Note, though, that I didn't do any kind of job until a couple of days after solarwave posted the thread... I find it strange that in that interval only one person took the effort to reply and that one person was a newbie.
__________________ "There is much we do not understand about the history of life, and the same will be true of our grandchildren. But, then, if we knew all there was to know, scientific interest would cease. Textbooks may portray science as a codification of facts, but it is really a disciplined way of asking about the unknown." - A.H. Knoll, Life on a Young Planet
"[G]ood and evil are names for what people do, not for what they are." Philip Pullman, The Amber Spyglass
Note, though, that I didn't do any kind of job until a couple of days after solarwave posted the thread... I find it strange that in that interval only one person took the effort to reply and that one person was a newbie.
I'll be honest, I don't check this sub-forum of crevo much.
Hey guys, I've been wondering recently if there actually is any evidence for evolution, since I used to think that it may be true or there are some reasons for believing this theory, but now I'm not so sure.
What I would like to know is, what are the main points for believing in evolution, and what are the main points against it. Mainly on how each side explains transition fossils.
It would be good if it were just short points and explaination of the evidence, not like a massive essay that is a page long on each subject, and also to have points of theists, agnostics, and atheists.
Thanks,
Solarwave
hi, here il put it a little simpler for you ,basically evolution is proven to the point of speciation, that life changes dramatically over time, it is a undeniable fact that all cats alive today are descended from the same ancestor, and the same for dogs, that donkeys,zebras,horses are related,
there is some reason to believe that this process may go further, even to the evolution of genuses unto other genuses, but whatever anybody tells you it has not been proven beyond a reasonable doubt that this has occurred though there is some reason to believe it, transitional fossils are not necesarily what they seem, much bias and presupposition is used in this field, where whole creatures are supposedly reconstructed from a single bone fragment, which is ridiculous!!!
there is no way we can know for sure what happenned so long ago, in closing i will stress that whenever you hear someone say that natural selection totally accounts for all the amazing mindblowing complexity of nature, do not believe it, because they dont even understand themselves how this could be, but they say it anyway, science cannot answer these questions , NS accounts for some things but saying that every structure and design in nature is the result of survival and NS is rubbish,
hi, here il put it a little simpler for you ,basically evolution is proven to the point of speciation, that life changes dramatically over time, it is a undeniable fact that all cats alive today are descended from the same ancestor, and the same for dogs, that donkeys,zebras,horses are related,
there is some reason to believe that this process may go further, even to the evolution of genuses unto other genuses, but whatever anybody tells you it has not been proven beyond a reasonable doubt that this has occurred though there is some reason to believe it, transitional fossils are not necesarily what they seem, much bias and presupposition is used in this field, where whole creatures are supposedly reconstructed from a single bone fragment, which is ridiculous!!!
there is no way we can know for sure what happenned so long ago, in closing i will stress that whenever you hear someone say that natural selection totally accounts for all the amazing mindblowing complexity of nature, do not believe it, because they dont even understand themselves how this could be, but they say it anyway, science cannot answer these questions , NS accounts for some things but saying that every structure and design in nature is the result of survival and NS is rubbish,
have a nice day
Thanks, huggybear. Now if you supported any of those points that would help all of us a lot. In the meantime:
transitional fossils are not necesarily what they seem, much bias and presupposition is used in this field, where whole creatures are supposedly reconstructed from a single bone fragment, which is ridiculous!!!
No, the most important transitional fossils are generally well-preserved and relatively complete things. That's why they are of great help in reconstructing transitions. A few vertebrate examples:
- From the fish-tetrapod transition (Devonian Times pages; the figure on top of each page shows what's known of the animal): Panderichthys, Tiktaalik, Acanthostega, Tulerpeton (if we go by the diagram on DT, Tulerpetonis quite incomplete, but the preserved bits luckily include the limbs - which are among the most interesting body parts in this particular case). And, as it's abundantly clear just from that section of Devonian Times, there are many more related but more fragmentary fossils that consist of parts very similar to some of the more complete creatures.
- From the "reptile"-mammal transition: the image on this site pretty much says it all, but a plethora of other synapsids also line up neatly with the transition (and not only in the skull). A few others where good quality fossils are known could include Dimetrodon, Lycaenops, Cynognathus, Dvinia, Megazostrodon, ... these are just a few I could think of in a few minutes. And I'm not a palaeontologist, much less a synapsid specialist. Remains from each of these genera include at least a good skull, but AFAIK at least Dimetrodon, Lycaenops and Megazostrodon are pretty much complete.
- One sirenian, because when I first saw the picture a while ago I was amazed just how complete and how beautifully intermediate the creature was: Pezosiren, less than halfway to manatee. I otherwise know next to nothing about sirenian evolution, so there may be more.
- Whales: Pakicetus, Ambulocetus, Rodhocetus, Dorudon... could probably list a few more if I weren't too lazy to bother.
So much for fragmentary remains and wild speculation.
there is no way we can know for sure what happenned so long ago,
But we can know it with reasonable confidence. Science never aims to know anything "for sure" anyway. It only aims to find the best explanation it can - do you know of a better one than evolution? And no, goddidit doesn't count as an explanation.
in closing i will stress that whenever you hear someone say that natural selection totally accounts for all the amazing mindblowing complexity of nature, do not believe it,
Indeed. Genetic drift is also at work, for example
because they dont even understand themselves how this could be,
Who doesn't understand it? I take it you don't, but that's no reason to believe the experts in the field don't either. Some support for this claim of yours would do a lot to save your reputation.
but they say it anyway, science cannot answer these questions ,
Exactly how familiar are you with evolutionary biology? And science, to say it just can't answer this or that?
Anyway, as for mindblowing complexity, I suggest you read a not-so-old CF post. It's about an experiment with digital organisms subjected to various selective pressures - and evolving complex functions in no time at all. Repeatably. Sometimes through highly detrimental mutations. You see, there's more to evolution than simple "survival of the fittest".
NS accounts for some things but saying that every structure and design in nature is the result of survival and NS is rubbish,
Why is it rubbish?
(I can immediately come up with a couple of things: as mentioned above, NS isn't the only force of evolution; and many structures have nothing to do with survival but everything to do with reproductive success... but I doubt you had this kind of thing in mind. It appears the problem isn't with evolution but your understanding of it - or the lack thereof.)
A nice day to you too
__________________ "There is much we do not understand about the history of life, and the same will be true of our grandchildren. But, then, if we knew all there was to know, scientific interest would cease. Textbooks may portray science as a codification of facts, but it is really a disciplined way of asking about the unknown." - A.H. Knoll, Life on a Young Planet
"[G]ood and evil are names for what people do, not for what they are." Philip Pullman, The Amber Spyglass
Thanks, huggybear. Now if you supported any of those points that would help all of us a lot. In the meantime:
No, the most important transitional fossils are generally well-preserved and relatively complete things. That's why they are of great help in reconstructing transitions. A few vertebrate examples:
- From the fish-tetrapod transition (Devonian Times pages; the figure on top of each page shows what's known of the animal): Panderichthys, Tiktaalik, Acanthostega, Tulerpeton (if we go by the diagram on DT, Tulerpetonis quite incomplete, but the preserved bits luckily include the limbs - which are among the most interesting body parts in this particular case). And, as it's abundantly clear just from that section of Devonian Times, there are many more related but more fragmentary fossils that consist of parts very similar to some of the more complete creatures.
- From the "reptile"-mammal transition: the image on this site pretty much says it all, but a plethora of other synapsids also line up neatly with the transition (and not only in the skull). A few others where good quality fossils are known could include Dimetrodon, Lycaenops, Cynognathus, Dvinia, Megazostrodon, ... these are just a few I could think of in a few minutes. And I'm not a palaeontologist, much less a synapsid specialist. Remains from each of these genera include at least a good skull, but AFAIK at least Dimetrodon, Lycaenops and Megazostrodon are pretty much complete.
- One sirenian, because when I first saw the picture a while ago I was amazed just how complete and how beautifully intermediate the creature was: Pezosiren, less than halfway to manatee. I otherwise know next to nothing about sirenian evolution, so there may be more.
- Whales: Pakicetus, Ambulocetus, Rodhocetus, Dorudon... could probably list a few more if I weren't too lazy to bother.
So much for fragmentary remains and wild speculation.
But we can know it with reasonable confidence. Science never aims to know anything "for sure" anyway. It only aims to find the best explanation it can - do you know of a better one than evolution? And no, goddidit doesn't count as an explanation.
Indeed. Genetic drift is also at work, for example Who doesn't understand it? I take it you don't, but that's no reason to believe the experts in the field don't either. Some support for this claim of yours would do a lot to save your reputation. Exactly how familiar are you with evolutionary biology? And science, to say it just can't answer this or that?
Anyway, as for mindblowing complexity, I suggest you read a not-so-old CF post. It's about an experiment with digital organisms subjected to various selective pressures - and evolving complex functions in no time at all. Repeatably. Sometimes through highly detrimental mutations. You see, there's more to evolution than simple "survival of the fittest". Why is it rubbish?
(I can immediately come up with a couple of things: as mentioned above, NS isn't the only force of evolution; and many structures have nothing to do with survival but everything to do with reproductive success... but I doubt you had this kind of thing in mind. It appears the problem isn't with evolution but your understanding of it - or the lack thereof.)
A nice day to you too
Thanks, huggybear. Now if you supported any of those points that would help all of us a lot. In the meantime:
transitional fossils are not necesarily what they seem, much bias and presupposition is used in this field, where whole creatures are supposedly reconstructed from a single bone fragment, which is ridiculous!!!
No, the most important transitional fossils are generally well-preserved and relatively complete things.
please note that i did not say that there are nocomplete claimed transition fossils, i just said that
much bias and presupposition is used in this field, where whole creatures are supposedly reconstructed from a single bone fragment, which is ridiculous!!!
you do understand that all these examples you have shown and more have not been proven and are heavily interpreted into the theory ? dont you ?,
you dont seem to understand that just because someone says "well weve got this theory and we need this to say that, and that to say this ,so lets say that this is a transition and that is a transition , actually makes it true, do you ?
pretty much says it all hey? hardly, just because a few features are similar does not prove what your trying to prove, please at least admit that, most of this field of research is heavily loaded with bias ,surely you can see that anyone could find evidence like this to build any thoery that one wanted to build, the evidence does not speak for itself, you are speaking for it, which is not proof
Science never aims to know anything "for sure" anyway. It only aims to find the best explanation it can - do you know of a better one than evolution? And no, goddidit doesn't count as an explanation.
there is the root of all that is wrong in the world today, how can you say that godditit does not count as an explanation?????? you know what ,godditit makes a whole lot more sense than " well we dont know" until you come up with a better explanation how can you say that god does not even rate a mention ? you yourself have no idea how life can come from non life, or matter from nothing,
so until you do please dont throw around your loaded misconceptions about what might be true or untrue anymore sure it would be a very depressive thing to be true, but it makes perfect sense, an omnipotent existant force that has created our reality and the incalculable complexity of the human being and life,
Who doesn't understand it? I take it you don't, but that's no reason to believe the experts in the field don't either. Some support for this claim of yours would do a lot to save your reputation.
you dont understand it, either do the scientists, my reputation does not need saving, because it is true that NS and evolution fail to answer countless systems , structures and things in the universe and earth without god, but i would not expect you to understand that,
many structures have nothing to do with survival but everything to do with reproductive success... but I doubt you had this kind of thing in mind.
do you see what you have just said? what is the difference between the two? thus my claim is justified
you think it funny that someone may believe in creation ex nihilo with god, without realising that you yourself believe in creation ex nihilo only that you say that that in the beginning there was nothing and that nothing turned into everything, without ever beginning to explain how that might be possible, what you believe totally defies all logic,
Then what was your point? The fact that some claimed transitionals are fragmentary and some reconstructions are speculative in no way invalidates the rich collections of transitional fossils we do have.
:
you do understand that all these examples you have shown and more have not been proven and are heavily interpreted into the theory ? dont you ?,
I might understand if you told me why they are not "proven" (which science doesn't do) and how they are "heavily interpreted into" the theory. But I know for certain that one of them is the perfect example of a confirmed prediction. The kind of support every scientist would like to see for their theory.
Do you know how Tiktaalik was found?
Based on the predictions of common descent. The age, the type and the location of the fossiliferous layers where something similar would most likely be found; the sort of creature that they were looking for - these were all inferred from already known fish and early tetrapod finds. It took them years of searching, but they finally found exactly what they were looking for.
Peek into Your Inner Fish by Neil Shubin, he was one of the team that discovered the fishapod. If you can't be bothered to get the book, you can also find the story on Tiktaalik's homepage. It definitely isn't the case of finding something and then sticking a "transitional" label on it.
you dont seem to understand that just because someone says "well weve got this theory and we need this to say that, and that to say this ,so lets say that this is a transition and that is a transition , actually makes it true, do you ?
I understand that whole groups of fossil creatures, some of them more similar to group A and some of them more similar to group B, with clear A ---> B trends in similarity over time, are evidence for the theory of evolution. I also understand that transitionals aren't accepted as such just because some people want them to be so.
One of the greatest gaps in the fossil record is the one between single-celled organisms throughout the Precambrian and the rich animal life of the Cambrian. Yet perhaps one of the greatest controversies of palaeontology was/is the Ediacara biota, a bunch of creatures exactly from that gap. If what you suggest were the case then Ediacaran creatures would have been declared the ancestors of later animals without much hassle - not interpreted as everything from giant protists to lichens or even something completely different from modern kingdoms of life.
pretty much says it all hey? hardly, just because a few features are similar does not prove what your trying to prove, please at least admit that,
I can easily admit that. However, it's not a case of "a few features are similar". There is a trend in the similarities. A very systematic one. In the picture I linked to, the oldest creatures are at the bottom and the youngest ones at the top - and this isn't only true of the particular species or genera but the whole groups they belong to. Sphenacodonts precede the more mammal-like gorgonopsians, who in turn precede the even more mammal-like therocephalians and cynodonts. The earliest cynodonts are also the least similar to mammals. Show me a better explanation than these synapsids gradually evolving into mammals - until then, I'm staying with Darwin, thanks.
most of this field of research is heavily loaded with bias ,surely you can see that anyone could find evidence like this to build any thoery that one wanted to build, the evidence does not speak for itself, you are speaking for it, which is not proof
Exactly how much experience do you have with science? No, it is not easy to build any theory that explains the available evidence. There are rather a lot of facts theories have to fit (in the case of evolution, anything from snakes' vestigial hindlimbs to the prevalence of males in freshwater snails to the distribution of endogenous retroviruses in primates to the entire fossil record.) And they'd better be consistent with themselves as well.
Common descent makes countless predictions that are tested every single time someone sequences a genome, digs up a fossil or just looks at an organism in any detail. If you can make up another scientific theory (mind you: scientific! Intelligent design isn't science) that also explains the same data and would've similarly predicted Tiktaalik or the defunct centromere of our chromosome 2, I'd be totally excited to hear it.
there is the root of all that is wrong in the world today,
Nah, nah, another very dramatic and totally unsupported claim.
how can you say that godditit does not count as an explanation??????
Because it doesn't. Goddidit, in terms of usefulness, is equivalent to "it just is that way": since God supposedly isn't bound by laws of nature (or laws of any kind), there is no reason other than his whims he would make something this way rather than that. Therefore there is no way "goddidit" can be used to explain or predict things about the world.
you know what ,godditit makes a whole lot more sense than " well we dont know"
No, it doesn't. "We don't know" is at least honest and definitely true.
until you come up with a better explanation how can you say that god does not even rate a mention ?
When have I said that? God may well have done it, I don't know and I don't think I can know. But it isn't an explanation.
you yourself have no idea how life can come from non life, or matter from nothing,
It's incredibly humble of you to act like an insider to my ideas. However, you are right in a sense: since I'm neither organic chemist nor physicist, any idea I have of these things is informal at best. But you are dreadfully wrong in another. Thanks to the scientists who are the things I'm not, I do have some informal idea of how life may have come from non-living chemicals (see for example nucleobases in meteorites, amino acids in the primordial soup, RNA polymerisation on clay, ribozymes, RNA world on ice... see, it's a monstrous big puzzle but we are far from clueless). It's admittedly very incomplete, but it's an idea. As for matter, "nothing" doesn't even exist if quantum mechanics is anywhere near right. And particles can pop out of "nothing" as far as I'm aware (but I'll leave that to the physicists).
BTW, both these questions are totally irrelevant to the theory of evolution, which I thought was the subject of this thread.
Creatio ex nihilo also isn't a scientific doctrine. It's a Christian one, to my best knowledge.
And finally, not so long ago we had no idea how the traits of organisms are inherited, or how something as complex as a mammal develops from a single cell. Look at genetics and developmental biology today. Based on the history of science I wouldn't bet on a god of the gaps.
so until you do please dont throw around your loaded misconceptions about what might be true or untrue anymore
Which loaded misconceptions? I'd be grateful if you debated with facts rather than empty vagueries.
sure it would be a very depressive thing to be true, but it makes perfect sense, an omnipotent existant force that has created our reality and the incalculable complexity of the human being and life,
No, it doesn't make perfect sense if you dig deeper than the surface. Something with all these attributes is also incalculably complex. So where does that come from? And if it doesn't come from anything, what is the logical reason that allows this for a god but not for a universe?
you dont understand it, either do the scientists, my reputation does not need saving, because it is true that NS and evolution fail to answer countless systems , structures and things in the universe and earth without god, but i would not expect you to understand that,
I'm fairly intelligent. You can expect me to understand most things if explained adequately. So go ahead and tell me how evolution fails to "answer countless systems, structures and things" (for a starter, you could mention a few examples).
And again, please stay with evolution if you're discussing evolution. Natural selection only applies to competing imperfect replicators. It has nothing to do with, say, the formation of quasars.
do you see what you have just said? what is the difference between the two? thus my claim is justified
Do you really not understand the difference between survival and reproductive success? And exactly what claim have I justified? (I distinctly remember I mentioned genetic drift, which can, for example, preserve newly duplicated genes, which then may evolve new functions. So there is at least one mechanism that isn't natural selection but contributes to the complexity of life)
you think it funny that someone may believe in creation ex nihilo with god,
Do I? Where have I said that?
without realising that you yourself believe in creation ex nihilo only that you say that that in the beginning there was nothing and that nothing turned into everything,
Again, where have I said that? I'd be grateful if you didn't presume to know what I believe better than I do.
without ever beginning to explain how that might be possible,
Again, totally irrelevant to evolution. I suggest you go to the physicists if you want an explanation. As I've said, I'm in another trade.
what you believe totally defies all logic,
Since you've demonstrated you don't actually know what I believe this claim is not only empty but completely baseless as well. If you perhaps cared to show how my (real) beliefs defy all logic?
kapish?
Apparently better than some on this board.
__________________ "There is much we do not understand about the history of life, and the same will be true of our grandchildren. But, then, if we knew all there was to know, scientific interest would cease. Textbooks may portray science as a codification of facts, but it is really a disciplined way of asking about the unknown." - A.H. Knoll, Life on a Young Planet
"[G]ood and evil are names for what people do, not for what they are." Philip Pullman, The Amber Spyglass
"since God supposedly isn't bound by laws of nature (or laws of any kind)"
This isn't accurate. I know of no-one who holds the position that God isn't bound by any physical laws at all. If God created the universe and all in it, he would have done so within the constraints of the laws of physics. He would simply understand them better than we do.
"since God supposedly isn't bound by laws of nature (or laws of any kind)"
This isn't accurate. I know of no-one who holds the position that God isn't bound by any physical laws at all. If God created the universe and all in it, he would have done so within the constraints of the laws of physics. He would simply understand them better than we do.
I find it a perfectly acceptable belief (and I know many people hold it) that God created the universe with certain laws. However, I don't think I've ever seen anyone say that he is bound by those laws (as in he can't do something because this or that law of physics prohibits it). Anyone who believes in miracles (and/or omnipotence) believes God isn't bound by the laws of nature.
If God is bound by the laws of physics he either bound himself by them when he created them (which means he wasn't bound originally) or they don't come from God at all. The former would mean that we have to figure out why and how he created these particular laws (how do you do that with a god?). The latter is exactly where we would be if we hadn't invoked God as an explanation at all. And in either case the situation is empirically indistinguishable from a universe with laws but without God.
(Oh noes, slipping off topic again )
__________________ "There is much we do not understand about the history of life, and the same will be true of our grandchildren. But, then, if we knew all there was to know, scientific interest would cease. Textbooks may portray science as a codification of facts, but it is really a disciplined way of asking about the unknown." - A.H. Knoll, Life on a Young Planet
"[G]ood and evil are names for what people do, not for what they are." Philip Pullman, The Amber Spyglass
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