A few thoughts on evolution

I think many people have difficulty with discussing evolution in general, most likely because most people don't know the theory well. Evolution is taught in our public system as a general scientific certainty, yet most people only know words or phases like "survival of the fittest" or "Darwin" and "natural selection." Though these terms are used often in evolutionarily debates, most people don't really have a grasp on the theory (yet i obviously understand that all of you know about evolution far more than the common person). I'd like to state the Webster's definition of evolution, it’s as follows, "Certain observable small variations, very limited in extent, that occur over a period of time as a species adapts to its surroundings." Webster here describes evolution as very small changes in a species that will benefit the whole species due to the environmental conditions thru the survival of the fittest. Let me just quote Charles Darwin for a moment in his famous publication "The Origins of Species." He says, "If it could be found that any organisms could change without small, slight, successive modifications, my theory would break down." In simple terms, if any organ(s) could be created without small changes or adaptations his theory would break down. Powerful words by the father of evolution don't you think. I like to state first and foremost that Charles Darwin was an AWESOME scientist, why? Because, he was humble. When you read his books you noticed certain phrases that he places in there to nullify his theory. Darwin lived in the 1860's, at that time humans knew very little about biology, biochemistry, cells, DNA, ect. Darwin knew this; he simply proposed an idea that might be the valid if science could back it up in later advancements. Darwin knew that at the time scientist knew very little about the grand scheme of things, they only knew the basics. Only in the past 100 years or so have science exploded into the great scientific findings we see today. There are some areas that I would love to point out that Darwin would claim would be a problem to his theory. 1: Fossil Record 2: Complex systems 3: The "tempo" or speed at which evolution happens 4: Living Fossils 5: Symbiotic relationships in between organism 6: Tree of Life, 7: Random mutation, just to name a few. I'd like to restate, Darwin was an awesome scientist, but hoped to see science confirm his theory later on. I'd like to discuss each problem briefly that Darwin viewed as a problem to his theory and how it relates to today.

Fossil Record: In the time of Darwin, fossils were a new thing. They had many fossil discoveries but nothing compared to today's standards. Darwin noticed the lack of "transitional fossils" in the fossil record. A transitional fossil is a fossil that would show one species "in change" to another. For example: A fish changing into a lion. In order to show proof of this change there would have to be a fossil that had a fish growing legs, getting fur, becoming much larger, ect. In Darwin’s age of science the fossil record was not full at all, so He had hoped that transitional fossils would show up sooner or later. As of today, we have found fossils that are of extinct or modern day species, no transitional fossils. Yet, there is still much debate as to weather there are transitional fossils or not, science is split on this subject. You must understand that 95% of all species that have ever lived since to beginning of the first single cell are extinct (that’s a lot of species). Many people who have claimed to have discovered a transitional fossil either notice that it was another form of a species, or just a highly mutated species. All transitional fossils are fossils that belong to a certain class of species. Most people think that evolution teaches we come from apes, such is not the case. Evolution claims that we have come from a ‘similar’ ancestor from an ape. In all actually we, as humans, are closer physically to monkeys since both monkey’s and humans have tailbones, apes do not. The closest DNA related animal to humans is a pig, I believe we have about 96% the same genetic code. See what people don’t realize is that that 4% makes a difference. A cloud and a jellyfish both contain the same amount of water, it’s the 4% that makes the difference. See an ape isn’t a transitional fossil to humans because it’s ultimately just another species. A human and an ape are on a different part of the evolutionary tree. The main point here is to know that there are "yes" fossils that ‘appear’ to have some transitional form or feature, yet they are still very debatable. If evolution were a true science, we shouldn’t find these far and few between questionable transitional fossils. These transitional fossils ‘should’ appear all throughout the fossil record with zero question or debate, and yet all we have are a handful of somewhat questionable ones.

Complex systems: Remember that quote that Darwin made in His book, "The Origins of Species?" This is where I discuss it more in depth. A complex system is a system or organ that are complex enough to show zero signs of slight modifications. A perfect example of this is the human eye, heart, immune system, and a bats sonar system, ect. These are examples of systems that are so important for a species survivability. The human heart has four chambers that are responsible for pumping blood to other parts of the body. You can’t have 3 chambers working, or even 2, all 4 must pump to efficiently pump blood. The human eye is so complex that one can see a grain of sand on our fingertip but still view mountain’s hundreds of miles away. The human eye is has perfectly ‘evolved’ or ‘created’ for humans to have the ability of seeing such beautiful wonders. Take the eye of a goldfish, or a bee, or an elephant, there eyes, for better lack of words, suck. Yet they have all had the same account of time to evolve as humans. The immune system is any organism is so incredibly complex that it would be hard to understand how any species lived while building an immune system. The immune system has many parts. It allows for blood clotting, it allows for mast cells to attack harmful outside virus’s or bacteria, it has cells who’s sole purpose is to find harmful bacteria to inform the fighting cells to fight, the list literally goes on and on. What evolved first, the attacking cells or the cells to warn the attacking cells? They BOTH must work together for the system as a hole to work properly. Bats and dolphin’s both have complex sonar. They use this sonar to operate in there environment without getting killed and going extinct. Sonar, in these animals, can’t slowly but surely change, those species entire survival depends on these complex systems. I have only named a few examples here, but I have yet the time nor the knowledge to explain all the complex systems that each individual species have that they depend on for it’s survivability.

The ‘tempo’ or speed of evolution: It’s no surprise that evolution takes an extremely long time to impact a specie. Yet, Darwin noticed a huge time problem with his theory. The earth is about 4.5 billion years old, but the newly formed earth had to cool down before anything. The first single cell came into existence a couple hundred million years ago. Remember the earth didn’t suddenly form, according to evolutionist, and have simple single cells, it took a lot of time. A species, on average, takes 1-2 million years to go extinct from the it’s first appearance to its final extinction. Do the math. Remember 95% of all species that have ever lived are extinct. There are so many species that have ever lived with diversity that no man could even possibly imagine. Take the fish of the sea to the animals on the ground, to the birds of the air. There are countless types of species that have such immense diversity that 800 million years doesn’t even account for. A couple million years, heck, 4.5 billion years isn’t enough time to create the amount, and diversity we see on this very planet. Evolutionists say that this time difference is okay, since all species evolve at different rates, or speeds. This is true, but to an extent. A species will change or alter due to mutation, hopefully a beneficial mutation. A individual organism will be born with a mutation, lets say, more hair for cooler climates. That mutation will be passed down to its offspring and eventually to the entire species. Thousands or millions of years later we see that same species with thicker hair. Yet, a mutation is not based on the species environment. This is important. A mutation will occur weather or not the species needs to be altered or not, remember though that mutations occur in individual organisms, but species evolve. A mutation has nothing to do with its environmental condition. But, lets assume that this mutation of more hair is introduced, and the climate is cooler, than that species would benefit from this mutation. This is where survival of the fittest plays a part. The species would benefit with more hair, the same species that don’t get introduced with this hair mutation will die thru a process called natural selection. The hair mutation will, over a LONG period of time, be passed to every individual in that species (this is why evolution takes so long), every individual must eventually have this mutation. Like I said earlier we find that a billion years isn’t even enough time to produce the differences we see in every single species that has ever lived on this earth. Can a species evolve quickly, well, that’s very subjective. All of evolution is very subjective, for example. My offspring may have a mutation that will make him have no nose, yes, its beneficial to him because he never again has to smell my bad cooking, yet that wouldn’t benefit all of humanity, same is true for every species. A species may adapt to its surroundings quickly yet to change it from one species to another takes millions of years. Mathematically, the earth’s age doesn’t provide enough time for species to evolve. I’ve seen many equations dealing on this very subject.

Living Fossils: A living fossil is a species that is virtually unchanged from its first appearance. An example of this is bats, alligators, and many insects. I’ll explain: We have found many bat fossils, yet they all look the same, with zero differences from a present day bat. We date the fossilized bat to 250 million years, and here today, its unchanged. This puzzled Darwin because the earth has always, and will always be in different changes, ie, the ice age to now. The current condition of the earth is not the same as a few thousand years ago, the earth is constantly changing. This puzzled Darwin because a species will evolve because of its environmental condition. The fact that a bat has never changed in all the different environmental changes on the earth is a huge stab toward evolution. You must understand, evolution never stops. A species will always need to change slightly due to the environment and its surrounding predators. The alligator does not have the same predators as in its first appearance in the Jurassic Era. This doesn’t add up, evolution is never-ending, it allows occurs, constantly. The more puzzling part to this subject is to find a pre-bat or pre-alligator, well, there isn’t one. We find no primitive bat or alligator in the fossil record, but we do find them, as fossils, in there current state. There was a huge discovery made about 80 years ago called the "Cambrian Explosion." This is a huge portion of fossils that are dated back to the Cambrian Era (just before the Jurassic). In this area we find literally millions of fossils that are dated from the exact same time, yet zero primitive fossils are found. We find millions of fossils with no primitive fossils for these species to evolve from, odd isn’t it. Every single one of these fossils are fully formed and all vertebrates (an animal with a backbone), but no invertebrates. The way evolution works is this: A single cell evolved into an invertebrate (sponges, jellyfish) that evolved to a vertebrate (fish) that evolved to an amphibian(frogs) that evolved to reptiles (dinosaurs) that evolved to mammals (humans). In evolution, you must have a simpler form of life to evolve from, yet Cambrian shows no such thing. We find all the animals fully formed, fully developed with zero trace of ancestry

Symbiotic relationships between organisms: A Symbiotic relationship is an organism that depends on other for survival. There are many instances where organisms of different species are completely dependent upon each other for survival. Now, organisms in a symbiotic relationship "evolved together" per NECSI or any science foundation anywhere. According to evolutionist organisms have co-evolved too whose families they first appeared with in relation to time. Now the first segmented flatworms originated millions of years before the first mammals. However, the tapeworm, a segmented flatworm that is a parasite of humans, cows, and other mammals, could not have evolved before the first large mammals. Members of the honeybee family, consisting of the queen, workers, and drones, are interdependent. If one member of each interdependent group evolved first (such as the plant before the animal, or one member of the honeybee family before the others), it could not have survived. Because all members of the group obviously have survived, they must have come into existence at essentially the same time. This relationship is not something that helps the organism out somewhat, no, its a way of life. Without another species to feed upon and vis vera the animal or insect, ect, would die. It's not a thing you put in your "nice things to have" bag, no, its life for them. There are thousands of species that rely on plants, other animals, ect to survive. Evolution claims that each species evolves due to natural selection, independent on other organisms.

Evolutionarily Tree of Life: Okay, last one. The evolutionarily tree of life is a diagram widely accepted. It shows a picture of a tree. At the bottom of the tree is the first single cell organism, then it branches off into branches and stems showing different species from a same ancestor (that first cell). I know everyone here has seen a picture of it. I’d like to discuss two main issues. First being that Darwin never stated where the first single cell organism came from, remember something always evolves from a lower life, well where did the first cell come from. Well, he never answers this question. Second. As you move far up the tree you find species branching out into different classes. According to evolution, and this tree, everything came from a single ancestor, so everything, in some way, is connected with everything else. For example, an elephant and a humming bird has something in common due to a same ancestor (this single cell). Yet we find on this tree that species are more commonly linked as aunts/uncles rather than brother/sister. A brother and a sister have the same ancestor, an aunt and uncle don’t. We also find very hard, very distinct breaks from one side of the tree to another. For example, something on the far left of the tree has nothing to do with an animal on the far right. Think of it this way. When I look at a rainbow I don’t see a hard break from green to red or violet to blue, no, I see blending, there is not a point where one color breaks from another, they all blend in. Same ‘should’ be true for evolution due to species being from the same ancestor, and yet it’s not what we find.

Biochemistry: In Darwin’s era, they knew very little about cells, atoms, nuclei, DNA, ect. We find a HUGE problem with evolution in biochemistry. This is probably the biggest threat to the theory of evolution. Remember me talking about mutations earlier? Well, I’m going to go in depth now. What is DNA? DNA is the genetic make-up for every living organism. It’s made out of proteins and amino acids, the building blocks of life. DNA is designed to make that particular organism work as efficiently as possible, to work at tip top performance, zero flaws. Well, whenever a mutation is introduced into this DNA it alters the individual amino acids with that particular DNA strain. Notice, mutations NEVER add or create new genetic information, it only alters the pre-existing DNA. When a dog incurs a mutation at birth, its still a dog, why, because the DNA was altered. The mutation in that dog did not create or add new genetic information, that’s why it’s still a dog. Evolution teaches that we all came from fish, simple, yet a fish has fish DNA and a human has human DNA. A random mutation will never produce new information into the DNA, only alters it. This is how we explain adaptations within species. The reason we find different breeds of dogs is because of this fact. It’s no huge surprise that DNA can be altered due to mutation, ie, breeds of dogs. A person jogging on a mountain at 10 thousand ft is, over time, going to be adapted to jogging at the altitude, as a person at sea level will have a very difficult time at it. Why? Slight DNA was altered, not changed, nothing was added into the code, nothing was created. The person that adapted is still very much a human, just like a puddle and a pit-bull are still very much dogs. DNA, amino acids, and proteins are so complex that each individual cell performs amazing actions like duplication, reproduction, self repair, waste removal, a nerve center, a worker center, and the list goes on and on. All this in ONE cell, within one amino acids, within one DNA strain. All these functions performed by something the human eye can’t even see. The DNA is more complex than ever thought before, and yet, we have still a lot to learn. This is why the DNA’s sole purpose is to make that organism work perfectly, without flaw. The fact that random mutation could actually be beneficial is a topic I could spend a lot more pages on. Mutation at most will neutralize the species ability for tasks, they are 99.9% of the time harmful to the individual, why? Because your altering the very basic building blocks of life. If anyone is extremely interesting in this topic I suggest a great book called "Darwin’s Black Box" by Dr. Behe. In his book he describes in great debate about the impossibility of evolution from the biochemical perspective. He goes into great depth on some of the subject’s I mentioned here. His book is about a million pages long but nevertheless a great read.

Real quickly let me state that there are two types of evolution: Micro-evolution and Marco-evolution. Micro-evolution is a species adapting but not changing outside its own species, for example, the different breed of dogs. There all still dogs, just different types of them. Marco-evolution is all species evolving from the same ancestor, this is commonly referred to as ‘classic evolution’ because this type of evolution is what most people relate to when talking about evolution. The bible very clearly states that animals vary within their species. In Genesis, or all throughout the bible, it commonly refers to animals "after their kind." In the Genesis account of creation after each animal is stated God states "after their kind" implying that species have differences, but always WITHIN the species, never outside. God said that He created male and female and the great sea creatures and made the animals, but "AFTER THEIR KIND". When Noah put all the animals on the ark God commanded him to put "one of very kind." The bible fully acknowledges micro-evolution (adapting within species) but NEVER acknowledges marco-evolution as all animals from a single particle or cell. Micro-evolution is confirmed biblically, and that’s the one type of evolution we can tract, and study, because its observable and testable. Marco-evolution (everything evolving from a common ancestor) is NOT confirmed biblically and its not observable or testable. This is why it’s still called the "Theory" of evolution. One last thought: Many people find it difficult to believe that all of man came from two people. Well, it takes much more faith to believe that EVERYTHING we see today is a result of random mutation from one single cell. Everything from jellyfish to lions to honeybees to centipedes, to bears to zebras. From every type of tree to bateria to virus' to algae, ect from a ONE thing. EVERYTHING.

These are just some things i was thinking about. I'll explain more if anyone has any questions.

Sorry guys, i didnt know it was going to be that long, i had to break it up into two parts. The first two posts are one in the same thread. I would have been to long otherwise.

How about you pick one and thrash that out, before moving on to the next?

Addressing even one of your points would be a very long post. The "swamping gambit" is commonly used by creationist, and wins them no points.

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lol, you humor me karl, no points, okay, anything you wanna talk about. My intention wasnt to give a huge long explaination into each subject, just a few thoughts, a bear overview. (and thus the title of the thread, "Just a few thoughts on evolution)

Yeah, I would agree, very few people will want to spend the time to go over all of it and debate all of it at once.

However, since you have it all written out, save it, and then we can tackle things one at a time. It might produce a much better conversation.

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okay then, lets debate. I wasnt going to write a book about each and every subject, i apologize if you guys didnt like that, my bad. But, okay, what do you wanna talk about.

not to shred the article, but there are a few niggly little bits in there, I will address them now.

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we were doing well up to this point however this smacks of the old hovindian "refutations" in which he gives a speciation so complex, that it would take many many steps to describe it (actually it is slightly better than hovind, usually he tries to get one to defend something that never happened) In order to see the above "transition" you would need a fish becoming land-based (we have those) land based animal becoming more complex with land nased features (we have those, lizards and so on) transitions to basic mammals (we have those) transitions to more specific categories of mammals such as the carnivora (we have those) and then carnivora to felis (we have em) to the lion. as you can see, this is a very very crude outline, that includes far more steps, and even appears far more realistic than the thought of a cod with a mane and sabre-teeth.

Originally Posted by worship4ever

As of today, we have found fossils that are of extinct or modern day species, no transitional fossils.

and down it goes we do have these things.

Originally Posted by worship4ever

Yet, there is still much debate as to weather there are transitional fossils or not, science is split on this subject. You must understand that 95% of all species that have ever lived since to beginning of the first single cell are extinct (that’s a lot of species). Many people who have claimed to have discovered a transitional fossil either notice that it was another form of a species, or just a highly mutated species.

when making accusations, include references. "many people" does not really back up an argument. "many people" think that WMD have been found in Iraq. those people are also wrong. when saying things like "highly mutated species" you need to show that. you also need to show why you find several of them, and not just one. did the same "massive mutations" occur several times to look almost the same?

Originally Posted by worship4ever

All transitional fossils are fossils that belong to a certain class of species. Most people think that evolution teaches we come from apes, such is not the case. Evolution claims that we have come from a ‘similar’ ancestor from an ape. In all actually we, as humans, are closer physically to monkeys since both monkey’s and humans have tailbones, apes do not.

they did last time I checked.... bubbles, come here!

Originally Posted by worship4ever

The closest DNA related animal to humans is a pig, I believe we have about 96% the same genetic code.

err, no. please don't include huge errors like saying that our closest relaive is a pig, when it isn't.

Originally Posted by worship4ever

A cloud and a jellyfish both contain the same amount of water, it’s the 4% that makes the difference. See an ape isn’t a transitional fossil to humans because it’s ultimately just another species.

humans are apes. we have a common ancestor with all the other apes

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well it is more like a bush than a tree.

well that is abiogenesis. Darwin's tree of life also doesn't include things like stellar mechanics and the big bang. but then it isn't supposed to. Darwin didn't know about DNA and things like that, so he didn't include them in his evolutionary model. Remember all the evolutionary model is supposed to tell us is how we get the variety of life we have today. not how we get life. these are two different things, you must admit.

no, but they will have a common ancestor. even creationism acknowledges this, although it traces all human ancestors back to adam and eve, then noah and sons. all the animals have common ancestors too, those on the ark.

actually no. evolution is "best for the job" Something may have flaws, but if it is the best around, then it wins. for example, in order to be a successful antelope, you do not have to outrun your predator, just be faster than the slowest antelope.

this is false.

sounds like hovind speaking. what is fundamentally different about fish DNA? if we introduced the gene for a fish protein into say, a plant, what would it do?
no-one has ever properly defined a kind.

I have just pointed out some more glaring errors and falsehoods. I think it would be worth going into things in more detail, although alot (if not all) of it has been hashed out here before.

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