Darwin's Evolution?

[seebs]

Originally posted by Stormy
LiveFreeOrDie : Show me cause.

Must everything be intentional?

 

[Jerry Smith]

Stormy,

You are speaking of evolution as if there were an Intelligence to it.

When describing the possible "slowing" of evolutionary trends, one need not use the cashier line example. Another example could be soap bubbles in a bathtub. Once the surface is full of bubbles, you see fewer bubbles forming on the surface in the same amount of time. As an anology to evolution, it breaks down after that (as does the check-out line example), but that kind of gets the picture across. It relates to the filling of the available environmental "niches".

If not; do not talk about evolution as being able to reason and think.

Try again.

Better?

(by the way, as to the over-all trends of evolution, whether it has slowed in the last few million years or continues at a constant pace is a relatively esoteric matter of inquiry. It doesn't bear on the whether or how of evolution very directly, and can safely be reserved for after the time when the whether and how questions are settled.)

 

[Cantuar]

God as First Cause becomes that entity which designed and set in motion all things in their quest to become.

I thought you said you had ann open mind. And your whole post has you stating the entirely unwarranted conclusion that people who accept evolution are all atheists. And the other little piece of propaganda that everybody engaged in science research is really looking for God, whether they know it or not. Why didn't you just say that in your first post and save us the bother of responding, since you already knew what you thought of evolution and the people who accept it and the people who study it and you weren't going to pay attention to anybody who said othewise?

 

[Stormy]

I thought you said you had an open mind.

An open mind does not mean an empty mind.

And your whole post has you stating the entirely unwarranted conclusion that people who accept evolution are all atheists.

I accept Evolution by Intelligent design. I am not an Atheist. I am a Christian. You must be confused.

And the other little piece of propaganda that everybody engaged in science research is really looking for God, whether they know it or not.

I do not believe that science can even allow God into the equation. Supernatural is not within their realm. But I do believe that if science were able to answer all the questions of Creation then it would surely have to include God.

Why didn't you just say that in your first post and save us the bother of responding, since you already knew what you thought of evolution and the people who accept it and the people who study it and you weren't going to pay attention to anybody who said othewise?

You are off the mark. There is not one post from the beginning to the end that I did not stay with my thoughts that God is the initiator and guiding force behind evolution. I did pay attention. I am still studying evolution. I find most of the reasoning flawed.
Not that evolution is not true... but nothing was random. Mutants we are not!

 

[RufusAtticus]

Stormy,

In all honesty I think you have some misconceptions about evolution. In an effort to address them, would you please tell us what evolution means to you and some observations form the natural world that contradict it. If you have already done this, then I appoligize and ask you to direct me to that post.

 

[npetreley]

Originally posted by seebs
BTW, your quote from Romans refers to pagans, not atheists.

Still waiting for your brilliant exegesis.

 

[AtheistArchon]

I accept Evolution by Intelligent design. I am not an Atheist. I am a Christian. You must be confused.


[...]

You are off the mark. There is not one post from the beginning to the end that I did not stay with my thoughts that God is the initiator and guiding force behind evolution. I did pay attention. I am still studying evolution. I find most of the reasoning flawed.
Not that evolution is not true... but nothing was random. Mutants we are not!

- You do know that believers in Intelligent Design generally accept evolution as a fact, right?  I think you're agreeing that this is the case... thus we aren't arguing about whether or not evolution happens, we're only arguing about the origins of life, yes?

- Before we can discuss it, though, I wonder if you agree that the earth is about 4.5 billion years old, and that the universe is at least somewhere around 15 billion?  And that human and dinosaurs didn't walk the earth together like in the Flintstones?  And that humans and apes evolved from a common ancestor that was ape-like?  ID'ers tend to accept these things.  Do you?

 

[Chris†opher Paul]

Originally posted by Jerry Smith
Stormy:

If someone told you that it stopped, I would suggest you ask them how they know. There are no indications in the natural world that evolution has stopped.

Jerry-

Can you show me some lab experiments where we are able to see something change into something else entirely?  Something like gnats or flies...something with short lifespans, etc?

Thanks

 

[Jerry Smith]

s0uljah, I can point you to lab experiments where speciation was observed (a whole new species emerged). I don't think that would be what you are looking for though: no identifiable "gnat to fly" (family level) changes have been observed in the lab. Of course any given speciation event has the potential to be an event of genus, family, class, order, or even kingdom level change as well, depending on how prolific the descendents of the new species are. I'm sorry, the lab can only demonstrate changes that are possible over the course of time that a lab operates. Changes such as you look for are not. Add 100,000 years of lab work, and you might see something like that in organisms with brief life spans.

I am curious too, to see what evolution would look like if it were accelerated so that we could observe macro changes in our micro life-spans. I like to read about the computer simulations of such.

 

[RufusAtticus]

Originally posted by s0uljah

Can you show me some lab experiments where we are able to see something change into something else entirely

The problem with this is the "something else entirely." That is an arbitrary distinction. For instance someone could claim that humans are not something else entirely different from chimps since both are apes, primate, mammals, animals, etc. A lot of reasearch has been done with bacteria showing enormous strides in evolution of biochemical pathways, which is something else entirely for bacteria, yet because no bacterium has evolved wings or the like, people just dismiss it as insignificant.

One of the most significant observations in nature (IMO) is that mosquitoes in the london underground have not only become reproducively isolated, but also evolved novel traits. This is speciation and divergence in less than 100 years!

From Bryne & Nichols (1999).

 

[Jerry Smith]

s0uljah,

<digging around in pockets for reference, coming up short>

I remember one bit about a lab observation of multicellularity. That would probably be a big enough jump to satisfy you. If anyone has a link or reference, I'd be obliged. If not, I will have to dig through my notes tonight at home...

 

[Morat]

&nbsp; You should bring in pattern systemetics. There is no change. You never stop being what your ancestors were. I've never understood the "one thing to another thing" argument, anyways.

&nbsp; Imagine a cone. The tip of the cone is a single species. The base of the cone a broad array of species (and family, genus, classes).

&nbsp;&nbsp; That argument is like looking at the base of the cone and saying "I want to see this edge become the far edge".

&nbsp;&nbsp; You can't, because that's not how it works. You have to do the whole cone, species diverging as time passes.&nbsp;One tiny change and you go from a point, to just a smidge apart. And then more. Divergence over time.

&nbsp;&nbsp; You don't jump class or family or order in one event. But a million years from now, the descendents of those underground mosquitos and those above ground mosquitos might have divurged so much that they're seperate classes or orders or families, just as the difference between invertebrate and vertebrate was once quite small, a tiny change that you'd dismiss as "microevolution".

&nbsp;

&nbsp;&nbsp;

 

[Jerry Smith]

You should bring in pattern systemetics.

I thought I did when I said this:

Of course any given speciation event has the potential to be an event of genus, family, class, order, or even kingdom level change as well, depending on how prolific the descendents of the new species are.

 

[Chris†opher Paul]

Why do offspring of different species become sterile?

 

[Jerry Smith]

s0uljah: that's normally due to genetic incompatiblity resulting from different genetic structure of one species than another.

 

[Morat]

&nbsp; Jerry: Well, yes. I was speaking more formally. Point out, specifically and unambiguously, that "classification" is merely a way of discussing how long ago two species shared a common ancestor. The higher the classification, the further back in time.

&nbsp;&nbsp; Therefore, rather obviously, you would see lower order transitions in the lab and in nature, because higher order transitions require greater amounts of time.

&nbsp;&nbsp; Seeing a "dinosaur give birth to a chicken" as some demand to see, would be a falsification of evolution, not evidence.

&nbsp; Souljah: Bear in mind: individuals do not evolve, populations do. Speciation isn't one mosquito being born and suddenly being a new species. (Although something similiar can happen in plants. But plants can&nbsp; reproduce both sexually and self-fertilize.).

 

[Stormy]

Get ready for a big laugh.

I will tell you what I think thus far on the subject of evolution.

First I believe the Earth is old. No, I do not think that dinosaurs lived with humans. Yes I do think that apes went through an evolution period similar to man.

Good so far?

Now is where we differ.

Those soap bubbles that Jerry was talking about? They are not the truth. For those bubbles do not stop because there are already enough. That would take intelligence for them to know they were not needed. Indeed if the water was left on, and more and more soap was added, the bubbles would continue to come forever. Evolution itself has no brain. Just as nothing can start without a cause it also must be stopped. Otherwise our life on Earth would look like an episode of Star Trek.

I also asked what would cause DNA to increase and add to itself what was never before on this Earth. I was told empty answers. I learned for myself that mutation was the reason being given. That does not work for me. If you examine evolution, you will see that the complex creatures start evolving at a rate faster than when they were simple organism. Mutations can only come from births. The birth rates would be less for the more complex creatures. Mutations being the guiding factor… do not compute logically. I do not see mutations as a good thing. I think that mutations are birth defects and are not passed along to off spring.

So now you think if I eliminate the supposedly good of mutations, I am left with nothing. No way to cause change. I do not see it that way. For God has told us that he created all life. I have no reason to doubt his word.

My theory is that when God started this new phase of life on Earth, he knew what he was doing all along.

Nothing came as a surprise to him as Darwin would purpose.

I believe that even though many creatures go through the same evolutionary phases… they are never truly the same. What appears to us to be a combined and later branching growth was never any such thing.

From the beginning there were creatures at each phase of evolution that were destined to stop and remain as God intended for them. Others went on to become what they were destined to become.

So it is true that my ancestors may have resembled apes but the link does not exist and will never be found.

For just as a human embryo travels through its evolution cycle within its mothers uterus to be born … so it was when God gave creation its first birth.

Now before you tell me how wrong I am. Please remember that my theory is workable and without the holes of Darwanism. If you were to build a computer program upon my theory it would not crash like Darwin's.

But it does contain one flaw in perfection that I must learn to live with.

For I must now realize that I will never fly with wings like a bird.

God did not plan me that way.

But still.... I can dream.

 

[Morat]

From the beginning there were creatures at each phase of evolution that were destined to stop and remain as God intended for them. Others went on to become what they were destined to become

&nbsp; What stopped them?

&nbsp;

 

[Stormy]

What stopped them?

The same thing that allowed them to become. God's plan.

 

[Morat]

The same thing that allowed them to become. God's plan.

&nbsp;&nbsp; So God waved his hand, and evolution worked, and then God waved his hand again and it didn't?

&nbsp;&nbsp; Got any way to test this?

&nbsp;