Challenging Evolution

razzelflabben said:

Be careful with this analogy, because someone could steal the cell phones and credit cards, leaving a false trail. But that is kind of the point huh?

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true, but then it has to be deliberate really, at the very least we are tracking someone using that false info. but this crops up because you are stretching the analogy too far I think. analogies are always imperfect, and it is important to see what bit of the analogy is important. I think you can see the core of it though, we are using 2 independent studies which need to have no reference to each other unless someone is using the phone and card as they travel round the country.

What base, control group are we basing our findings on so that we can determine that the tests and the results are consistant, not with each other but with the evidence. If I have no control group, I was taught, the results are inconclusive. So what then is our control group?

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well in some senses you don't need one, since there are techniques for bootstrapping your results, however if you want a control group you can use an outside organism for somparison. so for example if you are building up a tree of the great apes, you can maybe compare the genomes to a marmoset or something, which is slightly related but not very, and it shouldn't share many if any of the ERVs or features being studied. remember in this case we are just saying that A and B have a feature but C doesn't, so A and B are more related than C. this can be done totally blind and it has been done totally blind before, where several different research groups get given a sample of a genome without being told what it is or how they are related and told to produce a tree. invariably they produce the same one.

You know what, I am tired of people assuming that I am trying to prove the TOC or comparing everything to C so I am going to avoid answering any more questions about the TOC, let us focus instead on the supposed overwhelming evidence. But before I get a million posts argueing with this discission, let me say, that even if we assume the TOC falsified, that does not equal overwhelming proof for the TOE. And assuming no other viable theories is proof of nothing. Hopefully that discission will help me catch up a bit.

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very true, disproving the TOC doesn't prove the TOE, and vice versa

I tried to point out the unanswered questions that the evidence leaves, and your answers leave other unanswered questions, it is the unanswered questions that cause me to look at the evidence and say it is not conclusive.

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ok, fair enough, but I think the problem is not so much that the evidence is inconclusive, but you need to learn more about the evidence. that's ok though, that's what I'm here for

So let me ask you a question. Why is it so important to convince people that the TOE has overwhelming evidence to support it? This is something I have never been able to fathom. Why the issue is so important to so many people. I wouldn't have ever come here if it wasn't for correcting the misconceptions that were posted about me in the OP. I don't get why this topic is such a hot issue?

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well personally I just like discussing it. Biology and evolution are absolutely fascinating subjects, and I really like learning about new stuff.

gluadys said:

How? The horse is still reproducing, so the horse can still evolve. The donkey is still reproducing so the donkey can still evolve. So how does their inability to produce a fertile mule stop them from evolving?

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I said many pages ago, that that was a poor example and it is still being brought up.

All it does is show that each has changed from what their common ancestor was, and in different directions. They are too different from each other to produce a fertile line through inter-breeding.

But both can still evolve along their own independent pathway by breeding within their own species.

I am really not understanding why you do not see this.

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One of many problems is that you are building the tree from the branches to the root. I am in part looking at the root to the branches. Perspective has a lot to do with how the evidence is viewed.

razzelflabben said:

I can see how it is possible, that has never been an issue, but I can also see from the evidences of speciation, that it is possible, that evolution from on populations is not possible. There in lies the problem.

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I don't see how evolution from populations is a problem though. the population slowly accumulates the differences, this is evolution. some of those differences will be in the gametes and so on and these slowly build up also, until such a point that two groups, whose gametes were compatible, slowly become incompatible with one another. It's like the hippy jeans that I drew a page or two back. Imagine that an organism can only breed with one that has a similar colour, before the hegs breeding is no problem, but as we get further down the legs, an organism in the left leg gets so different from an organism in the right leg that it can no longer breed with it, although all organisms can always breed with the other organisms in their own leg.

lucaspa said:

"John existed" must be based on overwhelming evidence that John existed. Not that John was possible. However, failing to find John in that particular cave says nothing about whether John existed, does it? For instance, failing to find evidence of your presence in Aberdeen SD says nothing about whether you exist, does it? Yet finding "Razzel was here" in Aberdeen SD does pretty well establish you exist.

So, finding the series of individual fossils that is at the bottom of this post linking two very different taxa is finding the lineages and connections that you consider overwhelming evidence of evolution. Thank you for providing (finally) what you consider overwhelming evidence so that we can show it to you. Now that you have that overwhelming evidence, and your passion is only for truth, you will accept evolution, right?

(Waiting now for Razzel to deny the evidence. Anyone want to bet against me that she won't deny it?)

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I cannot accept or deny what I don't even understand you are trying to get at! Let me read it again and see if I can make sense out of it......no, still not clear. How are you defining evolution. For the point I have been making is the TOE. By evolution, do you mean speciation? I have never denied that. By evolution, do you mean the TOE as I have been discussing? If so, there does not seem to be any connection in the fossil evidence you are presenting to a larger group of evolutionary changes. So again, where is the overwhelming evidence to support the TOE? Does that mean you win the bet, what did you win?

razzelflabben said:

If I put all your posts together, I think what you are saying is that if the new species in not able to reproduce, it is not evolution, but if it is able to reproduce it is evolution. That in and of itself leave a lot of questions, but I will wait to see if I got that right.

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well I haven't been saying that really, I have been saying that the speciation does not occur rapidly, it occurs slowly, with the steady accumulation of small changes. Within a population, those small changes will over time be shared between the members of the population, and so the complete gene pool will be compatible and the organisms will be able to breed. however if we separate the population into two sub populations, the small differences that the sub populations will accumulate will be different to the other sub population, and so they will slowly drift apart from one another.

razzelflabben said:

That is what you are talking about. What I am talking about and have been trying to get people to understand is that if even one "new" species is not a viable breeder, it is an assumption to claim that species evolve. There is question. That question means that the evidence is not overwhelming.

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the problem is that you do not understand speciation. I can't see why you aren't getting it though.

gluadys said:

No, it would only be enough to question the validity of TOE if it was a general rule that new species would have inbreeding difficulties. It is not a general rule. So it is not a problem.

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So we know longer accept that inconsistant data is inconsistant? If a new species is not able to reproduce, it offers questions as to the possibility of what species can and cannot reproduce and what mechanisms allow for reproducable species, etc.

No, from one living population of organisms. The population probably numbered in the millions, and so did the new species. No inbreeding problems.

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And what proof do we have of this?

Now you are mixing up "inbreeding" and "interbreeding" here. Which are you really speaking of---or are you using them synonymously?

I'll repeat how I understand the relevant words. If you disagree with these definitions, please let me know.

breeding---an individual mates with another individual of the same species. This is what we normally see in a new species. No reproductive problems are anticipated.

interbreeding--an individual mates with another individual of a different species (possibly the parent species, or --as with horse and donkey--a sibling species). Here we do anticipate reproductive problems because the species are not the same.

inbreeding--an individual mates with another individual of the same species who is also a very close relative e.g. a parent, child, sibling, aunt, uncle or first cousin. Here we also anticipate reproductive problems, but for a different reason. Because very close relatives not only share the same genes, but very often the same gene alleles, offspring of such matings often inherit a harmful gene allele from both parents. If the parents were not so closely related, the effect of the harmful gene inherited from one parent would be masked by the normal equivalent inherited from the other parent.

In a very small population (and it makes no difference if the species is "old" or "new") inbreeding may be unavoidable, and that is not good for the species.

The main point to make here is that what we normally see in a new species is neither inter-breeding nor in-breeding, but just ordinary breeding.

So, if ordinary breeding is the normal situation, where is the problem?

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The problem is in the word ordinary. For ordinary allows room for the no so ordinary. When my children were born, we expected them to be born health, because that was the norm, the ordinary thing in our family. However, there was still a possibility for things to go wrong and our children not born healthy. The possibility that the population was not able to evolve, but would have become extinct, is is there. In fact, most of the environmental changes we see today are so harsh that the species becomes extinct before it has time to evolve. Does this mean that we are going to assume that no sudden harsh changes occured in the early evolutionary process and therefore, evolution happened? Or do we look at that observation and say, evolution is possible if the changes in the environment were not so harsh as to cause extinct. But it is also possible that the environmental changes we harsh and would have caused extinction if there had not already been a diversity of creatures? Either is jumping to conclusions if we are claiming to know truth.

I answered this post and lost it all so I will condence some things on here since you don't value my opinion anyway, it is a total waste of time

lucaspa said:

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.

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Which is the problem, there is no solid connection with that original population of organisms.

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.

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?

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Yeah, I see problems and questions but I am refusing to see the truth, because the E are the only ones who can know the truth and if we question their evidence, we simply are refussing the truth. I'll wear the label proudly, because I have yet to follow a teaching or a teacher without first examining it and studying it and evaluating it for myself.

[quote If you mean that some evolution is possible, yes, the TOC can accept this.

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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.

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.[/quote] Again, thank you kindly. I don't agree with you and your interpretation of the evidence so therefore I must have reading problems. I think you need to do some research in how to determine reading problems, I can look in the attic and see how many of my college books I still have on the issue. Can I say to you you shouldn't make claims that you are not an expert on, (as I have been told here) because you are too uneducated on the subject of reading problems to discuss the issue or make assumptions. That will clear things up pretty well, only experts are knowledgable enough to discuss the theory. Okay.

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.

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.

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!

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?

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If you don't like the comment, then stop trying to assert it. I have always answered questions to the best of my ability. I have been as comprehensive as is possible. And yet you ignore my opinion to make claims about my inability to understand, the wrong teachings I had, the lack of education I have, and the most recent, reading problem theory. Even when I claim to be too stupid, I further explain my view and object to the assertion that I am not smart enough or knowledgable to think for myself and determine for myself if the evidence is conclusive. I am proud to be stupid if stupid means that I evaluate the evidence for myself rather than relying on a teacher to interpret it for me. Because you know what, even though some here have accused me of following what I have been taught, I assure you that I have never followed any teacher or teaching without first going through a long evaluation of the evidence on my own. So you can follow whatever teaching you want, I reserve the right to examine the info on my own and come to my own conclusions and as of yet you have not provided evidence that is overwhelming for the TOE.

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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And we both contain water as part of our makeup, does that mean that we are the same creature? I am connected to birds in other ways as well, does that mean I will become extinct without the birds? These would be assumptions we could make based on the evidences presented. Sounds like a sound theory to me. How about you? Overwhelming evidence, we both have similar chemical makeups, we are connected on many levels. Yep, we must be the same creatures.

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gluadys said:

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.

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And maybe no one lived here, maybe it was used for baptism only. And maybe it was used for some other ritual. And maybe it was not even used by chrisitans. See the problem is all the maybes, all the questions, that are not answered.

Jet Black said:

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.

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I am beginning to think that I am smarter than many of you here. I get this but this has nothing to do with the point I was making but you people are so convinced that I am not smart enough to understand this that you fail to see the point I am making. Move on, it is obvious you people think you have all knowledge and wisdom and no one can add to your vastness. Get over it and move on. Life is too short for such nonsense.

gluadys said:

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



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?




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.

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You are right of course, BTW racism hurts more people than you can imagine, but that is a story for another thread. But this goes back to some earlier posts in which I asked both sides to stop argueing long enough to talk. You see, the racism issue in the TOE was at one time a viable part of the theory just as the YEC was a viable part of the CT. When you come on these thread, you cannot assume to know what someone believes just because they call themselves E or C or ID or something else. You can discuss how E have moved past the racism belief, or how C has moved away from YE, but you can never assume that because we are living in the year 2004 that everyone is on the same page of understanding the theories. It's all about being quiet long enough to hear what the other person is saying and respecting them enough to value what they are saying as possible then evaluating it to see if you accept what they are saying as truth or not.

razzelflabben said:

I am beginning to think that I am smarter than many of you here.

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oh right you get it. so you can see that speciation occurs, and that there are no breeding problems during the process. good

razzelflabben said:

You see, the racism issue in the TOE was at one time a viable part of the theory just as the YEC was a viable part of the CT.

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no, racism has never been a viable part of evolutionary theory. people have attempted to use evoltion in order to justify their racist behaviour, but that is an independent issue.

razzelflabben said:

And maybe no one lived here, maybe it was used for baptism only. And maybe it was used for some other ritual. And maybe it was not even used by chrisitans. See the problem is all the maybes, all the questions, that are not answered.

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but looking at the evidence you would have to be being intentionally obtuse in order to think that there were no baptisms there and so on.

gluadys said:

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

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questions do not equal falsifications or has no one ever taught you that. Questions are just that, and if they are left unanswered, there is unsignificant proof to claim truth, because we still have unanswered questions.

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.

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Don't worry, I will form a few posts back, to now and hence forth, not respond in any way to assertions and claims of C because it is clear that it is only muddying the water to try and show you what the original theory says and allows room for.

I don't recall you asking before.

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That is because you were to busy trying to explain to me what I already understood because what I was saying didn't jive with what you wanted me to say.

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.

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And what proof do we have that environmental changes were subtle enough to allow for the change. Some species such as the dinos, did become extinct. or maybe they are extinct because they evolved into a different creature. Humm, what would the overwhelming evidence say about that. Which caused thier extinction?

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

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I told you from the beginning that I haven't studied the issue for some years, now you think that is why I think you are asserting that I am stupid, get a life. I alrady know there has been new evidence that I have not kept up with. I openly admitted that. Your assertions have nothing to do with what I do not know, but everything to do with what you assume I know. Which proves that assumptions can and often are wrong. But that is why we should believe the assumptions of E as overwheling proof of the TOE right?

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.

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Agreed, so would believing something to be truth that relies on assumptions to answer the open questions.

Ishmael Borg said:

Razzelflabben.

Friendly suggestion: After almost 1,000 posts, this thread has become unwieldy with all sorts of different questions, claims, and challenges. Maybe you could take the questions you still have and start new threads for each (not too many at a time, though!). Just a suggestion... -Ish

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That would be a great suggestion, but I am afraid that there would be nothing to discuss because I have been told by people on this thread, that all the questions have been answered. That is why the TOE is said to have overwhelming proof, because all the questions have been answered, there are none left.

gluadys said:

Excuse me, but if you have really understood all that, what hole are you speaking of that still needs to be closed. How can it be possible that evolution does not happen when we have directly observed it happening?



How can speciation only prove the possibility of evolution? Speciation is the end-product of evolution. For goodness sakes, species change is evolution even without speciation. When you have species change producing speciation, you have even more evidence than you need to show that evolution is a fact.

What in the world more do you think is needed to show that evolution is a fact, not just a possibility?




Does TOC predict speciation? One species/kind changing until it becomes another species/kind that can no longer inter-breed with the original species/kind?

If you answer yes, please explain how it can predict speciation and still assert that creatures are created "after their kind".

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I think I have finally figured it out, you have not heard a single thing I have posted on all these many pages because you were too busy proving me wrong to hear what I was saying. The evidence is overwhelming that speciation does occur on some level. But, that is much different than the TOE which relies on assumptions about the speciations we have observed. You are claiming overwhelming evidence for speciation (evolution) not the TOE. Am I right? Because from the beginning of my post and every post afterward, I was careful to differenciate between the theory of E as haveing no overwhelming proof and the overwhelming proof for speciation (evolution). Is that the problem that has taken over 100 pages to get too? That you did not read my posts? That you did not understand my claims?

sigh, so now you are changing the definition of overwhelming proof to "something for which there are no questions". so now absolutely nothing is valid anymore. we should drop quantum mechanics and general relativity because there is no overwhelming proof that they are correct. we should turn off our computers, because there is no overwhelming proof that we understand electrons and semicondictors. God and religion is right out, because there are definitely questions about that, and all those murderers and criminals should be let out of jail because clearly there are still questions about what they did...... need I go on?

gluadys said:

No, not at all. Males and females do not have different sets of genes, since both get the same set of genes from both their mother and their father. (with the exception of some genes that are found on the X chromosome, but not on the Y chromosome. And those are just missing from the Y chromosome. No different genes are put in their place.)

We get male and female because the combination of X and Y chromosomes affects the development of the embryo differently than the combination of two X chromosomes. It is a matter of how the genes are expressed, not a matter of having different genes.




Probably quite large, though I couldn't give you an exact figure. What you need to take into account is that there is an intermediate step between asexual reproduction and male/female reproduction.

That is hermaphroditic reproduction. Many plants and animals are hermaphroditic. They are not male and female. They have the reproductive parts of both males and females. Hermaphroditic animals have both ovaries and a penis. They produce both eggs and sperm. They can take the role of either male or female in a mating, and they can mate with every other mature member of their species.

Sometimes they even have duels to determine who will be the male and who will be the female.

http://www.pbs.org/kcet/shapeoflife/episodes/hunt_explo2.html


Now, if you begin with a hermaphroditic species, and everyone having the same genes, you get to a male/female species when some individuals begin to specialize in being male or female.

This is easy to see in plants. Some trees, for example, produce two kinds of flowers, one male and one female. Its not a big step from that to have an all-male plant and an all-female plant.

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Mot a big step but one that I would like to see proof of happening (no fossils please, that discussion is old and dead).

gluadys said:

And finding some lineages and connections (such as in observed speciation) shows that evolution actually happens.

Finding evidence of further lineages and connections provides additional evidence that evolution has happened.

Finding additional evidence of the relatedness of all life supports common descent.

So we have direct evidence that evolution is a fact, and lots of evidence that it is not just a fact today, but has been a fact in the past as well, including evidence of a common ancestor of all living organisms.

And more to the point, we have NO contradictory evidence.

That is what really puts the icing on the cake and makes the evidence in favour overwhelming.

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Right, no questions unansered, no assumptions made, only proof offered. I get your position, but I still see questions that are unanswered and assuptions being made. Sorry, just that dense free thinking stuff just won't let go.