micro evolution, first used by the neo Darwinists(prinicipally Goldschmidt) of the 1940's been almost turned into a shibboleth for Creationists. Yet, they dont even understand its distilled meanings.
The simplest distinguishing meaning between the two was posed byErnst Mayr (not to out bumper sticker you wolf, but Ive always liked this...its so to the point)

"Micro evolution is change withing a species, Macro evolution is change between species"

As far as "no evidence", heres where I get all steamed up at the dishonesty inherent in Creationist bases in belief. Tons of evidence within the fossil record from deep time to as brief as the Holocene, shows that animals and plants, related by structure (and assuming genetics from evidence using osteocalcin rather than DNA) shows us scads of examples of "intermediate" forms that are piling up in museum drawers. The best examples or public consumption are the whales . leading from Ambulocetus all the way to the odontocetes and the mysticetes of today. They followed specific skeletal morphologies and are clearly related by major internal structures shared by no other groups. The neat thing is that the start and progression of thes eanimals were focused in a single spot on the earth . A spot in the present Indian Ocean region where gradual inundation occured and anials adapted from land habits to fully marine in about 25 muillion years. The adaptive radiation from land to water has occured n a number of lines including dolphins dugongs manatees, and seals (the argument is that eals are still evolving to a fully marine life)

Whales are only one of a group where both micro and macroevolution has left its marks in the fossil record and the combination of evidence that shows
1form changes between descendent species
2These changes occur at the single locations then radiate as the animal becomes more "worldly'
3All these changes occur at just the proper times geologically so as to make perfect sense.
4 genetic data among living forms allows a back calculation to approximate the time of splitting one species group freom another.

The data and evidence is multipronged, logical, quite robust , and "peer reviewed". So what dio Creationists pose as evidence in return?

Something about how they "feel" that there wasnt enough time for volution to occur (how they know this is beyond me)

and

The universe is so "ordered" to not be Created--Thats a huge steaming pile. The Universe is loaded with irregularities, we "create" order so we can have patterns to study. And if it were so damned ordered, how come so many animals have residual features of earlier forms .
The fact that Creationits and IDers do NOTHING to advance any science (other than spend scads of cash trying to convince themselves that science is full of ****) and this they do by trying to play quotes of one scientist off against those of another. Yeet the Creationists , since the mid 80's have sponsored no real research (they gave up trying to find evidence of fossils like dinosaurs along side evidence of human fossils, or they actually spend money trying to dig up Noahs ark, and by using Satellite photos, this somehow gives them credibility)

0 Replies

farmerman wrote:

The best examples of public consumption are the whales .

Hunting whales for their meat is wrong. Laughing

0 Replies

TheUndonePoet wrote:

most creationists (I admit even myself) only have a basic understanding of this topic doesn't make it wrong.

I've yet to see an ID-iot display any understanding of the topic; their twaddlee and nonsense varies from misconception through outright prevarication.

Quote:

Understand, that Evolution is the dominant theory ...

Ironic this statement begins with the word "understand"; what the author apparently does not understand is that evolution is the ONLY theory. No "alernate theory" exists - period. The ID-iots have only their absurd claims and denials; they have produced no evidence to support any of their claoms and denials, they have no science nor any scientific standing. That the ID-iots contend they oiffer an alternate theory is nought but simply one more of their prevarications.

Quote:

I will admit that evolution is scientifically possible, but the possibility of evolution is dependent on two things--in order to prove that micro evolution is true a person must first prove that the universe has existed long enough for it to have happened; that person must also prove that the conditions for it to have become this must have also happened. I see to great of an improbabillity for that to have become this. As I once said to someone, yes it appears that the universe could have come about through the process of micro evolution, but try to prove to me that all of this happened from the Big Bang seems like telling me that the Sears Tower is held up by a tooth pick.

Any problem that exists is entirely at your end, partner; it isn't the fault of science that some folks are determined to be blind to it.

Quote:

ot the theory of macro evolution that I disagree with; it is the foundation of the theory of micro evolution that seems preposterous.

Like I said, I am not an expert, so I will refer you to www.icr.org

The.........

Espertise neither is required nor at issue - the matter is one of honest understanding. There is no controversy outside the minds of the ID-iots, there is no dissent pertaining to the mechanics and evidence of evolution within science, there is no evidence which contradicts evolution, there is nothing within the theory of evoltion which is not consistent with observation.

0 Replies

Hi Farmerman,

As I have mentioned previously, I consider the term 'microevolution' to be a misleading term, at best. It was invented IMHO to soft sell the idea of macroevolution.

Microevolution (change within a species ) would have to include the development of major structural changes and internal organs which did not exist previously. Since these have never been observed to occur (just as 'macroevolution' has not), it really seems a distinction without much of a difference, as evolutionists themselves will often admit.

The similarities in morphology between different whales ( or whatever you choose to compare) are the basis on which you have inferred relationships between them. It does not prove a relationship. Not even close. Does the presence of wings prove a relationship between bats and birds? Does bipedal locomotion prove a relationship between all the creatures which share it?

Even more basic, does the similarities in the organs of many creatures (eyes, brain, heart, stomach, lungs, intestines, etc) prove that they are related?

Whales share the same basic environment, the ocean, and draw from the same food sources and encounter the same challenges of ocean currents, variant water temperatures, predators, etc.

So it is just as easy to infer that their similarities are a natural design accomodation to the similarities in need for these features. Why would God not give creatures encountering similar challenges many features that are similar?

BTW, did TUP actually say 'no evidence' in any post? I did not see such a claim and wondered where you saw it.

Also the time issue is one that I think deserves more attention from evolutionists, especially catastrophists such as yourself.

You have mentioned that you think massive extinctions of most of the Earth's creatures have taken place multiple times. If this is so , then in your view the evolutionary process has had to overcome huge setbacks to bring us to the point we see today.

Evolutionists traditionally have been of the 'slow and gradual' school but more and more are going to have to come up with mechanism(s) by which major structural changes, new organs, etc appear very quickly in thousands of instances in order to meet the timetable that you claim has been our history. Random mutation (mostly harmful or benign, rarely helpful and even then only minutely incremental) is too slow.

0 Replies

Twaddle.

0 Replies

He that speaketh too much speaketh the truth? Laughing

0 Replies

real life wrote:

So it is just as easy to infer that their similarities are a natural design accomodation to the similarities in need for these features. Why would God not give creatures encountering similar challenges many features that are similar?

Possibly for the same reason He didn't make every creature exactly the same.

Quote:

Evolutionists traditionally have been of the 'slow and gradual' school but more and more are going to have to come up with mechanism(s) by which major structural changes, new organs, etc appear very quickly in thousands of instances in order to meet the timetable that you claim has been our history. Random mutation (mostly harmful or benign, rarely helpful and even then only minutely incremental) is too slow.

So? Even if we've got the mechanisms wrong, that does not mean Evolution is wrong and it definitely doesn't mean Creationism is true. In order to prove Creationism and ID to be true, you have to disprove all the other creation myths and any other myth that the human mind can come up with.

I am now going to propose a new "theory" to challenge Creationism.

I call it the Dreaming Theory. Basically, the Universe is a dream dreamt by a flying whale. The whale has always been there and will forever be there.

Um, yeah, I probably won't go with that one coz I basically stole that idea from a Legend of Zelda videogame.

0 Replies

rl, why might whales have vestigial foot bones, why might snakes have pelvic girdles, why might flightless beetles have vestigial wings beneath unopenable wing covers?

0 Replies

TheUndonePoet wrote:

I honestly came in here because I am sick and tired of evolutionists and atheists treating Christians llike we are a bunch of morons.

I don't think most scientists or athiests disrespect Christianity. What most scientific and engineering types disrepect is flawed logic, irrational assumptions, ignorance and hipocracy.

If you happen to be doing any of those things, and you happen to be Christian, then I guess you can assume it's because you're a Christian, but that's your choice.

0 Replies

Its been a futile experience trying to get creationist to present evidence to support the Jewish creation myth found in the Bible. TheUndonePoet has suggested that I look at the website www.icr.org for evidence of Creationism.

So, for grins, I visited this den of inequity an pilfered one of their articles. I thought this would be a good example of their misleading and empty-headed arguments.

Quote:

Dinosaurs, Grasses, and Darwinism
Nov 29, 2005
By Frank Sherwin

The ancient, strange, and foreign world of the dinosaur described by evolutionists continues to dissolve in the face of scientific research. Contrary to what has been taught for decades, dinosaurs inhabited a pre-Flood world populated with plants and animals very much like todays.

Science shows that dinosaur fossils are found with plants that are very familiar to us such as sassafras, oak, magnolia, palm, willow, and now, grasses. But according to evolutionary theory, grasses should not be found with dinosaurs because these plants did not evolve until 80 million years later. A recent discovery has stunned the secular scientific community indicating that between "65 million and 71 million years ago" plant-eating dinosaurs were consuming different species of grass. A paleobotanist working in India was "totally shocked" to discover grasses in sauropod dinosaurs' dung. Surprise was also the reaction of a fellow evolutionist upon her recent discovery of soft dinosaur tissue (see http://www.icr.org/index.php?module=articles&action=view&ID=2033 ). These secular scientists were amazed because significant portions of what they have been taught regarding macroevolution and the time scales involved are simply false.

This is perhaps one reason why the presence of grass in dinosaur dung remained undiscovered for so long. The unobserved, unproven macroevolutionary theory states that grasses were not contemporary with dinosaurs; grasses did not exist until the post-dinosaur era according to evolution. Therefore, scientists did not bother looking for something their theory said did not exist. No wonder evolutionists exhibit such surprise at this wholly unexpected find! This is yet another example of evolutionists putting the cart (unobserved theory) before the horse (scientific evidence).

Creation scientists see a world just thousands of years old. With this narrow time-scale, it is not surprising when soft dinosaur tissue is encountered, or when grossly "out-of-order" discoveries are made such as grasses found with dinosaurs, or when fish (vertebrates) are discovered in the "wrong" rock layer! (see http://www.fredheeren.com/boston.htm )

Yet, undeterred, two Smithsonian evolutionists simply state in regard to dinosaur ecology that "These remarkable results will force reconsideration of many long-standing assumptions." Creation scientists would urge Darwinists to reconsider the larger long-standing assumption of macroevolution as well.

Sources
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn6874
Neergaard, L., http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/248836_dino18.html
Adler, J., Time, November 28, 2005, p. 53

The first thing I noticed was the shock and horror creationist claimed evolutionist displayed when they discover that a conclusion based on existing evidence was "wrong". In this case the age of grasses. New evidence gave science a new age for grasses. Good! So what's the big deal? I don't think evolutionist were as shocked by this discovery as creationist would like to think. This was a good discovery. It's a new piece to a puzzle that gives us a more complete understanding of evolution and its processes. In the future there will probably be a new discovery that will push the age of grasses back even farther. So what does that have to do with disproving evolution?

Nothing.

Creationists think every time science draws a conclusion from existing evidence it is something written in stone, like their mythology. Science knows new evidence will draw new conclusions. Unlike creationist, they never believe they have all the answers. New discoveries always brings new questions. Creationist believe there is only one conclusion, that which the Bible provides.

A pity, is it not, that none of these discoveries support creationism. Creation mythology can only be supported by mythological science; or what we call junk science. Articles like the one I provided doesn't discredit evolution, they discredit creationism. They show how ignorant creationist are to the workings of science. They appeal to the ignorant. That's why when creationist talk, evolutionist laugh.

TheUndonePoet, if you want to find evidence for creationism I hope you can find a better site than this.

0 Replies

Grasses are plants of the angiosperm class, they originated in the Triassic, about 160 million years earlier than the ICR "story " would have you believe (Taylor and Taylor 1993). The issue about grasses being a "problem" to Darwinian thought, is total bullshit. The evolution of plants is a problem of paucity of fossils. Grasses , for example, are usually found in specific environments of savannah -like conditions and, such conditions becasme more pronounced in the mid Triassic as the mid circumferential currents and pangea were splitting and currents diverted and "rain shadows" more pronounced. Things dont fossilize in oxygen rich soils, they decay and are "composted"
The data is what the data is. NO data presents problems to science. Science attempts to understand its meanings(and these meanings are naturalistic)
I wonder what the ICR is trying to peddle with the grasses story? . Hell, these guys are out there still faking fossils for the vast ignoranti . Like last years rubber dinosaur fossil with a hominid in its mouth. That only took a few weeks to " toss on the rubbish pile" of old Creationist deceptions. Gungasnake was so enthralled when he published the link and then disapperaed when it was denounced by the right reverend "Bubba" breinard

The radiation of insect species in the late Jurassic and Creataceous was mostly responsible for the rapid spread of all angiosperms. (This was the way I was taught in the 1970's in grad school paleo). Today we know differently, we have data that pushed back the development of angiosperme to much earlier. Remember, in the 1960s we didnt understand continental drift very well and most earth scientists didnt accept it. Now, with aglobal tectonics view in mind, we can see WHY certain species became isolated and developed separate linneages that were related to. but not descendant from other foundation species.They drifted apart(literally) while they were dveloping separate species
real life asks

Quote:

The similarities in morphology between different whales ( or whatever you choose to compare) are the basis on which you have inferred relationships between them. It does not prove a relationship. Not even close. Does the presence of wings prove a relationship between bats and birds? Does bipedal locomotion prove a relationship between all the creatures which share it?

. Youre boxing yourself into a logic corner rl. Namely, since we infer that something occured by virtue of all the data and evidence. Yep, , why not use the word that we use in science. WE CONCLUDE by virtue of all the evidence and data. What have in your quiver thats equally robust?
I Think the answer to that is NOTHING

Im not going to take the time and rehash the whale story again, because I know youve heard it and just deny it, even though youve got no counter other than the myth and other nice fuzzy stories.
Im not a catastrophist , because , within the passage of deep time, "catastrophies" such as bolide hits, megavucanism and periodic global warming followed by rapid cooling, occur in almost Uniformitarian frequency. So we calculate return frequencies and include these items in the large "whole earth" startigraphic column

The fact that 95% of all life disappeared in the end of the Permian and 65% died out at the end of the Cretaceous is undisputed by radiochemistry, paleo, structural geology, mantle and deep layer geophysics,Other mass extintions occured in the Devonian, Ordovician, early Phanerazoic, Eocene and the Pleistocene/Holocene.Raup had produced a "kill curve" based upon return frequency and actual species wiped out. Fossil evidence for these events is not denied even by IDers. (They say that they agree that niche "abandonment" is a great adaptive radiation mechanism because predation decreases markedly.

Im wondering where you go from here. You can keep denying data, but yet try to occupy some as "your own" for no other reason than to try to discredit the well established and well-understood interlacing of many disciplines of science.

0 Replies

There may be a time in the future where almost all humans are wiped out on this planet from some virus. Just because we can record history to show humans have lived on this planet since about 200,000 years ago, doesn't insure our survival into the indefinite future in a world that's estimated to be 4.5 billion years old.

0 Replies

Oh yeh rl, as far as the relationship between bats and birds vis a vis, wings. Now you are smarter than that arent you? bats are mammals covered with what?, and they bear live young. Birds are covered in what? they bear what? and the have little horny what? on their faces? mAybe a beak makes a platypus related to a bird also. The relationship that is described in cladistics seems to escape you . You are not making any valid points, you are, instead making your arguments (Ill dignify them as such) lose great gobs of credibility.

0 Replies

fm-

I see you have switched to a channel you are more comfortable with.

0 Replies

youre in love with me, I knew it.

0 Replies

Visit the family

0 Replies

Hey, Wilso, those photos are incredible. I've always wanted to know what your ancestors look like. Very Happy

I'm sorry I can't get any joy from people crashing and burning with their ridiculous notions about evolution. Their igoranced procedes them and I've always tried to be kind to dumb animals.

0 Replies

Related Topics

Quick Links

My Account

able2know