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.
- The fossils demonstrate common descent through mesurably progressive changes in morphology.
- The DNA demonstrates common descent through genetic similarities like ERVs and pseudogenes that could only exist common descent is true.
As far as the phylogenies go. We could not construct them with fossil and DNA evidence if all species were suddenly and seperately created. Instead of branching lines on a bush of life, we would have nothing but straight lines from older versions of species to newer ones. But when we do the comparisons, we find that everything fits. Sometimes a branch needs to be pruned or redirected, but on the whole, phylogenies can be constructed accurately. This is something that could not be done if sudden, special creation were true.
Okay, I know I am tired, but this doesn't make any sense as to overwhelming evidence for the TOE. The fossils demonstrate, the DNA demonstrates that E is the only answer? How far back are we going with this evidence?
Can you explain to me why you want it to be unique to the theory of evolution? You do not need evidence that is unique to one theory, what you need is evidence that fits the theory, a lack of falsifying evidence that falsifies the theory and the presence of falsifying evidence for all competing theories. Now we have all that.
This goes back to her original thesis, (that it took me about thirty reads to understand.)
Razzelflaben is saying that what she calls "elements" of creationism, intelligent design and evolution theories are found in all three theories. You may have noted her asserting for example that TOC can accept a degree of evolution. She also considers the fact that species reproduce "after their kind" to be part of the "original TOC" as found in Genesis, so to the extent that TOE agrees with that, it is an "element" of TOC found in TOE.
She contends that only "elements" of each theory can be disproved----but NOT the WHOLE THEORY. Because to disprove the WHOLE theory, you would have to disprove any element of the theory that is also contained in the other theories.
So, if you have evidence which is accepted by both evolutionists and creationists, there is no way to disprove TOC. Every time TOE appeals to that evidence as support, it is also giving support to creationism.
This concept is behind her insistence that no evidence for evolution is overwhelming or conclusive. It cannot help a person decide between evolution and creationism, because of the "elements" they have in common.
I hope I have explained that right. She can correct me if I have not.
__________________ The high, the low, all of creation God gives to humankind to use. If this privilege is misused, God's Justice permits creation to punish humanity~~ Hildegard of Bingen cited in, Earth Prayers from around the World
Close enough for me at this time. Don't currently have the will to try to clarify anything.
Well, when you do have the time to clarify "kinds" please do so. Because right now your kinds = species. Which is, of course, why Linneaus used the word "species", which is Latin for "kind".
No I believe you, all the things I have read that question the ability for breeding are a figment of my imagination, just like the papers I read that warned people that this was not conclusive evidence.
That's a bit petulant, isn't it? You say you believe me, and then deny that by saying the references I gave are in the same category of figment of the imagination as the papers you read. Perhaps you can tell us where to find the papers you read so we can check them out for ourselves? Like I gave you the references for what I say so you can look them up.
How do new species occur? The mixing of genes? If I breed two creatures that have similar but not identical genes, which set of genes does the offspring take? Remember, the answer cannot be both or you just answered your own question.
You didn't answer my question. You just asked one of your own. Not fair. Here's my question again. Please answer it. How is this permitted in the original TOC? I've looked where you told me to look: Genesis 1 and other cross-references to "kinds" in the Bible, and they all say a kind can only breed with its own kind. Where do you get the idea that making new species/kinds is permitted in TOC?
As to breeding two members of the same species, you know the answer to that from your own kids: the offspring have half the genes of each parent!
There are 2 ways a new species occurs. You said you had a passion for the truth, remember. So sit back, get comfortable, because I'm going to lecture.
1. Adaptation to a new environment. The whole species (all the individuals) can face a new environment. In each generation, some individuals will have characteristics that enable them to face the new environment better than those individuals who don't have the characteristics. Since the individuals with the adaptations will do better surviving and having kids than those individuals that don't. So in the course of generations all the members of the population will get the variations. So, after hundreds of generations, the population isn't the same as it started. Also remember, changes accumulate. It's not just one change, but dozens. They add up. This is what happened to insects with pesticides. Whole species changed because the pesticide use was so widespread. We can't do the breeding experiments because we can't go back in time and get grasshoppers, for instance, from before pesticides were used. But if we could, the changes are so extensive in their biochemistry that they could not breed with present day grasshoppers. One species to one species thru time.
Or a speices can become separated into 2 populations. The populations diverge in their genetic makeup as each accumulates new adaptations to their separate, and different, environments. When brought back into contact, the populations can't interbreed with each other. Two species where there was one.
In each case there is no mixing. The populations changes over generations. You don't mix 2 species together.
2. Hybridization. This is the one in plants. In this case the genome of the hybrid is a mix of the genomes of the two parent species. Some genes from each are kept and some genes from each are tossed out of the genome. Fertility genes seem to be kept, so that the hybrids can breed with each other.
[quote]Where do these populations come from?[quote] Look around you. Where do they come from now? From breeding of individuals. The point is that evolution involves populations, not 1 or 2 individuals.
How do we get variations, if this is inconsistant with the TOC?
Variations have 2 basic sources:
1. Sexual recombination. Remember, most traits are not caused by a single gene. You need several genes, for instance, to get the shape of your nose. Each person has two forms -- alleles -- of each gene. One from your father and one from your mother. When you make sperm or egg, the cells reshuffle those alleles into combinations you don't have in your body cells. Then there is the shuffle from the other sexual partner. So the kids have variations due to this recombination.
2. Mutations. These are errors in copying the DNA. Asexually reproducing organisms have only this method to get variation.
Now, since in TOC kinds can only breed within a kind, how can separated populations of kinds change enough so that they can't breed with one another again? Don't kinds have to remain as they are created?
What proof do you offer?
I don't think you really have that much time! In terms of natural selection being a means to get designs,
1. Breeders have been using natural selection for thousand of years to design plants and animals the way they want.
2. people use natural selection to design when the design problem is too tough for them. Genetic algorithms are natural selection run by humans where humans set the environment but natural selection does the designing. Natural selecton is even good enough to get patents! www.genetic-programming.com
In terms of natural selection designing plants and animals, there is SO much proof. Please do a search on Pubmed using "natural selection". In the fly experiment producing new kinds, it was natural selection that designed the flies to the different temps and diets. But an experiment I like was done in the wild. The researchers knew the environment well enough to predict ahead of time how natural selection would change the animals.
Evaluation of the rate of evolution in natural populations of guppies (Poecilia reticulata). Reznick, DN, Shaw, FH, Rodd, FH, and Shaw, RG. 275:1934-1937, 1997. The lay article is Predatory-free guppies take an evolutionary leap forward, pg 1880.
This is an excellent study of natural selection at work. Guppies are preyed upon by species that specialize in eating either the small, young guppies, or older, mature guppies. Eleven years ago the research team moved guppies from pools below some waterfalls that contained both types of predators to pools above the falls where only the predators that ate the small, young guppies live. Thus the selection pressure was changed. Eleven years later the guppies above the falls were larger, matured earlier, and had fewer young than the ones below the falls. The group then used standard quantitative morphology to quantify the rate of evolution.
So we have a study in the wild, not the lab, of natural selection and its results. In this study natural selection was measured quantitatvely, and even predicted since it was predicted that, in the absence of predators that fed on large guppies but in the presence of ones that fed on young guppies, the guppies would grow larger and mature earlier to avoid the predators. That is exactly what happened.
__________________ "If sound science appears to contradict the Bible, we may be sure that it is our interpretation of the Bible that is at fault." Christian Observer, 1832, pg. 437
"Christians should look on evolution simply as the method by which God works." Rev. James McCosh, theologian and President of Princeton, 1890
So now we are asked to believe that reproductive ability has nothing to do with evolution? I know that is not what you intend to say, but come on, how does any of this show overwhelming evidence that something we cannot test is true?
No, it is definitely not what he intended to say.
As for testing, everything lucaspa noted was a prediction based on TOE. Remember, that is one of the things theories are supposed to do----they are supposed to make predictions of what we will observe.
Furthermore, every one of those predictions has been verified as true from observation. So the predictions were all correct.
And that is how you test theories, but seeing if their predictions about observations are correct.
So don't say TOE is something we cannot test. Lucaspa just gave you a bunch of tests of TOE, and showed you that TOE tested positive on all of them.
Can you show a similar series of tests which TOC has tested positive for?
__________________ The high, the low, all of creation God gives to humankind to use. If this privilege is misused, God's Justice permits creation to punish humanity~~ Hildegard of Bingen cited in, Earth Prayers from around the World
Okay, I know I am tired, but this doesn't make any sense as to overwhelming evidence for the TOE. The fossils demonstrate, the DNA demonstrates that E is the only answer?
Yes, they do.
How far back are we going with this evidence?
About 3.8 billion years.
__________________ The high, the low, all of creation God gives to humankind to use. If this privilege is misused, God's Justice permits creation to punish humanity~~ Hildegard of Bingen cited in, Earth Prayers from around the World
A common ancestor, that was a single celled organism that was not a single celled organism at all but rather a population of single celled organisms that came from an unknown source to populate the earth. I got it, makes total and complete logical sense. Of course I might be dreaming right now but it makes sense.
Not a single single celled organism but a population of them. The source was chemistry. The problem is that there are several ways chemistry could make a population of cells and we don't have enough info yet to determine which, or maybe all, were used.
Right that explains all the reproductive processes we know today.
It wasn't meant to. Remember the claims. It was only to explain that you don't start out with sexual reproduction. It evolves later.
Nope sorry, I was told on this thread that all the unanswered questions were answered. You must not have been following the thread. There are no unanswered questions in the TOE that is because we have overwhelming evidence to support the TOE.
Apples and oranges. having overwhelming evidence doesn't mean the lack of unanswered questions. 3 or 4 new questions always pop up out of every answer. For instance, wouldn't you consider the evidence for gravity overwhelming? Yet there are lots of unanswered questions: is gravity a warping of space as in Relativity? Is it an exchange of particles? Is it a "force"? But you don't go jumping off tall buildings because gravity is "still a theory" do you?
But not that they did. That is why it is still a theory. Because we assume that it did.
We have enough lineages and enough evidence among living organisms to know they are relatives and have a lineage. We don't need them all. Just like you don't have to drop every rock in the universe to know gravity is true. BTW, there is nothing above theory. Even "laws" are really theories. And as Gluadys and I have both pointed out, we do not "assume". Evolution is a conclusion.
As you think likely, I thought we had overwhelming evidence!!!! Are you trying to convince me that there is overwhelming evidence to support the TOE or are you trying to convert me to the TOE?
I'm not talking TOE here. I'm talking life from non-life. That isn't part of TOE, remember? Even by your definition, TOE concerns all life diversifying from the common ancestor. Getting the first cell is not in TOE. Gravit isn't in evolution, either. Neither is the theory on the dual nature of light. Or the theory that the sun is the center of the solar system.
Razzel, are you interested in truth or in semantics?
__________________ "If sound science appears to contradict the Bible, we may be sure that it is our interpretation of the Bible that is at fault." Christian Observer, 1832, pg. 437
"Christians should look on evolution simply as the method by which God works." Rev. James McCosh, theologian and President of Princeton, 1890
Linear Mode
