Challenging Evolution

razzelflabben said:

I get group a group b group c group xyz, it is a word picture, peace of cake. What you fail to understand is that the entire TOE is brought into question if the species cannot evolve because of reproductive problems.

So, we have a breeding with b producing c. C is infertile and cannot produce offspring. We have just witnessed the fall of the TOE.

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No, because c is not a new species.

As long as A can reproduce (and change) and B can reproduce (and change) evolution continues. It is not dependant on successful inter-breeding between A and B. In fact, TOE predicts that inter-breeding between A and B will be problematical. So the infertility of C is a confirmation that TOE is correct.

For the TOE to be viable, the reproductive nature of c must continue independent of a and b or not. In other words, if C cannot breed with A, B, or C, evolution ceases, and is not viable.

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No, as noted above, this is not only no problem for TOE; it is predicted by TOE and is a confirmation of TOE. Since C is infertile, it cannot continue, but evolution can and will continue independently through both A and B.

Ishmael Borg said:

I don't know about the bolded part. I can't see clear correlation between multiple abiogenesis events and the special creation of each "kind".

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As I understand it, the theory used to say, that everything was descended from one organism, now, we are saying that there were several organisms that each sperately started evolving. This is very similar to the Gen account of creation. God created a bunch of organisms. The difference is in how far back we go.

razzelflabben said:

Okay, Has that DNA tested the original single cell? Has it tested all living and none living organisms since that single cell existed? How far back has it gone?

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Phylogenetic analysis is done on living organisms. The original common ancestor isn't around anymore. After all, even if it hasn't gone extinct it would have undergone 3.8 billion years of evolution.

But remember, if evolution is correct, all living organisms are cousins. So they are still connected to each other by historical connections. Just like you are connected to all your cousins even tho your great grandparents are dead and aren't around anymore. OTOH, if TOC is correct, then living organisms are not connected at some point. They are independent creations.

Depends on the definition of common ancestor. If you mean that we developed from a single cell, no that is E.

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Once again, evolution says the common ancestor was a population of organisms. These organisms were single-celled. Not that we evolved from one single cell with no other cells around. Can you see the difference or are you just refusing to see the truth?

[quote If you mean that some evolution is possible, yes, the TOC can accept this.[/quote] My turn to ask a question: how is this possible? Genesis 1 or the rest of the Bible says nothing about kinds changing to other kinds. So please explain how you think evolution is possible under TOC.

So you are saying we are comparing the DNA to that single cell again?

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I don't want to be mean and instead am trying to be charitable. So please don't take this the wrong way. Have you ever been diagnosed with a reading comprehension difficulty? Is there anywhere in this where I said the ultimate common ancestor? So we can compare DNA sequences from species to species and from species in plants to species in animals, etc. Anywhere in there at all? Phylogenetic analysis is done from DNA on living species. Evolutionary cousins.

If the DNA is conclusive evidence of E, then how can there be differences in humans from one to the other? Wouldn't they be identical sequences, as we would see from species to species?

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No 2 individuals have identical DNA sequences. That's how you can use DNA analysis to identify people. However, the DNA sequences of all humans fall in a narrow bell-shaped curve. You know what that is, right? Again, I'm not trying to be mean or insulting, but I think some of our communication difficulty is that I am using concepts that I think you know but you don't. From the DNA sequences of many individuals you can get an average sequence for the species.

OK, did we find independent DNA sequences unconnected to any other DNA sequences? That is what we should have found if TOC is true. If TOE is true, then the DNA sequences should be related by the historical connections of common ancestry.

"As phylogenetic analyses became commonplace in the 1980s, several groups emphasized what should have been obvious all along: Units of study in biology (from genes through organisms to higher taxa) do not represent statistically independent observations, but rather are interrelated through their historical connections."

There you go. TOC is falsified and TOE is 'proved'. True statements can't have false consequences. TOC has this as a false consequence. It isn't true. God's Creation tells us God didn't create by TOC. God created by evolution.

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I don't get it, the TOC with allow for some evolution, is disproven by incomplete tests that prove the TOE?

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TOC must have some separate creations. Right? If TOC allows all species to come from a common ancestor, then TOC is the same as TOE! Instead, the cat "kind" was specially created separate from the dog kind, right? So if lions and tigers and housecats all came from a common cat kind ancestor and all wolves and dogs from some common dog kind ancestor, under TOC the cat kind and dog kind don't have a common ancestor, do they? So the cat and dog kinds can't be linked by historical connections under TOC. Yet the DNA sequence data says that they are linked.

Similarly, humans and corn can't be linked by an historical connection, can they? Humans and corn must belong to different kinds. Because if plants and animals all belong to the same kind, then TOC is meaningless. Yet the phylogenetic analysis shows that human DNA sequences and corn DNA sequences are indeed linked by a historical connection (common ancestor to both plants and animals). TOC is shown to be wrong.

Some evolution is possible within the theory of C. What is not allowed is single cell creating it all and man being created sperately. Now depending on what was used to create, and how far back the creation goes, I would expect to see similar DNA sequences in living organisms.

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Your problem is in how far back you go with the creation of TOC. If you go back to God creating that first population of single-celled organisms, then TOC and TOE are the same! So creation can't go back that far if what you say about TOC is true. Even if God created just a single animal kind and a single plant kind and all plants and animals have come from those common ancestors, the phylogenetic analysis says that not even plants and animals are independent!

But I guess I am just too stupid to understand DNA, it is relatively new.

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Whenever you get into trouble and want to deny overwhelming evidence for evolution, you trot out this excuse "I am too stupid", which means, "your evidence is wrong." Cute tactic, Razzel, but is it really in keeping with a passion for truth?

Do you want to test my DNA against that of a dino and tell me they are identical?['/quote] Did I ever say they would be identical?? Please, be honest here. Passion for truth, remember? Your DNA sequences, of course, would not be identical to dinos if we had dino DNA. Nor are your sequences identical to that of birds (the evolutionary descendents of a species of dinos). However, your DNA sequences and those of birds are connected via a once-living common ancestor.They are not independent. Just like you and your 3rd cousin's DNA is connected via your now dead great-grandfather.

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razzelflabben said:

As I understand it, the theory used to say, that everything was descended from one organism, now, we are saying that there were several organisms that each sperately started evolving. This is very similar to the Gen account of creation. God created a bunch of organisms. The difference is in how far back we go.

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This is nothing like the genesis account of creation.

razzelflabben said:

Without the inscription, we do not have or can we have overwhelming evidence to conclude that John the Baptist lived.

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You do love creating red herrings by dropping key words don't you.

The inscription is not needed to conclude that John the Baptist lived.

It is needed to conclude that John the Baptist lived in that cave.

You see, John the Baptist could have lived in a different cave. Maybe it wasn't John the Baptist who lived in this cave. Maybe it was Zedekiah the Baptist who lived here.

lucaspa said:

You are making up scenarios different from your original. The original scenario was that the blood was from a suspect, not the victim. Now, say you have suspects Dave and Dan. YO do a DNA analysis of the blood and find it came from Dan. Now you know Dan was at the scene and not Dave. Dave is off the hook by that evidence.

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You read into the post where the blood came from. I never said, I only said that the blood splatters existed. You are the one who determined who the blood was from. This is the kind of jumping to conclusions I am talking about when we are talking about the theories of the origins of this world. Overwhelming evidence does not allow room for us to jump to conclusions about what is and is not known. Making those jumps is faith. Faith is not a part of the TOE, so why are we making so many jumps of faith?

Morphology is how a plant or animal looks. For instance, fish, amphibians, reptiles, and mammals all have one upper arm bone and two lower arm bones. No matter what the limb does: swim, run, climb, dig, fly. All mammals have fur. Their physiology is how the body works. An example is that all mamamls have a constant body temperature (warm blooded). So, how is it observed? By looking. The physiology is done by looking, taking temperature, and doing some lab experiments -- on how the kidney handles salt, for instance.

How these are unique to TOE and falsify TOC is that different kinds were separately created, each for their separate tasks. And God supposedly made them for these tasks. So, when Darwin observed woodpeckers living on the plains of Argentina hundreds of miles from any tree, it was apparent that God had not specially created the woodpecker there. Also, since the different tasks of swimming, digging, running, climbing, and flying would be more efficiently done with different bone structures of the upper limb (arms), the reason all these different creatures had the same bone structure would be by inheritance from a common ancestory, like inheriting red hair in a family.

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Or, the woodpecker migrated in some way, and the bone stuctures basically work. What is your point? How does this falsify C and overwhelm E?

http://zygote.swarthmore.edu/index.html There are chapters there that detail the relationship of developmental biology and evolution. But let me give you one:
As embryonic birds develop, they make teeth! Now, adult birds all have beaks without teeth. So later in embryonic development, the teeth are resorbed (disassembled). Now, TOC would not have embryonic birds making teeth; there is no point. It's a stupid thing for God to do and God isn't stupid. BUT, if birds evolved from an dino that had teeth, then developing teeth in the embryo is a holdover from that ancestor.

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How does the TOC predict that God is or is not stupid? Where is that in Gen? But, back to the topic, animals adapt, they are different and unique, that doesn't equal E. Rather that is suggestive of C.

Not bad criteria. Not great either. Let's try this idea of evidence:

1. Must be a deduction, or consequence of TOE. Or, put another way, must be evidence predicted by TOE.
2. Is not predicted by any other theory.

Now, if the evidence fits #1 and #2, then #3 follows as a consequence.

Can you explain this one in more detail, please? You've said this before and it puzzles all the evolutionists here because this isn't what happens!

Production of an infertile offspring by two species is a consequence of evolution, not evolution happening.

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So evolution predicts, that when two species reproduce, the offspring will be unable to reproduce? Okay, then I ask again, how then does evolution occur. If the new species cannot evolve because it cannot reproduce, then how can it evolve?

Let's get back to horses, donkeys, and mules. Horses and donkeys are not interbreeding to make a new species "mules". Mules are not a new species. I'm afraid you have the process backwards. Horses and donkeys are descendents of a common ancestor. A measure of how far apart they are as species is that a mule cannot mate with another mule to give an offspring. However, a mule can interbreed back to a donkey or a horse to produce a fertile offspring. So, donkeys and horses are recently formed species that are not completely separated.

Now, in biology there is a process called "hybridization". This happens almost exclusively in plants. Many plants just cast their pollen onto the wind and it can land in a plant of another species. Sometimes, when the DNA of the two species are similar, the result is a hybrid between the two plants. The hybrid can be a new species that is fertile with other hybrids but not fertile with the two parent species.

This has been done in a lab study. There is a species of sunflower called Helianthus anomalus and molecular evidence suggested it was formed by hybridization of H.annuus and H. petiolarus. Again, this is a process in which two species hybridize, and the mixed genome of the hybrid becomes a third species that is reproductively isolated from its ancestors.

So what the researchers did was hybridize H. annuus and H. petiolarus and produced 3 independent hybrid lines undergoing different regimes of mating to siblings and backcrossing to H. annuus. After 5 generations the DNA was analyzed for comparison to wild H. anamalus and to see which ancestral genes persisted in the hybrids. The genes from the hybridization in the lab matched with the wild H. anomalus! Remarkably, despite the different crossing regimes, all 3 lines converged to nearly the identical gene combinations, all H. anomalus. The gene recombinations were complex, but repeatable in all 3 hybrid lines.

So, in regard to your criteria, this did not rely on fossils, but used living plants. It's unique to TOE, because TOC says that kinds can breed with their own kinds. An H. anomalus can't breed with H. annuus or H. pertiolarus but only with other H. anomalus. Since we got a new kind and observed it, it proves that TOE is more than a guess.

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Oh boy isn't this fun! This is not unique to the TOE, nor does it prove a single cell organism that started the whole process. Especially when we consider that the inbreeding in plants leaves one without viable seeds for germanation. That's why people like the heriloom plants, because their seeds reproduce.

razzelflabben said:

However, the claim is that 1. the TOC has been falsified by the evidence. Therefore, the overwhelming evidence must be unique or it is not overwhelming. 2. the TOE has overwhelming evidence to support it, support for the TOE cannot occur if the evidence supports both theories, unless we make a leap of faith, something that also has been claimed to not be a part of the TOE.

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Oh, interesting. Back to the overlapping theories bit.

So, I want to make sure I have this straight.

TOC and TOE each make some unique claims which are found only within that theory, right?


But TOC and TOE share some observations as well e.g. that offspring are similar to their parents, right?

But TOC, we claim, has been falsified.

So TOE must now be confirmed based on claims that are unique to TOE, right?

And not on the basis of observations or predictions it shares with TOC, right?

For if we confirm an observation or prediction TOE shares with TOC, then we have to admit that we have NOT falsified TOC after all, right?


WRONG!!!!!

The claims must be proven not in the interpretation of the evidence, but in the presentation of the evidence. In other words, I prove nothing by saying look at this species ring, when the species rings do not prove the claims made, it is smoke rings instead, trying to divert attention from the boastful claims that have been made.

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More nonsense. The claims are proven by showing how TOE predicts and/or explains the evidence, and that the evidence is not predicted and/or explained by an alternate theory.

The infertile offspring brings into question the probability of the TOE. That is the point.

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No, since TOE predicts and explains the infertile offspring, TOE is confirmed.

razzelflabben said:

edicts, that when two species reproduce, the offspring will be unable to reproduce? Okay, then I ask again, how then does evolution occur. If the new species cannot evolve because it cannot reproduce, then how can it evolve?

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do we have to keep going over this with you? I know for a fact that you have read the replies several times now. the new species are the ones that cannot breed with one another.

species A aplits into populations B and C. over time populations B and C evolve into species B and C. Species B can breed with other members of species B, but it cannot breed with members of species C. This is due to the accumulation of small changes in populations B and C over time, that are not shared between the two populations, building up to the point where B and C are unable to breed with one another. i.e. B and C, which were once the same species are now separate species.

gluadys said:

If none of the individuals are able to reproduce, the population becomes extinct in one generation. Evolution, however, continues to happen in the other populations which are continuing to reproduce.

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and we do not know for sure that breeding, thus evolving can continue from the evidence, only assumptions and speculations that it can and does happen. In other words, our speciation evidence is too limiting to know for sure.

No, this is a false assumption. No wonder you have been having problems with the reproduction bit. Populations ordinarily begin with thousands of individuals (sometimes even millions).

It would be very difficult for the survival of a species to begin with a population of less than 2,000 and next to impossible to begin with only 2 individuals.

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Okay, new evidence, where did all these organisms come from and how did thousands of organisms evolve into a viable breeding source of male and female (later down the line) because there would not have been a need for male and female species to evolve. Asexual is the way to go if you want to survive.

This is, I hope, a misinterpretation of what you were actually taught, for I would not like to think the teaching was that bad.

Probably what you were actually taught was:

"Everything evolved from one population of single-celled organisms." There were probably several millions of cells in the population.

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I highly doubt it since I recall challenging the teaching way back then. But maybe it is a good idea to teach the TOE in the classroom, without any of the checks and balances that the other theories could provide.

No, to one population of organisms or a very few populations at most.

No, it is not. It is based on the idea of a single common ancestral population.

And by the way----that is not a change to TOE. That is part of Darwin's original thesis and has always been basic to TOE. You may have misinterpreted what you learned in school (or worse, your teacher misinterpreted it.) But the TOE hasn't changed on this point. The common ancestor has always been understood to be a population, not a single organism.

Even when I was a creationist, I understood that much.

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This is definately new teaching, but does not change the questions I have asked in this post.

mrversatile48 said:

I'll let open minded readers examine the earlier posts here that were presenting a long series of skulls as proof of progress onwards & upwards

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The skulls are presented as evidence of change, not evidence of a hierarchy.

The evolutionary ladder/chain is surely universally known as a "how-to-go-from amoeba to modern man",

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There is no evolutionary ladder/chain that goes in one linear direction. What we have is an evolutinary bush with many branches and leaves. Humans are one leaf on the bush. So are amoeba. Trace back the branches they are on, and you will come to a node where both the branches meet. That is the common ancestor of humans and amoeba.

Since both are equally distant in time from their common ancestor, on what basis is one superior to the other?

(Never had to mod a mod before: we live & learn, huh?)

Ian

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I am not a mod, which is why I did not put on a mod hat or send you any official warning.

I just call error, especially really divisive stuff like racism, when I see it. The idea that evolution is racist is even more of a mis-nomer than that it is atheist. And because racism is real, and people get really hurt by it, I do think it is crossing a line to falsely associate evolution with racism.

I was glad to note the post was edited to remove that section.

gluadys said:

If a species cannot reproduce, it becomes extinct. There are no exceptions.

But the vast majority of new species can and do reproduce.

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It is the not all that leave the speciation of living things inconclusive evidence for the TOE.

gluadys said:

I hope you are clear now that the "one-celled organism" was actually a population of such organisms that probably numbered in the millions.

And as Jet Black has pointed out, there would be no reproductive problems as this species did not use sexual reproduction.

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Got it, but this doesn't address the down the road issues.

gluadys said:

You are mistaking a conclusion for an assumption. No one is "assuming" that evolution is a fact. That is a conclusion based on the fact that we have observed evolution happening.




The only definition I have seen you provide for "kind" is inter-fertility, ability to reproduce. That is the same as the definition for species.

And it has already been shown that some species are clearly derived from other species, so they cannot be originally separate creations.

If I have misunderstood your definition of "kind", please correct me.

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Able to reproduce is not limited to species, even in the TOE.

razzelflabben said:

And of the instances shown to me, some are not.

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Actually, all of the instances that have been shown to you are ones in which there is no reproductive problem.

It is you who have zeroed in on one instance: the mule.

But you are misinterpreting the message of the mule. As someone has already posted---the mule is not the new species.

It is the donkey and the horse which are the new species. Neither of them has a breeding problem.

But, as predicted by TOE, they do have an inter-breeding problem.

The inter-breeding problem tells us two things:

The donkey and the horse are closely related.
The donkey and the horse are not the same species.

How can two species be related?
By having a common ancestor.
Confirmation of evolution.

mrversatile48 said:

ET poppycock is full of "primitive forms..more advanced forms"

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Only in creationist imaginations.

The correct terminology is "plesiapomorphy"(sp?) i.e. characteristic inherited from a predecessor, and "synapomorphy" i.e. character appearing as a novelty in this lineage.

Nothing to do with "primitive" and "advanced".

Got a problem with that?

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Yes. You have provided no connection of any of this garbage with evolution.
So stop blaming evolution for it.

razzelflabben said:

As I understand it, the theory used to say, that everything was descended from one organism, now, we are saying that there were several organisms that each sperately started evolving. This is very similar to the Gen account of creation. God created a bunch of organisms. The difference is in how far back we go.

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But the TOE never has said that. You've seen it in this thread countless times now, and it's always been part of the TOE: populations evolve, not individuals. There was likely one population of organisms from which all present organisms descend. I just don't see anything similair in the TOC's ideas of limited adaption (which has no support, biblical or otherwise). Limited by what, you may ask? Sorry, The question's never been answered.

Okay, I am functioning on about 3 hours sleep, my eyes are getting blurry and I have some other issues on the forum I need to address before I get off for the night. I would appreciate things slowing a bit so I can keep up but this thread has a mind of it's own. Hope I don't miss something important.

lucaspa said:

Can you please list your "some"? If it is not 'all', then there is no problem for TOE, is there?

I am following what you told me about TOC -- reading Genesis 1. "And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so."

"And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that [it was] good. And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth. " Also, other passages in the Bible (which you told me to cross-reference) says that kinds breed after their kind. So ... by the sources you gave me for TOC, "kind" is a plant or animal that can breed with other members of its kind and make fertile offspring. Right? If it is the wrong definition of kind for TOC, please tell me why.

Now, this is nearly identical with biological species concept.

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Close enough for me at this time. Don't currently have the will to try to clarify anything.

Not the evidence I present. I have looked at the papers I present to you and I assure you that they have done the breeding experiments and the new species can make fertile offspring within the species. Or you can check me and look it up for yourself. That's why I give you the references.

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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.

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?

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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.

Where did you get this idea? Populations nearly always have hundreds or thousands. Only in what is called "founder events" do you have two. That's when two individuals -- such as a pair of flies -- gets blown across the intervening ocean to Hawaii.

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Where do these populations come from?

Instead, what you have is a population of hundreds. One of those hundreds has a variation that works well in that environment. This individual mates with one who doesn't and has 4 kids. By the odds, 2 of them have inherited the variation. So, in generation 2 you have 2 individuals. Now, those 2 also do well in the Struggle for Existence and they mate with two individuals without the variation. Again, for simplicity, each pair has 4 kids and half the kids get the variation. So, in generation 3 we have 4 individuals with the variation. This keeps going for 6 more generations. At this point, we have 512 individuals (at least) with the variation. So, the population was never less than hundreds. But the composition of the population changed over the generations.

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Where do the hundreds come from? How do we get variations, if this is inconsistant with the TOC?

Plants and animals are designed. Designed by natural selection. That is what creationism simply refuses to accept: natural selection is an unintelligent proces to get design.

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What proof do you offer?

What you should have been taught is that all plants and animals evolved from a common ancestor. And that ancestor was a single-celled organism. You seem to have combined that into the misrepresentation you have now.

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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.

Chemistry caused it to divide into 2 cells. We have seen this with protocells. It involves the unique chemical properties of water. When the protocell reaches a certain size, the interaction between water and the cell membrane is such that the lowest energy is achieved if there are 2 slightly smaller cells. So van der Waal's forces and hydrophobic (water hating) interactions cause the cell to divide and "reproduce". You can see something similar with oil droplets. Big ones tend to break up to make 2 smaller droplets.

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Right, that single cell that is not a single cell at all but a population of single cells divided, becomeing clearer all the time. Sleep is so good for the brain.

Single cells reproduce asexually, so there is no mating. But evolution still happens because there are still copying error in the DNA to make variation between single-celled organisms.

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Right that explains all the reproductive processes we know today.

Now, sexual reproduction began among single celled organisms where there is no male and female. Instead, bacteria today exchange DNA in plasmids. Today some species of amoeba reproduce asexually sometimes and sexually some other times.

Go ahead and ask questions. I don't mind.

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No questions, it is all quite clear, a single celled organism which was not a single celled organism at all but rather a population of single celled organisms, began to divide asexually, keep going.

There are still unanswered questions.

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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. Keep up.

For instance, we don't have the exact lineage for many plants and animals. The fossil record is too spotty. We are not sure how the nucleus evolved. What we don't have anymore is possible evidence that could falsify evolution -- show it to be wrong. We have done all the tests we can think of to show common ancestry and natural selection to be wrong, and we haven't been able to. So, while we don't know all the various ways that populations can become isolated, we do know that, when they are isolated facing new environments, new species will evolve.

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But not that they did. That is why it is still a theory. Because we assume that it did.

Sorry, but TOE is based on the idea of common ancestors. Not a single organism. If life arose from non-life via protocells, as I think is likely, there were billions of organisms. If life arose by the RNA world, there were billions of RNA molecules. At least! Probably trillions or even higher.

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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?

lucaspa said:

Not between the species, Razzel! Within the separate species, of course they are reproducing! That's what we are trying to tell you.

So individuals of both species are present in the same streams at the same time, but don't mate with individuals of the other species.

Originally, there were only salmon who mated and laid eggs in the middle of the stream. One species of hundreds of individuals. Then one of the female individuals had a variation that caused her to lay her eggs at the shallow part of the stream. For whatever reason (and we don't know it yet), her offspring did better and more of them survived and returned to the stream to mate than did offspring of those that laid eggs in the center of the stream. Those children inherited their mother's variation to lay eggs at the edges of the stream. The males also had the tendency to mate away from the center. Over the generations, these individuals prospered at sea and continued to have good numbers of them return to the stream to mate. They tended to choose mates who also mated at the edge of the stream instead of the middle. So after 70 years (about 30 generations) there are now 2 populations in the stream. Those that mate and lay eggs in the center and those that mate and lay eggs at the edge. The two populations do not reproduce with each other. But within each population, they reproduce just fine.

So now you have 2 separate reproducing populations where once there was one. Speciation. Remember, that's what a species is: a group of individuals that freely reproduce with others of their population but not with other populations. (and that is what a kind is according to the original TOC)

In this case, those that had the variation to lay eggs at the edge of the stream found a lot of new room for their eggs.

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Now, I am tired and cranky so it is time to be bold and ask. Why do you all treat people you believe to be C like they we uneducated idiots? I know fully well what you are saying and have understood it for many many posts now. What you are not understanding is that I am not talking about interbreeding, but rather the ability to breed. I should be talking down to you people but instead, I bear your insults, no matter how subtle and continure on as best I can. Please do try to apply some logic and reason to your own post from now on, (statement to whomever on this thread needs to wear the shoe).

razzelflabben said:

In fact, many times over I have said that it does not falsify the TOE. What it does do is bring into question the validity of the theory.

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Just what is the difference between these two statements? If the validity of TOE is called into question, it is falsifed, no?

The TOC can and does explain why branches on the evolutionary tree die out.

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I am getting very tired of you asserting that TOC explains things, but never saying what the explanation is. Please provide this explanation. And also provide the TOC explanation every time you bring this up again. It would save us all a lot of going back and forth.

I have not heard and explaination from the E as to why it occurs, though I have heard people say that the theory does not know all the mechanisms.

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I don't recall you asking before.

Extinction happens when a species meets an environmental challenge it cannot adapt to: e.g. destruction of habitat is bringing about a lot of extinction today, as forests are being rapidly cut down and arable land is turning into desert. We are currently losing more species per week than we did over the prior three centuries, so it is a real problem--and by and large one we have created ourselves.

Evolution happens when a species does successfully adapt and is able to continue reproducing.


Now, to flesh this out, you may need to learn more about the mechanisms of adaptation.

The bottom line, this does not offer overwhelming proof of any theory. Which is the point of the thread.

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The bottom line is that TOE does answer the questions.
If TOC also answers them, I would be interested in knowing what the answers are.

If the theory of E is open to science disproving it, then, it would stand to reason that challenge would be welcomed rather than critisized. Maybe you should discuss the issue with the other E here before you get back to me on it, so that you have a good solid explaination for the reactions I got when I challenged the theory.

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Challenges are welcome when they are new challenges. Restating a challenge which has already been successfully met only shows the challenger is uninformed about the current status of the theory. The challenges you have presented fall in the latter category. And I am sorry if it makes you feel stupid to be told that you are uninformed.

To lack information is not the same thing as being stupid. It just means you need to do some more learning to catch up with how the theory has been improved since you went to school.

Now, refusing to learn----that would be stupid.

lucaspa said:

Comparative morphology and physiology that has them placed in the same genus (by the creationist Linneaus). Genetic analysis (independent of the above) which does the same thing.

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imput, imput

Think of family relationships in humans. One of my daughters is the spitting image of me (poor thing) and the other is nealy identical to her mother. However, go back a generation, and both look a little like their grandparents on that side of the family, but not as close as they look to their father and mother. Go back to their great-grandparents and there is a little family resemblance (particularly in the noses, each family has distinctive noses) but not much else. The more closely the resemblance, the closer to the common ancestor.

Also, species that are very far apart from the common ancestor won't even try mating. A cow and a horse mate? Nope. No, the mating cues only work if the species recently diverged from the common ancestor. So, the fact that they try mating indicates recent common ancestry. That they can make a viable hybrid -- the mule -- also indicates recent common ancestry.

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So now we are basing the whole theory on appearance? My in laws say that our eldest son is the spitting image of my father in laws brothers, son. I guess that would mean that they are closer relatives than my other children? NO, there is more to it than appearance.