Creation & EvolutionForum for the discussion of this important topic. This forum is open to non-believers. There is a Christians-only forum in the Christians-only section too.
Natural selection isnt a person, a thing, or place, it doesnt tell anything to anyone. Would you also agree that natual selection could, in time, run its course. By this i mean, everything needs to be at the exact place it needs to be, total effficiency by every species. Natural selection is this never ending on-going process, correct. Why can't it have an end, or maybe it wont, b.c it doesnt exsist. Every animal depends on others someway or somehow. Every species is interlocked with anyother species, its impossible to have complete equality.
Natural selection is ongoing because the environment is constantly changing. This includes the animals, because they are part of that environment.
How did the bees and flowers evolve at the same time? If the flowers came without the bees, theose plants would not be able to reproduce and would be extinct. If the bees came and the flowers did not exist, what would the bees feed on?
this is a problem with your thinking, you are assuming that the relationships between these things are as they always were. it is possible that the insects just fed on the plants in the first place, damaging them, but this selected for plants that perhaps produced more sugar near the reproductive area that the insects fed on instead. the the insects got some pollen stuck to them and wandered on to another food source to eat those instead, and spread the pollen, spreading this characteristic of extra sugar production. This is the whole beauty of sexual reproduction, it allows things like this; a beneficial mutation will actually spread through a population.
How did the plants learn to produce sweet nectar in their flowers to attract the bees? There are millions of such examples in the natural world.
as described above, and only one needs to have had a higher sugar production than the rest, the mutation will spread through sexual reproduction
Thus, around 2 billion years ago, something or other had started producing oxygen, and that was presumably the cyanobacteria."
there are many organisms that hate (free) oxygen, the extremophiles found near black smokers for example, and some other organisms found in a cave somewhere that I read about but forgot (sorry, can you trust my memory?). free oxygen is not a necessity for life.
You then would agree that animals tranfer pollen much better than wind does, don't you. Natural selection obviously made a certain insect to take care of this problem.
you are the one personifying natural selection here. there will be vriation in the pollen, some will be stickier than others, from the mechanism described above one can see how the insects would have inadvertedly selected for a plant with sticky pollen.
"Natural Selection" says, "the wind isnt doing a good job, so ill make a bee, insect, anything." I hope this sounds crazy, b.c it is.
it does, because you have personified NS.
To me, this far more proves intelligent design.
and I provided a simple counterargument, so your proof isn't as rock solid as it seems.
By this i mean, everything needs to be at the exact place it needs to be, total effficiency by every species. Natural selection is this never ending on-going process, correct. Why can't it have an end, or maybe it wont, b.c it doesnt exsist. Every animal depends on others someway or somehow. Every species is interlocked with anyother species, its impossible to have complete equality. Yet, animals seem to made do with the tools given to them, ie beeks, longer legs, ect, this tends to look more like intelligent design.
this is because the entire environment is dynamic, individuals that are ill equipped to survive in an environment will die, and those that are better equipped will reproduce, spreading their beneficial characteristics through the rest of the population.
Only a complete organism in the next generation can test a germline mutation from a previous generation to see if it will increase the number of offspring that survive and reproduce. In other words, in higher plants and animals, any adaptive mutations in somatic cells can't be passed on, and while mutations in germline cells can be passed on, they cannot be adaptive.
it is the individual in the environment that is the test to see if it's germline cells are spread or not.
I mean geez, how did photosynthesis evolve?
not very easily, but not impossible either.
how did flowering plants evolve? which came first, the plants or the insects that live and pollinate the plants?
I went over this earlier, it would have been a very primitive, possibly almost accidental pollination by an insect that selected for some beneficial characteristic of a plant, that spread.
How did single cell plants become multi-celled (where are the two or three celled intermediates)
you can actually get little clusters of cells. yeast do it. there are also other organisms that survive perfectly well as single cells, but can also form whole colonies of cells. the disease thrush is an example of this.
and most importantly, is it possible that the similarities in design between different animals prove a common creator or a common ancestor?
the common ancestor is a simpler route really, but you have to be willing to accept evolution. if you are not, then there is no point asking the question.
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Symbiotic relationships as proof of ID? Certainly not - as my foreposters have already said, each and every such relationship can be explained by evolution through natural selection.
W4e is deliberately avoiding to understand how NS works, although the process has been spoon-fed to him repeatedly.
Pete, "those plants would gain a reproductive advantage over other plants. Natural selection takes care of the rest>" Geez, takes care of the rest, natural selection isnt some person, place or thing. It's nothing, its an idea, a theory, how can it take care of something when its nothing??? Please explain that one to me. It makes it sound as it something is telling these species or plants to do something, noone is telling them anything, do you guys even listen to yourself and see how crazy it is?
Siliconaut, i gotta say, i embrase your opinions, your starting to bug me. You say, natural selection isnt a person, well, duh, thats what ive been saying all along. I bring it up b.c you people through natural selection around as if its something. It's not tanable, natural selection according to you guys do soooo much and alter and improves species, its nothing, it anything just a thought. And then you have the nerve to say im delibertely avoiding to understand how it works, which i think is qiuet comical. I have never avoided the topic, and never will. Your trying to say that this Natural selection is the key to ALL species surviving (creation at work) and you use it in a manner of a person, read your posts.
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@w4e:
(NS)... It's nothing, its an idea, a theory, how can it take care of something when its nothing???
Let my run it by for the umpteenth time:
Our environment is constantly changing. Temperatures rising or falling, food sources diminishing or increasing, etc... When temperatures fall, mutations with longer fur stand a better chance of survival and reproduction than ones with short fur. THAT IS NATURAL SELECTION. After a number of generations, the adaptation will have spread through the gene pool, because animals with short hair will be selected against by the forces of nature. They will not prosper in the cold climate, they will have a harder time surviving long enough to procreate, and thus, their genes will be lost.
Natural selection doesn't actively "alter" or "talk to" species, but it is the process that unmercifully weeds out those members of a species that are not adapted to their current environment. Natural selection is a biological fact, a law, you might say. Like gravity pulls at objects, natural selection puts a constant pressure on species to conform to their environment. If a species fails to adapt, another will come along and usurp its environmental niche.
My statements that you were deliberately avoiding understanding come from the fact that no matter how often and how well NS has been explained to you, you still go and say stuff like "it's nothing". Please, please convince me otherwise!
Can we all agree that natural selection is the technique by which organisms that are best equipped to survive and reproduce become predominant. Hopefully we agree. Clearly, only those organisms that are able to exist and produce offspring will be represented in future generations.
This limits the continuance of animals which might weaken the line. It is a built-in mechanism that also prevents much unnecessary suffering by taking out those not sufficiently equipped for life’s difficulties, so that they will not produce others to suffer through life. It is in perfect accord with the idea of creation. While natural selection is seen predominantly as a ‘weeding out’ operation in which harmful mutations are slowly reduced in future populations. Can we all agree? They are: (1) mutations, and (2) modern “Lamarckism.” a hypothesis that believes that animals can pass on to their descendants the characteristics they have acquired in adapting themselves to their surroundings. It was later proved to the satisfaction of nearly all scientists that such “acquired characteristics” are not inherited. Geez, i play guitar and am awesome at Golf, we all know my kids are going to have this same skill; at least not by heredity. Some say hormones. Well if hormonal changes were possible, this could not begin to explain the first formation of complex protein molecules. The hormone system itself is complex, delicately regulated, and many hormones are proteins. They would first have to exist, before they could help evolution. Now mutation:
George Gaylord Simpson writes with co-author William S. Beck states that mutation is: " the ultimate sources of all new genetic materials, which then are endlessly shuffled in the processes of sexual reproduction. In the final analysis, all evolutionary change depends on mutations. . . . A capacity for mutation is one of the universal and definitive characteristics of life, and all organic evolution is contingent on it." Can we all agree so far, anyone off track yet? Mutations are chance alterations in the DNA code message that are heritable. "Such changes carry to the offspring deviations such as color-blindness or diabetes. Mutations are believed to be caused primarily by injuries and by copying errors in the DNA duplication process. Just consider that last sentence. The new material on which evolution is to proceed comes mainly by accidents and mistakes. Does it not seem strange that the vast array of amazingly efficient and complex living things would have developed from random negative sources." Are we all on the same page, if anyone wants me to go more indepth, please, by all means, just ask.
Now listen closely please: Natural Selection Cannot Explain “Fine-Tuning” Adaptations. Any mutation, in order to be adopted by natural selection, would have to present a certain kind of advantage, not just any improvement. It would have to be the kind of change that sooner or later makes the difference between life and death or the difference between leaving successful offspring and failure to do so. Natural selection cannot account at all for the finely tuned adaptations and innovations we see all about us–things not necessary to life or to successful production of offspring, and please, if anyone needs examples, by all means, just ask. Of course for natural selection to operate, there must be reproduction, and reproduction is the key property of life. Therefore, we may conclude, natural selection was impossible during the assumed natural origin of life. Any problems here, please, speak up, and remember, any examples or questions you have, ask. Have you guys losted sight of the fact that evolution "has always been merely an assumption," Charles Darwin.
I'm am not personalizing natural selection, you guys do a great job of that for yourself.
I can see a bird in the cold not having enough feathers, i can even possibly see a mutation happening causing the bird to grow more feathers. But to say that mutation happening caused the bird to grow more feathers for the sole purpose of helping it out is kinda crazy. It's like saying, this bird is cold, lets help it out, lets send in a mutation to grow more feathers. You have to admit that mutations are random. But to say is mutation occurred for the sole purpose of helping out, come on.
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