Challenging Evolution

[razzelflabben]

What in the world do you mean by input? How can genetic markers that only exist in reproductive cells exist in both man and chimps?

More information please! You know, this close minded idiot that refused to listen to the evidence, well she is asking for more information.

 

[razzelflabben]

This goes back to her original thesis, (that it took me about thirty reads to understand.)

Razzelflaben is saying that what she calls "elements" of creationism, intelligent design and evolution theories are found in all three theories. You may have noted her asserting for example that TOC can accept a degree of evolution. She also considers the fact that species reproduce "after their kind" to be part of the "original TOC" as found in Genesis, so to the extent that TOE agrees with that, it is an "element" of TOC found in TOE.

She contends that only "elements" of each theory can be disproved----but NOT the WHOLE THEORY. Because to disprove the WHOLE theory, you would have to disprove any element of the theory that is also contained in the other theories.

So, if you have evidence which is accepted by both evolutionists and creationists, there is no way to disprove TOC. Every time TOE appeals to that evidence as support, it is also giving support to creationism.

This concept is behind her insistence that no evidence for evolution is overwhelming or conclusive. It cannot help a person decide between evolution and creationism, because of the "elements" they have in common.

I hope I have explained that right. She can correct me if I have not.

Missed the main point, but move on, it is apparent that you people know more about what I think and believe than I do. Can you tell me more about what I believe so that I can know what to post next. And please make sure to spoon feed it to me, it only takes me a few dozen posts to get a concept I understood back in high school.

 

[gluadys]

Before I dele into this post, let me say that this is new evidence to me and I am trying to learn as we go. But some things don't fit the criteria for overwhelming as I can tell so far.

That's fine. The main thing is to learn.

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?

Because, especially in the US, creationists are making it an issue. They are going to school boards to lobby for the removal of sections of the TOE they disagree with, and demanding equal time for creationism even though it has no scientific support. They are lobbying the state education boards for criteria on teaching TOE that take the guts out of the science. They are demanding "disclaimers" in text books that cast doubt on the validity of TOE.

So, it is indeed an hot issue as it affects our kids and whether or not they will get a good education.

For me, as a Christian, and I know other Christians on this board agree, it is also a serious question because creationism is a perversion of Christianity that brings discredit on Christians in general and on the Christian faith and even on God. It stands in the way of many people taking the claims of Christianity seriously. And it has led to many people abandoning Christianity when they learned how filled with lies creationism is.

That is the main reason I participate in these discussions. As a Christian, I am deeply concerned that creationism is one of the most serious problems we have to deal with in the church.

 

[razzelflabben]

Well, when you do have the time to clarify "kinds" please do so. Because right now your kinds = species. Which is, of course, why Linneaus used the word "species", which is Latin for "kind".

That's a bit petulant, isn't it? You say you believe me, and then deny that by saying the references I gave are in the same category of figment of the imagination as the papers you read. Perhaps you can tell us where to find the papers you read so we can check them out for ourselves? Like I gave you the references for what I say so you can look them up.

Me agreeing is the only way to end or slow down this discussion so why not agree. If you want the references, go back to the beginning of the thread and follow them through.

You didn't answer my question. You just asked one of your own. Not fair. Here's my question again. Please answer it.
How is this permitted in the original TOC? I've looked where you told me to look: Genesis 1 and other cross-references to "kinds" in the Bible, and they all say a kind can only breed with its own kind. Where do you get the idea that making new species/kinds is permitted in TOC?

As to breeding two members of the same species, you know the answer to that from your own kids: the offspring have half the genes of each parent!

There are 2 ways a new species occurs. You said you had a passion for the truth, remember. So sit back, get comfortable, because I'm going to lecture.

1. Adaptation to a new environment. The whole species (all the individuals) can face a new environment. In each generation, some individuals will have characteristics that enable them to face the new environment better than those individuals who don't have the characteristics. Since the individuals with the adaptations will do better surviving and having kids than those individuals that don't. So in the course of generations all the members of the population will get the variations. So, after hundreds of generations, the population isn't the same as it started. Also remember, changes accumulate. It's not just one change, but dozens. They add up. This is what happened to insects with pesticides. Whole species changed because the pesticide use was so widespread. We can't do the breeding experiments because we can't go back in time and get grasshoppers, for instance, from before pesticides were used. But if we could, the changes are so extensive in their biochemistry that they could not breed with present day grasshoppers. One species to one species thru time.

Or a speices can become separated into 2 populations. The populations diverge in their genetic makeup as each accumulates new adaptations to their separate, and different, environments. When brought back into contact, the populations can't interbreed with each other. Two species where there was one.

In each case there is no mixing. The populations changes over generations. You don't mix 2 species together.

2. Hybridization. This is the one in plants. In this case the genome of the hybrid is a mix of the genomes of the two parent species. Some genes from each are kept and some genes from each are tossed out of the genome. Fertility genes seem to be kept, so that the hybrids can breed with each other.

Where do these populations come from?

Look around you. Where do they come from now? From breeding of individuals. The point is that evolution involves populations, not 1 or 2 individuals.

Variations have 2 basic sources:
1. Sexual recombination. Remember, most traits are not caused by a single gene. You need several genes, for instance, to get the shape of your nose. Each person has two forms -- alleles -- of each gene. One from your father and one from your mother. When you make sperm or egg, the cells reshuffle those alleles into combinations you don't have in your body cells. Then there is the shuffle from the other sexual partner. So the kids have variations due to this recombination.

2. Mutations. These are errors in copying the DNA. Asexually reproducing organisms have only this method to get variation.

Now, since in TOC kinds can only breed within a kind, how can separated populations of kinds change enough so that they can't breed with one another again? Don't kinds have to remain as they are created?

I don't think you really have that much time! In terms of natural selection being a means to get designs,
1. Breeders have been using natural selection for thousand of years to design plants and animals the way they want.

2. people use natural selection to design when the design problem is too tough for them. Genetic algorithms are natural selection run by humans where humans set the environment but natural selection does the designing. Natural selecton is even good enough to get patents! www.genetic-programming.com

In terms of natural selection designing plants and animals, there is SO much proof. Please do a search on Pubmed using "natural selection". In the fly experiment producing new kinds, it was natural selection that designed the flies to the different temps and diets. But an experiment I like was done in the wild. The researchers knew the environment well enough to predict ahead of time how natural selection would change the animals.

Evaluation of the rate of evolution in natural populations of guppies (Poecilia reticulata). Reznick, DN, Shaw, FH, Rodd, FH, and Shaw, RG. 275:1934-1937, 1997. The lay article is Predatory-free guppies take an evolutionary leap forward, pg 1880.

This is an excellent study of natural selection at work. Guppies are preyed upon by species that specialize in eating either the small, young guppies, or older, mature guppies. Eleven years ago the research team moved guppies from pools below some waterfalls that contained both types of predators to pools above the falls where only the predators that ate the small, young guppies live. Thus the selection pressure was changed. Eleven years later the guppies above the falls were larger, matured earlier, and had fewer young than the ones below the falls. The group then used standard quantitative morphology to quantify the rate of evolution.

So we have a study in the wild, not the lab, of natural selection and its results. In this study natural selection was measured quantitatvely, and even predicted since it was predicted that, in the absence of predators that fed on large guppies but in the presence of ones that fed on young guppies, the guppies would grow larger and mature earlier to avoid the predators. That is exactly what happened.

Yep, of course you are right, facts are rarely wrong. So what is your point exactly? All of this was weighed in my questions that you have failed to understand and answer so as to lecture me. Bravo, good answer to my questions. I am totally satisfied now. Move on.

 

[gluadys]

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.

Yes, the light is dawning. One correction. If we have a hybrid like the mule which cannot reproduce it is not a new species at all. So we do not have new species which cannot reproduce.

So what we have then are hybrids which cannot reproduce, and new species which can reproduce. Evolution continues through the new species, not through hybrids (unless they also show polyploidy).

 

[razzelflabben]

Not a single single celled organism but a population of them. The source was chemistry. The problem is that there are several ways chemistry could make a population of cells and we don't have enough info yet to determine which, or maybe all, were used.

When protocells form they form in the millions! See the pictures at this website: http://www.siu.edu/~protocell/issue1.htm

It wasn't meant to. Remember the claims. It was only to explain that you don't start out with sexual reproduction. It evolves later.

Apples and oranges. having overwhelming evidence doesn't mean the lack of unanswered questions. 3 or 4 new questions always pop up out of every answer. For instance, wouldn't you consider the evidence for gravity overwhelming? Yet there are lots of unanswered questions: is gravity a warping of space as in Relativity? Is it an exchange of particles? Is it a "force"? But you don't go jumping off tall buildings because gravity is "still a theory" do you?

You are asking me this question? after a big discussion early on on this thread where I suggested that gravity was not all we thought it to be because of new evidences, and I was raked over the coals for even suggesting such a thing, that we still had much to learn about gravity. Then you come here and ask me about gravity. You really do have nerve!

We have enough lineages and enough evidence among living organisms to know they are relatives and have a lineage. We don't need them all. Just like you don't have to drop every rock in the universe to know gravity is true. BTW, there is nothing above theory. Even "laws" are really theories. And as Gluadys and I have both pointed out, we do not "assume". Evolution is a conclusion.

Yes of course, how stupid of me, there are no assumptions to make in the TOE, all questions are answered.

I'm not talking TOE here. I'm talking life from non-life. That isn't part of TOE, remember? Even by your definition, TOE concerns all life diversifying from the common ancestor. Getting the first cell is not in TOE. Gravit isn't in evolution, either. Neither is the theory on the dual nature of light. Or the theory that the sun is the center of the solar system.

Razzel, are you interested in truth or in semantics?

Well, if semantics confuse the facts, then I would guess I am interested in both.

 

[gluadys]

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.

Could you explain the problem a little more completely so that we can understand it? I expect the typo "from on populations" is clouding the message.

 

[razzelflabben]

I beg to differ. You haven't really addressed any of them. You have tried to twist them into something they are not and asserted. Assserting is not addressing.

Now, I have no doubt you found them wanting. That says nothing about their validity. It's a comment on your willingness to pursue truth. Pursueing truth requires that you change your views in the face of evidence. But you don't really do this. You will accept evidence for speciation in that you will assert, without explaining how, that speciation is allowed in TOC. But you will not, under any circumstances, reject TOC or accept evolution.

That is not consistent with a "passion for truth". It is consistent with Berry's essay that you view evolution as a threat to your belief in God.

yea, sure, okay, can you tell me more about myself that I don't know. It is most helpful knowing what I think, feel and believe. But I am afraid that you haven't given me enough to go on, I don't know how to respoond to these posts unless you tell me more about what I think and feel and believe.

 

[razzelflabben]

Right. The common ancestor was a single-celled organism. But not that there was only one such organism!

You've been shown it. Phylogenetic analysis, for one. Remember? Comparative morphology and physiology for another.
Razzel, this isn't honest discussion. To have the evidence shown, not answer it, and then try to claim that the evidence doesn't exist.

Genetic analysis. As we look at the phylogenetic trees constructed from the DNA of living organisms, the sequences unambiguously points to a single-celled organism. Plus, as we go to the earliest fossils, they are all single celled with no multicelled around.

The reason you don't see "inscription" is because you won't go look at the original data. There's only space here to give you summaries. The overwhelming data is in the articles we are referencing for you.

Then please stop making them the same thing. If you disagree with what you were taught about evolution, then say so. But what you are doing is presenting what you were taught as evidence that evolution is that.

Actually what I said is that the theory has changed from what we were taught. HUmm, I missed the part where I said that I agreed with what I was taught. I though I was taught C according to what you people have said. Can you get together and deside what I believe and where that belief system comes from so that we can talk. I am more confused about what I believe the more of you that interpret what I believe. Show some consistancy please, it will help.

LOL! You asked for a list of predictions made by evolution that have been found so you could see "conclusive" evidence for evolution. I provide an extensive list and what do you do? You change the subject! LOL! Sorry, Razzel, but that impassioned post of yours about being "passionate to learn the truth" is being held up to ridicule -- by you. What you are doing now is using every debating trick in the book to avoid acknowledging truth.

Now I didn't even study debate so I don't know all the tricks in the book. What book can I read about debate so that I know the tricks? Actually, if I asked for predictions, I did so in my sleep. What I ask for what overwhelming evidence., conclusive evidence, not predictions. You don't know the difference?

I'm sorry, but you need to live up to the ideals you say you have. If you don't, the tragedy is not that we lose respect for you as an individual, but that you cause ridicule to Christianity. Please stop and think about what you are doing. Think of the consequences to the faith you also say you profess. If the faith is held as loosely as the ideals ... PLEASE, stop the tricks and face the truth.

Huh? What faith have I professed? What respect have any of your shown to start out with? What Ideas have I not lived up too? What tricks am I preforming? You are really confusing me here and that is no sarcism at all. I do not recall telling you what faith I hold to or how that faith effects my life. Am I to assume this is another instance of people here telling me what I think or do you have something to say to me? If you do, say it, but do not assume to know what you do not know. BTW, this type of assuming is the very reason why I do not find the evidence overwhelming to support The TOE, because assuming is required and as you just demonstrated so bravely, assuming is not always truth. How does the old saying go, assuming makes an --- out of u and me

LOL! every prediction I listed either can be tested or has been tested and found! How can something that is constantly tested be impossible to test? Debating tricks bring no glory to God. Running from the truth is not what God wants you to do. God has nothing to fear from evolution. Neither do you. Evolution is how God created.

Who is afraid, if I were afraid, I would never have addressed the original post. I asked for no predictions yet you behave as if predictions are in and of themselves all the evidence needed to find truth. I am afraid to say, that you appear to be the one who is in fear.

 

[razzelflabben]

You lie. You did not examine or address my questions to you, and in them I promised you would find the overwhelming evidence you were looking for.

I must have missed it, point me to it or give it again, and I'll give it a go.

 

[gluadys]

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

Well, the only reason I have kept bringing it up was because you kept saying it showed a problem with TOE and I couldn't see why. You kept saying because the mule was infertile evolution would have to stop, and that is not the case.

I hope we have indeed cleared all that up now as I am as tired of it as you are.

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.

Of course we are going from the branches to the root. We have no choice. The living species we see (the branches) are the only evidence (apart from the fossil record) that we can start with. When Linnaeus started to work on his famous classification system, he had to place species on branches by comparing their characteristics. So he placed creatures similar to dogs on the same branch as dogs, and creatures similar to deer (e.g antelope, elk, moose) on the same branch as deer, and so on. He placed humans on the same branch as apes because of the morphological similarities---not because he thought they were related.

And then he placed these and other branches on larger branches such as the mammal branch, the reptile branch. And then he found he was able to place all of this on a still larger branch (vertebrates) while other animals were placed on branches called arthropods, mollusca, etc. And all of these went on the sub-trunk labelled "animal kingdom" while everything else was put in the "plant kingdom". Of course, Linnaeus new nothing about microscopic life, and he thought fungi were a weird sort of plant. But basically we still create the tree starting with the branches.

The big difference, besides giving fungi their own kingdom and adding new "trunks" for the different kinds of microbes, is that we now understand why species have similar characteristics. We know they inherit their morphology (and physiology and a lot of their behaviour, including such things as courtship rituals) from their parents.

That means many similar characteristics are not co-incidental. They indicate relationship. Species, just like individuals, can have "parents" "children" "siblings" "cousins" etc.

So now the branches are not just a convenient classification system. They are a "family tree" of life. Furthermore, we are no longer limited to guesswork based on similarities of bone structure or shell formation or body plan. Now we can trace relationships more accurately and completely through DNA analysis--like the ERV and ALU trees Jet Black has been talking about.

Fossils help too, by giving us examples of what species existed in the past, and sometimes confirming that one branch (#23) did in fact come from larger branch #16 and not from larger branch #15. e.g. the bird branch came from the dinosaur branch, not from the crocodile branch.

But most of the work of constructing a phylogeny has to be based on living species and working out the relationships between them.

If you have any friends who are interested in geneology and drawing up their family trees, you will find it much the same. They may start out knowing something about their grandparents and even a great-grandparent or two, but they have to use the same process of working from the branches (current generation) back toward the root, because they don't know until they start looking who their great-great-great-grandparent was.

 

[gluadys]

How are you defining evolution. By evolution, do you mean speciation?

Yes, speciation followed by more speciation and more speciation into many different branches over billions of years resulting in all the species we see today. That is what we mean by evolution.

By evolution, do you mean the TOE as I have been discussing?

I don't know because I am not clear on what TOE as you have been discussing it is. But if it is not speciation, then it is not TOE. It is a straw man and deserves a decent cremation.

 

[razzelflabben]

No, you were saying that a and b produce c but that c could not reproduce with c. Horses and donkeys making mules and mules being sterile with other mules.

you need to reread the post or I need to stop posting in my sleep.

The only demonstration of that was my post on hybridization. Most of the posts have been talking about a population A that produces populations B and C where A breeds with A, B breeds with B, C breeds with C but not A with B, A with C, or B with C.

That's what I tried to show you in the references I gave you on the evolution of sexual reproduction. The basic steps are:
1. Bacteria share genes. They do this now by copying a portion of their genome into a separate strand of DNA called a "plasmid". Bacteria then exchange plasmids passing the DNA to another cell and getting DNA from the other cell.

2. Instead of making just a portion of the DNA into a plasmid, a single celled organism copying the entire DNA strands. BTW, each chromosome is a DNA strand and then sending one strand to the other cell and getting a strand back. Now you have an organism that has two copies of each chromosome instead of one. A diploid organism -- we are diploids

3. Having the single celled organism occasionally come together to make a primitive multicelled organism. Nearly all bacteria do that now. Once in a colony, the cells specialize a bit. But a good modern example is the amoeba Dictyostelium is one-celled. It mostly reproduces asexually. But when food is low, several Dictyostelium will reproduce sexually. Since they are one-celled, there is no 'male' or 'female', it's much simpler than that, but still sexual reproduction. Then they aggregate into a multicelled organism that even makes a primitive eye. The organism sends out "baby" Dictyostelium encased in protein (spores) to try to find a better spot with more food.

3. Once you have a multicelled organism, then comes the necessity of speciallized sex cells. The volvox is an animal of about 20-100 cells. It has two types of cells: the body cells and the sex cells. Since they live in water, one volvox will send it's sex cells into the water to go to another volvox and combine with it's sex cells to make a "baby". Any volvox can send the cells out or receive them. So there is no 'male' and 'female' as we understand it.

4. Specialize the male and female role. There are several intermediate steps in this among living animals, too.

But can one kind change into another kind?

What was the name of Darwin's book? Origin of the Species. So, once we see the origin of species, evolution too is a fact. Remember, that the earth is round is a theory. Any doubt that this is fact? The sun at the center of the solar system is a theory. Any doubt about it? That objects attract is a theory. Do you ever doubt it? Evolution is just like that. It is a theory but the observation makes it a fact.

Is the earth round? Most likly, we have photos, mathamatics, and can fly around it. Very small margin or error. overwhelming evidence. The sun at the center of the solar system? maybe, maybe not, we can't even be sure we know what the entire solar system is. Reasonal margin of error. NOt overwhelming. Object attract? Are we talking about gravity? We see it every day, but new evidence suggests, there is much about gravity that we do not know. questionable evidence. Evolution is like which one?

See above. I'm afraid you do not understand all the implications of theory and fact.

Maybe you better explain it again, a few hundred times please!

Actually, the main topic has become whether or not there is overwhelming evidence for the TOE, ... we still lack overwhelming evidence.

We don't lack overwhelming evidence since your admission that speciation is a fact. That's it. That's evolution! Game, set, and match![/quote] So you are telling me that the entire TOE is speciation? What does all this single celled population stuff have to do with the theory then? Comon ancestor, etc?

Observations support theories, not the other way around. The fossil record overewhelmining supports TOE. Delt with,

But evolution does not work in one generation.

Why not? If TOC is really a scientific theory, then it must be observed thru scientific methods. When was the last time anyone observed species coming into existence out of nothing?

It has all the problems of TOC. After all, TOC could just as easily be by alien genetic engineering as God zapping species into existence. However, in each case, you end up with genomes that are indpendent of other genomes, because they are manufactured, not evolved from common ancestors. So phylogenetic analysis falsifies the alien theory as well as TOC.

And we could detect such a thing. I work in the lab with gene engineered animals. A mouse line that has been gene engineered to have a bacterial gene for an enzyme. Another mouse line has been gene engineered to have a bacterial gene called green fluoresent protein. The rats literally glow green in the dark under UV light. Both these mice lines are discontinuous with previous mice, because the genes were introduced literally from one generation to the next. So the ancestors of the mice lines don't have the gene. If we would do the phylogenetic analysis on wild type mice and the ROSA and GFP mice, they would be "independent" observations.

Actually, we do. But notice, Razz, that these "scientists" never submitted their papers to peer-review by scientists who did not already share their ideas! When I submit a paper, guess who gets to decide whether it will be published? Scientists who are my competitors and disagree with me! I have to convince them that the data and conclusions are valid. These guys didn't have to do that. So ... they have the same problem you do: no matter what the evidence, they won't admit that it is overwhelming. Not because the evidence isn't overwhelming, but because they are so wedded to TOC that they cannot face the truth.

Yeah, we'll go with all that so we can move on. I understand what you are saying, but it isn't about a belief system, it is about what is not there. That being answers to all the questions. See the above.

 

[razzelflabben]

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.

So we call them hybrids then? Is this the term we use for all non breedable species?

 

[razzelflabben]

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.
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.

I'm a bit confused about the control group. If the control group is the same thing we are testing, how are they the control group? I mean, isn't that counterproductive in this case?

y true, disproving the TOC doesn't prove the TOE, and vice versa
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
well personally I just like discussing it. Biology and evolution are absolutely fascinating subjects, and I really like learning about new stuff.

Science bores me, I guess that is because I am a phylosipher at heart, but I do like to learn. And I find much about science fasinating, I just can't always mimick it back the way I should, has a lot to do with how I think.

 

[gluadys]

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.

We know from observation whether a species is extinct or not. I still don't see the problem. As long as we have species that reproduce we have evolution.

The population probably numbered in the millions, and so did the new species.

And what proof do we have of this?

Because when proto-cells are produced (see references in lucaspa's posts) they are produced in the millions. So cells derived from protocells would also number in the millions, billions, trillions even. So a sub-set of that population can also number in the millions or more.

In fact, most of the environmental changes we see today are so harsh that the species becomes extinct before it has time to evolve.

Yes, that is how extinction happens. The species does not develop breeding problems. It develops problems keeping individual organisms alive long enough to breed. They die of predation or hunger or disease before they get a chance to reproduce.

Does this mean that we are going to assume that no sudden harsh changes occured in the early evolutionary process and therefore, evolution happened?

Nope. Geology shows that conditions have sometimes been very harsh in the past as well. At one point so much of the earth was under snow and ice that it is called "snowball world". Many, many, many species went extinct at that time. IIRC, the estimate is that nearly 98% of species did not make it through that time to when the weather became more livable.

Another point of mass extinction was at the end of the Permian period. Something happened at the junction of the Permian period and the Triassic period that followed it that led to the extinction of the majority of species living then.

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.

Actually some scientists (e.g. Niles Eldredge) believe the conditions which led to mass extinction may have speeded up evolution. You will note that although a great many species became extinct under harsh conditions, not all of them did. (Otherwise we wouldn't be here.) When the harsh conditions disappeared and the climate was gentler again, these few surviving species had a whole world to themselves without the predators or diseases or competitors they had faced in the past. The fossil record indicates that not long after a mass extinction, there is a period of very rapid evolution as the surviving species spread into new territories and ecological niches and adapt to them.

 

[razzelflabben]

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.

I think my biggest problem is not in the concept, but in the transitions from single cell to male female species. I understand the ideas that were presented explaining it here, but there are things that don't make sense about it. I can try to word it, but I fear that would be futile. So I'll let you have a go at it first.

 

[Ishmael Borg]

So we call them hybrids then? Is this the term we use for all non breedable species?

By definition, all species are breedable. There's no such thing as a non-breedable species. Hybrids are crosses between two species, they are not members of a single species.

 

[razzelflabben]

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.

Then is this statement true or false?

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.

 

[razzelflabben]

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.

What if, the cave was prepared, and then a bear or a lion took up residence in it before it was used. Instead of killing the bear or lion, they left, and set up another cave?