Challenging Evolution

[Jet Black]

strange then, how every biological statement that MrV has made about evolution is flat out wrong. It's a good thing you didn't take biology - you would have failed.

 

[doubtingmerle]

So now we are suppose to believe the TOE because peer review says so? How does one find truth? At least in your opinion?

I think this comes to the core of the problem. How do we find scientific truth? How do we discover the nature of light? How do we learn about chemicals? How do we learn about biological diversity?

You seem to know little about the scientific method. Scientific progress is based on experiments--many experiments. Are we all required to do every experiment? No! We could never do that. So scientists have developed a remarkable system. They do an experiment and they write about what they observed, and what it's probable implications are. Then other scientists review their writings, a process known as peer review. If, after a thorough attempt to pick out the flaws in the process, the article still appears to be valid, the article is then allowed to be published in a scientific journal. Other scientists are invited to do follow-up experiments, to see if they can further substantiate and build on the claims, or to see if they can find alternate explanations or even disconfiming evidence. That is the process.

This is what all of our advancement in scientific knowledges is based on. And it works. Based on this system, we have learned many facts based on the conclusive evidence found.

It seems to me that your basic tact here is to try to discredit the ability of science to find such facts in at least one field of study, the TOE. And so you repeat like a mantra, "There is no conclusive evidence." And you seem to insist that science cannot tell either way.

But I do not think that, when you are with your church friends, that you tell them you cannot tell whether the TOE is true.

For it seems to me that you base your decisions on another source--the Bible as you interpret it. So your tact seems to be to discredit the validity of scientific findings in this field, and to then turn to a different source of knowledge.

You have been shown evidence over and over again. But it is never enough. Why not? It seems to me that no amount of evidence would be enough for you. For you do not trust the source, that is, the accumulated reults of scientific investigation as reported in the peer review journals.

If you had only gotten a grasp of what the scientific method is all about, I think this thread would have been much shorter.

 

[Jet Black]

Are we talking about overwhelming evidence, or reasonable doubt?

I think you are changing your definitions here. initially you were looking for overwhelming evidence, and repeatedly denied that the vast amounts of correlated evidence were overwhelming - many of the prior assumptions you made were wrong (you assumed that the DNA was obtained from the fossil record iirc), and many of the links you made between different bits of the evidence were wrong (you assumed that the phylogenies generated by ERVs were somehow constructed from phylogenies based on fossils, also wrong, the phylogenies are constructed completely independently). the problem was that you never defined what overwhelming evidence is. now you are swithcing to reasonable doubt, but the problem is that all your points of reasonable doubt are strawmen versions of evolution, or misunderstandings, such as the speciation issue. I am pretty sure that you aren't stupid, but there seems to be somewhat of a mental roadblock there to your understanding of the evidence presented to you. It could well be the rapid pace of the thread, or it could be your preconcieved notions of what evolution is that you cannot let go of, I don't know.

 

[gluadys]

But overwhelming evidencce for the TOE would include the observation speciation beyond the species level. Otherwise, if is only assumptions.

As noted earlier, this is an incorrect assumption about TOE.

I thought it would be useful to go over several of the incorrect assumptions about TOE that have led to misunderstanding, and compare them to what TOE actually says.

Incorrect assumptions:

1.Species begin as one or two individuals.
1a. The common ancestor of all living things was a single cell.

2. Evolution relies heavily on the inter-breeding of two different species.
2a. Since inter-breeding of two different species often leads to reproductive problems in the resulting "new species" evolution must soon come to a halt when breeding in the "new species" is no longer possible.

3. Evolution only begins with speciation. Overwhelming evidence for evolution must demonstrate evolution occurring beyond the species level i.e. a daughter species of a different genus or family than the parent species.

Corrections:

1. Species begin as populations.
1a. The common ancestor of all living things was a population of single-celled organisms. This population probably numbered in the billions, even trillions, right from the outset.

2 & 2a. Evolution does not rely heavily on inter-breeding of two different species. A much more common form of evolution is the breaking up of a population into two or more groups which each keep breeding separately. Or simply species change in one species until it becomes a new species. Neither of these brings about breeding problems.

And, in the instance where inter-breeding of two species does lead to evolution, the hybridization is accompanied by polyploidy which also gets around breeding problems.

Result: all new species are viable breeders.

3. All new species are closely related to the parent species, such that they are in the same genus. There are no jumps in a single speciation from one genus or family to another genus or family. Only species to species. We get higher orders through the repetition of many speciations over time.


Now this is a lot of new learning about the TOE. And I expect it will take time to absorb it all, and to absorb the implications.

But it does show that many of the unanswered questions that puzzled you were not real problems with TOE, but the real problem was that your understanding of TOE was faulty.

Because even though much of this is new to you, most of it is not new to the TOE. Darwin did not know about polyploidy, but he did know that crossing two different breeds or two different species was not the way evolution works. He says so right in the very first chapter of Origin of Species. And he was also insistent, right from the first, that evolutionary change is always small scale, within species, and at most a speciation---never a jump. Large-scale change is a result of the accumulation of many small changes.

I am sure you still have many questions. But if you learn this much, and drop the faulty assumptions about TOE you began with, then at least the questions can be based on the real TOE instead of a straw man TOE.

 

[Jet Black]

I think that is a good approach. we should probably start again and go over any misunderstandings of evolutionary theory. there is no point trying to discuss things like ERVs if the underlying understanding ef the theory is flawed.

 

[Paul-martin]

TOA and EVR what do it stand for?

 

[Jet Black]

ERVs are Endogenous RetroViral Sequences. here is a little snippet of a post I am preparing.


Retroviruses are a class of viruses that have their genetic material in the form of RNA and consist of groups such as the oncoviruses (e.g. HTLV-1) and lentiviruses (e.g. HIV). Normally DNA is transcribed into RNA before being read in order to produce proteins, however retroviruses use Reverse Transcriptase in order to take their own RNA and integrate it into the organisms own DNA. Like all genetic processes however, there is a risk of inaccuracy, and sometimes a retrovirus may become crippled by a mutation during reverse transcription, and hence may not be able to reproduce itself as a normal virus would.

Endogenous retroviruses may embed themselves into any cell in the body, and this includes the gametes as well as the somatic cells. If an ERV occurs in a gamete that goes on to fertilise an egg (or be fertilised by a sperm) then the ERV will be present in every single cell of the new organism.

 

[gluadys]

TOA and EVR what do it stand for?

And if TOA is a typo for TOE, then it means Theory Of Evolution.

 

[lucaspa]

But overwhelming evidencce for the TOE would include the observation speciation beyond the species level. Otherwise, if is only assumptions.

Razzel, there are only species! "beyond the species level" is simply groups of species made by humans. Species is the only biological reality.

I see what you are doing is moving the goalposts. First you wanted evidence of speciation. Apparently you have gotten that to where you can't deny it. So, rather than accept evolution as the way God created the diversity of life, you now change the requirements to evolution beyond the species level.

OK, two comments.
1. We can meet that one, too.
Muntzig, A, Triticale Results and Problems, Parey, Berlin, 1979. Describes whole new *genus* of plants, Triticosecale, of several species. That's among living species. In terms of the fossil record having individuals connecting species thru higher taxa (like the pictures of the snail species I showed you), there are transitional series connecting genera, families, orders, and even classes! Mammals and reptiles are examples of a class. So, here are the references:
Transitional individuals from one class to another
1. Principles of Paleontology by DM Raup and SM Stanley, 1971, there are transitional series between classes. (mammals and reptiles are examples of a class)
2. HK Erben, Uber den Ursprung der Ammonoidea. Biol. Rev. 41: 641-658, 1966.
Transitional individuals from one order to another
1. C Teichert "Nautiloidea-Discorsorida" and "Actinoceratoidea" in Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology ed RC Moore, 1964
2. PR Sheldon, Parallel gradualistic evolution of Ordovician trilobites. Nature 330: 561-563, 1987. Rigourous biometric study of the pygidial ribs of 3458 specimens of 8 generic lineages in 7 stratgraphic layers covering about 3 million years. Gradual evolution where at any given time the population was intermediate between the samples before it and after it.
Transitionals across genera:
1. Williamson, PG, Paleontological documentation of speciation in cenozoic molluscs from Turkana basin. Nature 293:437-443, 1981. Excellent study of "gradual" evolution is an extremely fine fossil record.

But the other, more serious, issue for me is: why are you so insistent on turning your back on God? Remember, God created! Thus, everything we see in Creation had to be put there by God. Why are you so insistent on denying what God is so clearly telling you?

This is the theory, but what evidence so we have to support the Theory. See how different the TOE is from the speciation we observe? We are assuming that the speciation continues into these extended groups. Where is the proof that they do. I know all the DNA, etc. , what those are not observations, they are experiments that predict.

1. The DNA, etc are not experiments that predict, they are consequences of the process. That is, if evolution produced the extended groups, then this is what we should see! The DNA, etc. are indeed observations. We see them. But those observations are also consequences. Since we see the consequences, we know the event happened. Let's try a different example. If a meteor hits the earth, consequences of that are 1) a crator and 2) fragments of the meteor. So we look at Meteor Crator in Arizona. We see 1) a crator and 2) find fragments of the meteor. Therefore, we conclude a meteor hit the earth even tho we didn't see it. Same with crators on the moon.

Razzel, this is the same as all of science. I'm just completed experiments where I put adult stem cells (ASCs) into a bone defect in rats. So, I started with a bone defect with a spongy polymer filled with ASCs. Eight weeks later I have bone in the gap. I didn't observe the process, did I? The bone was inside the rat, so I couldn't observe it. I also had a marker in the ASCs so that I can tell the ASCs from the rat's own cells. When I look at the bone in the gap, I see this marker in the bone cells in the new bone in what was the defect. So ... I conclude that the ASCs turned into bone cells and made the bone in the defect.

You do the same in your everyday life: look at consequences and figure out what happened even if you weren't there to see it. You are sitting at home and there is a storm. Suddenly your power goes off. You conclude that the storm has caused your power to be interrupted: either knocking down a power line or knocking out a transformer. You didn't see the power line go down, but you know that the consequence of that action is that your power goes off.

I want overwhelming evidence if you are going to claim it.

Yeah, what isn't clear? we have a population of organisms, they are reproducing asexually, evolving into organisms that contain both male and female reproductive organs, who evolve into male and female of the same species. Two problems, 1. how did the evolving species become the same species, same mutation, I can predict your answer, but I want to hear it.
2. What mechanism would require seperate male and female organisms. I canot think of any case in which this would be necessary for survival of the species if reproduction was going on.

1. They already were the same species, remember? Remember when I said that a new variation appears in one member of the population. If that variation confers an advantage to that individual in the Struggle for Existence, then the individual survives and has more kids than any other individual in the population. Since the variation/advantage is inherited by the kids, you gradually increase the number of individuals and the proportion of the individuals in the population that have the variation/advantage. After several generations all the individuals have the variation. Now, if you don't understand how this happens, ASK ME! So, you still have the "same species" but it isn't identical to the original population. Because it is different and separated in time, we call it a new "species", but it is connected by a smooth transition of individuals back to the original population.

2. Why would it be advantageous to have male and female? This is reverse engineering. We are looking at male and female and figuring out the advantage over the volvox. Remember the Volvox? About 20 or so cells, some body cells and the rest sex cells. The Volvox just puts the sex cells into the water and some of them make it to another Volvox and fertilize its sex cells to make new Volvox. But this is very inefficient, isn't it? Most of those cells get lost. Now, it took energy and materials to make the sex cells, but that is wasted in the ones that get lost. So, having dedicated male and female cuts down the inefficiency. Especially if one of the (female) makes a sex cell that has most of the material and makes sure that it is placed where the male sex cells can find it. So you get fish where the female lays the eggs in an open nest and the male sprays his sperm over them. But this too is inefficient. A lot of the sperm gets lost. What's more, from the male's standpoint, if another male comes along and sprays, some of the eggs will get fertilized by that other male. Much more efficient if there is a penis and vagina such that all the sperm are deposited right next to the eggs. And voila'! So any individuals lucky enough to have that variation will make more offspring and those kids will have the same variation. You have the essentials of sexual reproduction as humans do it.

BTW, Whoohoo! I have over 1,000 rep points!

 

[mrversatile48]

I will can these kind of remarks when people stop treating me like I don't know the difference between interbreeding and breeding. I say that a species that cannot breed becomes extinct, and I get pages of posts explaining interbreeding to me. If I was talking about interbreeding, I would have specified interbreeding. This type of response make me feel like you people view me as an uneducated idiot and though I view myself as stupid, I assure you that is not what the tests, and people who know me think. I would appreciate being treated with this type of respect, if you intend this type of comment to be dropped.

..believe me, Razz, you are nobody's fool: you are highly intelligent, perceptive & articulate

& whenever you, or I, or any other believer, come across anything that we don't know, we know the One Who knows all things

God bless!

Ian

 

[lucaspa]

Razzel, take a look at the diagram here: http://pages.britishlibrary.net/charles.darwin/texts/origin_6th/origin6th_04.html

It shows how the formation of new species inevitably leads to the formation of new genera and other "higher taxa".

"Low rank taxa--the many species known to us--have a real existence in nature, in that they consist of populations or morphologically similar, actually or potentially interbreeding individuals which live during a continuous segment of geologic time. Transitional fossils between morphologically distinct, chronologically successive species require us thus to conclude that a new species results from the operation of natural reproductive processes upon successive generations of a population without the intervention of special creative acts; i.e., through what the scientist terms "evolutionary processes.
"On the other hand, higher taxa--those above species-rank, from genera up through phyla--do not have a real existence in nature in quite the same sense that species do. Instead, higher taxa of various ranks are simply the scientist's mental abstractions by which the many species comprising the organic world are grouped according to the various degrees of over-all morphologic similarity displayed. Species which are very similar may be grouped within one genus, while species which have only a little in common may be grouped together only in the same class or phylum. Since higher taxa are no more that aggregations of species, transitional fossils between higher taxa indicate simply that, in time, the same natural ancestor-descendent process producing new species eventually produces a chain of successive and progressively more different species, whose final member will be drastically different in morphology from its initial member and will therefore be classified by taxonomists in a different high-rank taxon." Science and Creationism, 1983

 

[Jet Black]

Your going to have to explain that one better, I don't understand how, speciation is the TOE. There is more to the theory than observed speciation. For example, if I introduced you to my children, you could easily believe they are my children. But how can you assume that I did not adopt them? That is an assumption that the evidence does not predict.

That is how I see speciation, it is easy to believe that they happen (are my children) but to assume that equals the TOE is like assuming my children are adopted or not.

there was quite alot more evidence there:

Observed speciation together with the observation of many of the mechanisms which lead to speciation (mutations, variation, genetic drift, natural selection) constitutes overwhelming evidence for TOE since this is what TOE predicted. And one can add in other predictions of TOE that have also been observed to be fact: the way DNA evidence of various sorts all end up creating the same phylogenetic tree, and the way that tree matches trees drawn up on the basis of morphology or geography or fossil distribution.

so we might look at you and your children and think that they are your children because they look like a mix of you and their father. but we can also look at their birth certificates, your birth certificates, marriage certificates and so on (for which there is no reason that they should match up unless there is an ancestral relationship) we can DNA fingerprint them, you and their father (again there is no good reason other than ancestry as to why these should all match up) we can do a mitochondrial analysis of the children and you - we will find that they all share the same mitochondria as you (for which there is no good reason other than ancestry) and we can do a y-chromosome sequencing of the father and the boys.... same thing, we will find that they all share the same y chromosome. Essentially what we are doing is the same as we do with evolutionary studies of biological organisms. we take all these independent bits of evidence, the looks, the DNA, the birth certificates, the mitochondria, the y-chromosomes, and we build up a picture.

 

[mrversatile48]

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?

It's largely covered in that series of Bible prophecies I posted @ 2 hours ago

It's the same spirit of antichrist that was in the crowd who told Pilate, "Away with this Man - crucify Him - we will not have this man to reign over us!"

It's as in the prophecies about folk in the last days throwing off all restraint & doing only what they want to do

It's the desparation to pretend that there is no "Judge of all Earth to Whom we must all give account"

But the day of wrath & judment approaches fast

The sands of time are running out

Have you ever read the end of Revelation 9?

Even after a third of mankind is killed in war begun @ R Euphrates, the survivors still refuse to change their hearts & their ways - still refuse to repent of their adulteries, thefts, mutrders & their witchcraft, their worshipping demons

We even see the stage set for total Armageddon - which is when the armies of the world - a UN force - under Antichrist, invade Israel & attack God's holy city: Jerusalem

Yet, as I began to post from Isaiah 53, but had to go, that amazingly accurate prophecy @ Jesus includes Him being as 1 from whom men hide their faces

An even older prophecy - @ 1000 BC - was astoundingly accurate in detail about crucifixion, long before it had even been thought of

I'll leave open-minded folk to read the harrowing Psalm 22 on www.BibleGateway.org

Readers, if you don't know Jesus as your Lord & Saviour, now is the time to let Him re- create you from the inside

God bless!

Ian

 

[mrversatile48]

liar. well you may have read it, but judging by all the errors you make when describing it, I doubt you actually understood a word of it.

"Let God be true & all men/women liars"

I doubt very much that you have read much of Man's Maker's Manual: the Bible

Which is far more beneficial

Vital in fact

 

[lucaspa]

Going to church doesn't make 1 a Christian any more than going to McD's makes you a burger

And you have no idea that the Christians who disproved creationism were not Christians! How do you account for the fact that so many of them were ministers?

If God says 1 thing & all 6.5 billion people disagree, God is the 1 that is right

And what God says in His Creation is right, even tho you have your man-made interpretation of Genesis 1.

"& the evening & the morning were the 2nd/3rd/4th/5th/6th day..

"in the day God created the heaveins and the earth" So God said two things in the Bible.

God said, Let there be...

"Let the waters bring forth ..." "Let the land bring forth ... " "And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air" Again, different things.

& it was good/perfect"

Changed the translation! It is not "perfect". Only good.

Thank you for showing worship of the Bible and not God. This is why Biblical literalism and creationism is false preaching. It denies that God created and subsititutes woriship of a false idol (man-made literal interpretation of Genesis) over God.

 

[Jet Black]

"Let God be true & all men/women liars"

I doubt very much that you have read much of Man's Maker's Manual: the Bible

Which is far more beneficial

Vital in fact

nice dodge:

judging by all the errors you make when describing [Evolutionary theory], I doubt you actually understood a word of it.

unless you want to explain why you make all the errors that you do? I mean, it seems rather odd to me that someone who claims to have a good knowledge of evolution would make errors like these:

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

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

they do a bonza dinosaur burger to thius very day!!!!!!

(in response to)

So articulate one, give us one example of a "most complex" fossil found in the Cambrian.

back to quotes from you

There was definitely a hoax made up solely from the tooth of an extinct pig...

........as in the tooth of an extinct pig that was used to hoax false ET evidence called either Nebraska Man or Piltdown Man

Both were deliberate hoaxes

These are all trivial errors that you are making, which anyone with a good undertanding of biology and evolution just wouldn't make.

 

[Andy D]

I havent got time to read all this post or all the threads on this topic at the moment but considering the argument is that TE's also believe in God, stating that Genesis is to be read allegorical isnt good enough. Please can a TE explain how Genesis fits in with Evolution? Why was it even written and in the Bible if it doesnt have a reason to be there? I dont see the point in God putting some myth in the Bible that has no point at all to anyone. In fact I prefer to rip that part out of my Bible if it has no reason to be there. Of course as a creationist I find it has lots of meaning and reason to be there. I dont find any arguments for why the creation account couldnt have at least been written in the right order to match evolution.

On another thread I am waiting for an answer regarding where Man's soul came from too. When we became man and in the image of God?

 

[Jet Black]

I havent got time to read all this post or all the threads on this topic at the moment but considering the argument is that TE's also believe in God, stating that Genesis is to be read allegorical isnt good enough. Please can a TE explain how Genesis fits in with Evolution? Why was it even written and in the Bible if it doesnt have a reason to be there? I dont see the point in God putting some myth in the Bible that has no point at all to anyone. In fact I prefer to rip that part out of my Bible if it has no reason to be there. Of course as a creationist I find it has lots of meaning and reason to be there. I dont find any arguments for why the creation account couldnt have at least been written in the right order to match evolution.

On another thread I am waiting for an answer regarding where Man's soul came from too. When we became man and in the image of God?

do us a favour and start another thread. we're having enough trouble with MrVersatile perpetually (rudely) interrupting the rest of the conversation. Would you walk up to a group of people in the street, butt into their conversation and start talking about something entirely different to what they are talking about? no? well don't do it here either. thanks.

 

[mrversatile48]

well the mule is a hybrid, but it is an infertile one. It exists because the horse and the donkey species haven't totally separated, but they are separate enough to not be able to mix the genes in their gene pools (the mule doesn't really count, because no genes can cross from the horse gene pool to the donkey one, since any crosses are infertile) actually some hinnys (female mules) can breed, but it is very rare. I think there have been about 2 pregnant hinnies on record.

..all this, & much more, is sheer speculation, guess-timation & interpretation!

I've often recommended Job 38/41, where God asks the questions & demands answers

Obviously, I don't have time to type 4 chapters out, but it makes great reading, so I'll just flip thru & put a few highlights...

"Then God answered Job from the storm..

"Who is this that makes my purpose unclear by saying things that are not true?...

"Where were you when I made the Earth's foundation?..

"Who marked off how big it should be?...

"What were the Earth's foundations set on?..

"Who did all this while the morning stars sang together? Who did this while the angels shouted with joy? ..

"Who shut the doors to keep the sea in when it broke thru & was born?..

It was I who said to the sea, 'You may come this far but no further ...

"Have you ever given orders for the morning to begin?...

"Have you shown the dawn where its place was?...

"Have you ever gone to where the sea begins?..

"Have the gates of death been open to you? ...

"Do you understand the great width of the Earth?...

"Surely you know, if you were already born when all this happened!

"Have you lived that many years?"

I'll leave it there, but can any reader imagine facing 4 chapters of questions like that, eyeball to eyeball with the Almighty?

I'm not trying to be rude to Jet, Ra or the others

Just to wake you up to the urgent reality

& don't any of you think you can somehow torture me with your stubbornness: Ezekiel 2/3 is very clear that, when God gives warning - (in HIs Word or its fulfilment) - my only duty is to pass on those warnings

As must any true servant of Christ

The decision is yours

 

[Ishmael Borg]

I havent got time to read all this post or all the threads on this topic at the moment but considering the argument is that TE's also believe in God, stating that Genesis is to be read allegorical isnt good enough. Please can a TE explain how Genesis fits in with Evolution? Why was it even written and in the Bible if it doesnt have a reason to be there? I dont see the point in God putting some myth in the Bible that has no point at all to anyone. In fact I prefer to rip that part out of my Bible if it has no reason to be there. Of course as a creationist I find it has lots of meaning and reason to be there. I dont find any arguments for why the creation account couldnt have at least been written in the right order to match evolution.

On another thread I am waiting for an answer regarding where Man's soul came from too. When we became man and in the image of God?

Isn't this thread enough of a monster? Please start new threads for your questions. Thanks.