Why do you believe in the evolution theory?

[Paul of Eugene OR]

what we appear to see is the theory of evolution actually evolves to stay in existence but i am not sure if that in itself is proof of it's own theory.

How could it? The theory rests on evidence from the real world, not on its own content.

 

[Paul of Eugene OR]

no i mean more like reinvention for reinventions sake.

So you are under the impression that when DNA was described and discussed as the mechanism of heredity and the site of mutations . . . this was done just because somebody thought it was time to make evolution theory a little bit fancier? Instead of, say, merely reporting what was really there?

 

[Paul of Eugene OR]

99% of what we know about evolution is testable.
Theories about past events are not testable and
are based on conjecture and are fictional stories.

So how come juries are able to convict criminals on alleged determination of past events, which according to you is mere conjecture, mere fictional story?

 

[thepromiseofgrace]

So you are under the impression that when DNA was described and discussed as the mechanism of heredity and the site of mutations . . . this was done just because somebody thought it was time to make evolution theory a little bit fancier? Instead of, say, merely reporting what was really there?

no what i said what was evolution has become evolution plus to survive.

we share common dna with many species, oddly to me this points more to a common designer.

 

[SteveB28]

no what i said what was evolution has become evolution plus to survive.

we share common dna with many species, oddly to me this points more to a common designer.

Would you be more content if scientists just ignored any new evidence they unearth? Should Einstein just have ignored his breakthrough work so that gravitational theory didn't become 'gravity plus'?

 

[Paul of Eugene OR]

no what i said what was evolution has become evolution plus to survive.

we share common dna with many species, oddly to me this points more to a common designer.

A common designer could put feathers on a few mammals. A common designer could put placentas on a few birds. A common designer could put teeth on a few penguins. Teeth are reserved for the seals, chasing the same prey. A common designer could put hollow bones with associated counter current respiration going through them (just like that of birds) in a few bats.

But we observe a nested hierarchy of such traits. Oddly the common designer made it look like things evolved, with characteristics following a consistent "tree of life" pattern.

Perhaps He wanted us to realize He used evolution!

 

[thepromiseofgrace]

A common designer could put feathers on a few mammals. A common designer could put placentas on a few birds. A common designer could put teeth on a few penguins. Teeth are reserved for the seals, chasing the same prey. A common designer could put hollow bones with associated counter current respiration going through them (just like that of birds) in a few bats.

But we observe a nested hierarchy of such traits. Oddly the common designer made it look like things evolved, with characteristics following a consistent "tree of life" pattern.

Perhaps He wanted us to realize He used evolution!

what if the common designer set it up to develope but every type according to its kind?

that's why we see only changes within given parameters.

 

[SteveB28]

what if the common designer set it up to develope but every type according to its kind?

that's why we see only changes within given parameters.

Yes, but employing deliberately vague terms like "kind" doesn't aid your argument. For example, both ourselves and whales are of the mammal "kind". So you would have no difficulty in accepting that we are genetically related?

Or, you could narrow your focus and declare that primates are a "kind", which would mean that the other apes are genetic 'cousins' of ours.

Or, you could widen your focus and determine that vertebrates are a "kind", which makes us related to snakes. (I'm sure that one would be anathema to Christianity!).

 

[ViaCrucis]

what if the common designer set it up to develope but every type according to its kind?

I have not yet once heard anyone offer a very convincing definition of "kind". The word "species" comes from the Latin word for "kind". So if that were our definition then we have some problems straight away: Speciation--the arising of new species--happens and, in fact, is observed to happen.

An example of speciation in the past would be the case of the chimps, the common chimpanzee and the bonobo. Two populations of the same species have become two species.

A theoretical scenario might be thus: The modern dog is regarded as a supspecies of the wolf. The wolf is canis lupus, the modern dog is canis lupus domesticus. Through artificial selection we as humans have bred hundreds of widely divergent breeds of dogs.

What would happen, however if certain populations of dogs were isolated from others. It's impossible to say what would happen, but given environmental pressures the descendents of today's chihuahuas could become an entirely new species of canine. Even more, such a population of neo-chihuahuas could diversify, one group finding its niche one way, another group another way, and still yet another a third way. Perhaps three subspecies of neo-chihuahua, which could, again, in theory result in further speciation.

The idea of "kind" isn't helpful here. There's no limiting factor. Human beings and chimps share a common ancestor about five million years ago. That common ancestor was a kind of ape, or ape-like. Go back many millions of years previously we'll find the ancestor of all simians (apes and monkeys), and still further back we'll find the small arboreal ancestor of all primates.

Maybe something like Purgatorius.

But then we can go back further in the fossil record, the cynodonts of which all mammals are the only surviving representatives. The cynodonts were a group of therapsid amniotic animals from the Permian about 250 mya.

Going back further we can look at the earliest proto-reptiles, the first amniotes. Distinct from their more amphibian ancestors by having the adaptation of producing eggs with which are more resilient due to the amnion. Giving these animals the ability to live further inland and spend less time out of water--indeed able to lay their eggs in land and thus safe from predation from the predators that lurked the shores and beaches.

And so on and so on.

There's no limiting factor. We call things "dogs" and "mammals" etc because we like to keep things nice and categorized for convenience. But nature is far more fluid than that. There are no rigid boundaries, certainly not ones we've constructed for our own purposes.

Birds are dinosaurs, they are the last remnants of that colossal group of animals that ruled the earth for over 100 million years until almost all were wiped out at the end of the Cretaceous 65 mya.

Mammals are cynodonts, though all other cynodonts were wiped out hundreds of millions of years ago.

Birds, mammals; and their dinosaurian and cynodont kin are all amniotes, a sort of tetrapod (a four-footed creature) which were originally a funny sort of fish, not entirely unlike modern lung fishes.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[lasthero]

no what i said what was evolution has become evolution plus to survive.

we share common dna with many species, oddly to me this points more to a common designer.

What wouldn't point to a common designer to you? If life was all completely different, couldn't you say the same thing?

 

[Paul of Eugene OR]

what if the common designer set it up to develope but every type according to its kind?

that's why we see only changes within given parameters.

It seems you will see "common designer" no matter what is there. This is not really an effective argument for a common designer.

 

[Gracchus]

we share common dna with many species, oddly to me this points more to a common designer.

Try to get your head around this: If the universe was designed, then everything was designed and there is nothing that is not designed. So there would be no need for the word "design" because all you would need would be the word "real". And if there were a "designer" he must have flunked engineering, to have designed the recurrent laryngeal nerve, or the vertebrate eye. And the vermiform appendix: What is that all about? We get along fine without it, and the only time it does anything at all is when it becomes infected and tries to kill us.
When you see design everywhere, you are seeing only what you want to see. Anything that conflicts with your holy book is screened out or excused away.

 

[Ophiolite]

darwin himself said the fossil record will either prove it true or false and when it showed false they come up with the idea of punctuated equilibrium to rebalance the lack.

On the contrary, the fossil record supports evolution, in detail, across two dozen phyla, hundreds of classes, and tens of thousands of genera. Clearly you have not studied the fossil evidence, in the field, in the lab and in the literature. I have. You are talking nonsense.

 

[thepromiseofgrace]

Try to get your head around this: If the universe was designed, then everything was designed and there is nothing that is not designed. So there would be no need for the word "design" because all you would need would be the word "real". And if there were a "designer" he must have flunked engineering, to have designed the recurrent laryngeal nerve, or the vertebrate eye. And the vermiform appendix: What is that all about? We get along fine without it, and the only time it does anything at all is when it becomes infected and tries to kill us.
When you see design everywhere, you are seeing only what you want to see. Anything that conflicts with your holy book is screened out or excused away.

I noticed you looked over all the countless wonders and balances at a few things that don't yet seem apparent, perhaps one day we will find how important some of the seemingly useless things are.

So you are sticking with the idea that everything was just a series of accidents, controlled accidents and events, I thought things left to there own devices tend towards chaos not order.

Any idea how life actually started yet or how the universe formed?

 

[thepromiseofgrace]

On the contrary, the fossil record supports evolution, in detail, across two dozen phyla, hundreds of classes, and tens of thousands of genera. Clearly you have not studied the fossil evidence, in the field, in the lab and in the literature. I have. You are talking nonsense.

Odd, most people think the fossil records are woefully inadequate, again why the need for punctuated equilibrium if the fossil record is so intact?

I also wonder why for so long there was a mad rush to find the missing link between man and ape, then after it so embarrassingly being absent, apparent for the odd hoax, we find there isn't a link at all but we do have common ancestry, that could be considered fortunate for science.

 

[Ophiolite]

Odd, most people think the fossil records are woefully inadequate, .

Most people have not studied the subject and are woefully ignorant of how much has been discovered. Now that I have alerted to you the fact that you are one of these will you be taking the opportunity to properly inform yourself?

again why the need for punctuated equilibrium if the fossil record is so intact?

It is the wealth of data available from the fossil record that led Eldridge and Gould to propose punctuated equilibrium, a concept that is not universally accepted as a viable secondary modification of basic evolutionary theory.

I also wonder why for so long there was a mad rush to find the missing link between man and ape, then after it so embarrassingly being absent, apparent for the odd hoax, we find there isn't a link at all but we do have common ancestry, that could be considered fortunate for science.

I suspect you think that sentence actually makes sense. We have a number of links between the common ancestor of apes and men. (A sentence I have a lexical problem with, since we are apes.) What makes you think we don't, other than creationist propaganda?

 

[Gracchus]

I noticed you looked over all the countless wonders and balances at a few things that don't yet seem apparent, perhaps one day we will find how important some of the seemingly useless things are.

You talk of balances as if that were some mystery. Equilibria are very common in chemistry, physics, biology, geology, and thermodynamics, and are quite well understood.

So you are sticking with the idea that everything was just a series of accidents, controlled accidents and events, I thought things left to there own devices tend towards chaos not order.

You thought, if that is the word for it, wrong. Water, flowing through a pile of rock detritus, will sort that detritus into boulders, cobbles, pebbles, gravel, sand, and silt. In short, it is quite common for order to arise as energy flows from a higher state to a lower state. This you would know were you not so unobservant.

Any idea how life actually started yet or how the universe formed?

There is work being done in both areas, but we may never have a complete picture of events so distant in time. Still, “It's not what you don't know that kills you, it's what you know for sure that ain't true.” (― Mark Twain) If we had depended solely on preachers, prophets and prayers, we would still be crouching in leaf huts.

Science works. Religion doesn't. As Edith Ann would remark, "... and that's the truth."

 

[TLK Valentine]

I noticed you looked over all the countless wonders and balances at a few things that don't yet seem apparent, perhaps one day we will find how important some of the seemingly useless things are.

"wonders?" How exactly does one determine what is or isn't a "wonder"?

 

[thepromiseofgrace]

You talk of balances as if that were some mystery. Equilibria are very common in chemistry, physics, biology, geology, and thermodynamics, and are quite well understood.
You thought, if that is the word for it, wrong. Water, flowing through a pile of rock detritus, will sort that detritus into boulders, cobbles, pebbles, gravel, sand, and silt. In short, it is quite common for order to arise as energy flows from a higher state to a lower state. This you would know were you not so unobservant.
There is work being done in both areas, but we may never have a complete picture of events so distant in time. Still, “It's not what you don't know that kills you, it's what you know for sure that ain't true.” (― Mark Twain) If we had depended solely on preachers, prophets and prayers, we would still be crouching in leaf huts.

Science works. Religion doesn't. As Edith Ann would remark, "... and that's the truth."

did you say how life began or did I miss that bit?

science is only truth until more information comes so is that truth at all?

common ancestry, where we just like apes at one time?

what mutation do you think caused male and females to be created?

 

[thepromiseofgrace]

"wonders?" How exactly does one determine what is or isn't a "wonder"?

do you not consider the human body a wonder, I do, the problem is how could it have formed little by little and still function?