Evolution is a Fact

[TheOutsider]

Don't worry, I know the truth, just asking questions to see what answers I get.

And this is exactly why I avoid directly interacting with Creationists. They already "Know the Truth". Any extra information you give them will simply be thrown away.

 

[Split Rock]

Hey, sis, if you want to ask question after question about evolution, that's certainly your prerogative.

But please be careful and remember Paul's warning:God bless ---

Sure, AVET. I guess you must consider your position to be very weak, if you fear one of your own simply asking questions about evolution....

 

[Split Rock]

Hi nhisname

We share similar dna because we are made up of the same elemets from the earth.

It is not the elemental composition that points to evolutionary relationships between us and other apes, it is the sequence similarity that does so.

Don't worry, I know the truth, just asking questions to see what answers I get.

Just for the sake of argument, how would you know if you were mistaken? Take your compatriot's advice, for example. How weak must he think your position is that he fears you asking us questions? Is that the type of advice one is likely to give if one is convinced of the certainty of his/her argument?

 

[MoonLancer]

By know science should be able to find a viable animal still in the evolution proses of changing from one type of animal to another.....

all animals are undergoing the evolutionary process. Including humans

But just wondering, choose an animal and tell me what animal you think scientists believe it is turning into? You do realize that 99.99% of all animals species that ever lived are now extinct right?

The animals that exist now are like islands of life separated from the ancestors they came from. because these ancestors are dead its very hard for people like you to see the process that brought these species here in their current state.

A single human life may only see 3 or 4 generations go by. The evolutionary process is at work here, but so little change is actually occurring in these 4 generations that its nearly invisible to a single persons reference.

Take these 4 generations and imagine they are frames in the movie. You will never see or understand the movie if you only observe these 4 frames which are back to back. But if you take a scattering key of frames from this movie, it would be possible to re construct a storyboard. In fact that's how movies start in the first place. A few pictures to represent the movie as a whole. This is what fossils do. they tell a true story about earths history.

 

[hangback]

Hey, sis, if you want to ask question after question about evolution, that's certainly your prerogative.

But please be careful and remember Paul's warning:God bless ---

Don't worry, I know the truth, just asking questions to see what answers I get.

You think you know the truth because they have indoctrinated you to believe what they told you, (and AV1611VET is worried to death that you are about to learn something they do not want you to learn).
Creationism is wrong, not because I say it is but because the more you know about evolution the further away from creationism you will get, that's why AV1611VET want's you to stop asking questions, if you already know the truth and your strong in your faith what have you got to lose? you will know more about evolution and will be better equipped to fight against it, you win and creationism wins.

.

 

[Pwnzerfaust]

Now imagine its a movie. Take these 4 generations and imagine they are frames in the movie. You will never see or understand the movie if you only observe these 4 frames which are back to back. But if you take a scattering key of frames from these movies it would be possible to re construct a storyboard. In fact that's how movies start in the first place. a few pictures to represent the movie as a whole. This are what fossils do. they tell a true story about earths history.

That's an awesome analogy, never thought of it that way. I think I'll use it, and credit you of course.

 

[MoonLancer]

That's an awesome analogy, never thought of it that way. I think I'll use it, and credit you of course.

Thanks. It had some typos which i fixed. The analogy has some flaws, but i think it illustrates well whats happening and why evolution is not immediately apparent.

 

[Hawk007]

Hawk, did you know Bekele Lakew?

No I am sorry, I can't say I do.....

 

[USincognito]

...that when I talk about evolution, I only talk about macro evolution, where a cat produces a dog, etc.

But you're not talking about evolution then, but a Creationist strawman/misunderstanding of it. A cat giving birth to a dog would falsify evolution.

If so, can you show me evidence of one type of animal producing a different type of animal?

Maybe a Lion giving birth to a piglion or a shark giving birth to a crocodileshark?

Animals don't "produce different types of animals. I'm not going to go through the whole working, but take this link and it shows groupings of animals.
Animals
If you take the bilaterian link and follow down to Terrestrial tetrapods, you can see that even with modification and diversity, no group further out on the branches of the tree stops exhibiting the characteristics it shares with higher taxa. So even if a fish develops legs and lungs, it never stops being a Sarcopterygiian.
Sarcopterygii

There is no way to test the reliability of the dating methods used by scientist, do we have anything which is a million years old that is not dated by modern day dating methods to be used as a marker to test the reliability?

Actually we can. First off, the fact that we trust decay rates not to suddenly change means we can have nuclear power. Second, we can study things like the Oklo natural nuclear reactors and determine decay rates from 2 billion years ago. Just because you don't know of or can't fathom a way to study the past doesn't mean others haven't figured out a way to already.

No I am not, give me the evidence........did a virus change into a bacteria?

No. Viruses are a different type of life and some would consider them marginally life at that.

Did evolution come to the conclusion that it has to stop? By know science should be able to find a viable animal still in the evolution proses of changing from one type of animal to another.....

Apart from the new species you have been provided, we have many examples in the fossil record of transitional that exhibit characteristics of two taxa above species level. We even have some living beings that do the same for example Monotremes that have mammalian and reptilian traits. We also have living analogues for other transitional series for which we have fossils. Whales are a good example:
- Polar bears are land animals that are good swimmers
- Otters are land animals that are excellent swimmers
- Pinnipeds (seals, sea lions, etc.) are aquatic animals that function o.k. on land.
- Sirenians are aquatic animals that don't function on land, but stick to shallows.
- Whales are fully aquatic and exploit the entire ocean.
Now, whales didn't evolve from bears, but if we have analagous species existing today and fossils of similar transitional beings, what reason is there to reject whale evolution except incredulity?

...but with macro I do have a problem, somehow all these trees your are talking about must have started, the beginning of the cat and the dog and fish, etc, etc. how did each one start? Is there or is there not a common ancestor for all living things? please explain me your understanding......

There might or might not be a single common ancestor or ancestral species. Recent studies of bacteria show a lot of gene transfer. Once we get to metazoans (animals) it's pretty clear from the genetic evidence that we're all descended from an urmetazoan species.
If you want to look at how trees are related to other green plants read this:
Green plants
If you want to see how fish, dogs and cats are related take the Sarcopterygii link above, or if you just want dogs and cats they evolved from an urcarnivore.
Carnivora

 

[Hawk007]

But you're not talking about evolution then, but a Creationist strawman/misunderstanding of it. A cat giving birth to a dog would falsify evolution.



Animals don't "produce different types of animals. I'm not going to go through the whole working, but take this link and it shows groupings of animals.
Animals
If you take the bilaterian link and follow down to Terrestrial tetrapods, you can see that even with modification and diversity, no group further out on the branches of the tree stops exhibiting the characteristics it shares with higher taxa. So even if a fish develops legs and lungs, it never stops being a Sarcopterygiian.
Sarcopterygii



Actually we can. First off, the fact that we trust decay rates not to suddenly change means we can have nuclear power. Second, we can study things like the Oklo natural nuclear reactors and determine decay rates from 2 billion years ago. Just because you don't know of or can't fathom a way to study the past doesn't mean others haven't figured out a way to already.



No. Viruses are a different type of life and some would consider them marginally life at that.



Apart from the new species you have been provided, we have many examples in the fossil record of transitional that exhibit characteristics of two taxa above species level. We even have some living beings that do the same for example Monotremes that have mammalian and reptilian traits. We also have living analogues for other transitional series for which we have fossils. Whales are a good example:
- Polar bears are land animals that are good swimmers
- Otters are land animals that are excellent swimmers
- Pinnipeds (seals, sea lions, etc.) are aquatic animals that function o.k. on land.
- Sirenians are aquatic animals that don't function on land, but stick to shallows.
- Whales are fully aquatic and exploit the entire ocean.
Now, whales didn't evolve from bears, but if we have analagous species existing today and fossils of similar transitional beings, what reason is there to reject whale evolution except incredulity?



There might or might not be a single common ancestor or ancestral species. Recent studies of bacteria show a lot of gene transfer. Once we get to metazoans (animals) it's pretty clear from the genetic evidence that we're all descended from an urmetazoan species.
If you want to look at how trees are related to other green plants read this:
Green plants
If you want to see how fish, dogs and cats are related take the Sarcopterygii link above, or if you just want dogs and cats they evolved from an urcarnivore.
Carnivora

Alot of these ideas to me supports a common design theory, designs that work.....designs needs a designer!

 

[USincognito]

{snip bluster}
For a few examples of either gross error, fraud, deception, or hoax:

Pikaia

The original fossil was found in 1911. Don't you suppose that we've developed a more sophisticated understanding of how to classify fossils in general and Cambrian fauna in particular since then? The just is still out on whether it was a basal chordate species or not, but compared to Carl Baugh's "fossilized finger", I'll go with Pikaia.

Mesonychid

Again, later analysis and more data resulted in a reclassifcation from one mammalian lineage to another. It's not like they reclassified it as a reptile or what Creationist Kent Hovind did when he reclassified Baugh's drawing of an 11' 6" human skeleton as a photograph.

Ramapithecus

Same thing with Pikaia. With time and a better understanding brought about by finding more examples the fossil was re-evaluated. If only Creationists would do the same thing with the story of Lucy's Knee Joint.

Nebraska Man

The only hoax and error here is the continued myths about Nebraska Man spread by Creationists. The find was never taken seriously as a hominid (hominids should never be found in North America) and the recreation appeared in a London newspaper, not a scientific journal. Also it was not introduced as evidence of human evolution at the Scopes trial as was erroniously claimed just last weekend at the Darwin Was Wrong conference.

Piltdown Man

First, it is still not known who actually crafted and planted the skulls. Second, the skulls were taken much more seriously by British anthropologists (primarily due to British cheauvanism) than Americans and the French who mostly dismissed it. Finally, it was further legitimate hominid fossil finds and analysis by scientists, not Creationists who uncovered the hoax.

{snip bluster} One example I read about recently was the construction of an amazing discovery based on a single tooth. It was debunked when a jawbone was found, and I'm sure this was an embarrassing situation for a giant of science.{snip more bluster}

No you did not. No such story has appeared anywhere in the journals or popular media and certainly not "recently". You don't even have a name for the fossil, where it was supposedly found, who supposedly had egg on his face and your story sounds suspicously similar to the Nebraska man myth.

Either provide some substance or admit you're making that up.

 

[USincognito]

Alot of these ideas to me supports a common design theory, designs that work.....designs needs a designer!

Why did the designer join two chimp chromosomes together to form human chromosome 2? Why not just make humans with 48 chromosome pairs? Why did the designer insert ERVs into orthologous locations of certain species so that an analysis of them matched their phylogenetic relationships? Why did the designer use reptile jaw bones to make mammalian ear bones? Why do all jawed fishes and their descendants including us have hemoglobin genes that are split into 4 locations in our chromosomes, but lampreys do not?

"Common design" is the ad hociest of ad hoc arguments.

 

[Freodin]

Alot of these ideas to me supports a common design theory, designs that work.....designs needs a designer!

Have you ever considered that, if two directly opposed "ideas" are used to support the same conclusion, the reasoning becomes rather meaningless?

- Humans are different from other animals: that is evidence for a designer, for how could they become different, if not by design?

- Humans are similar to other animals: that is evidence for a designer, for how could they be similar, if not by design?

Is there anything that you wouldn´t say is evidence for design? I don´t think so. Even if you were shown all the strawman versions of Evolution in effect - cats giving birth to dogs, apes changing into human - I´m certain you would then claim: "This is evidence for a designer!"

Makes looking for evidence rather useless, don´t you think?

 

[nChrist]

The point is simple: the evidence for the evolutionary origin of man is missing. What used to be has been debunked. The method of operation among scientists trying to prove the evolutionary origin of man is gross error, imagination, fraud, and hoax. What's left is highly suspect and hanging by a thread.

Read again what I said about the tooth. I said that I read about it recently, not that it happened recently. I might have it in my notes somewhere, but it's really just one of many examples of the common M.O. Add vivid imagination and sloppy work to the M.O. The claimed evolutionary origin of man is a major embarrassment to the scientific community, and it's going to be a larger embarrassment in the future. The case is falling apart - not getting better. The more that real science learns - the more that the evolutionary origin of man falls on its face. It's elevated to a cross between comedy and fairy tale, but the die-hards are hanging on by a thread to save face and reputation.

 

[Cabal]

The point is simple: the evidence for the evolutionary origin of man is missing. What used to be has been debunked. The method of operation among scientists trying to prove the evolutionary origin of man is gross error, imagination, fraud, and hoax. What's left is highly suspect and hanging by a thread.

Read again what I said about the tooth. I said that I read about it recently, not that it happened recently. I might have it in my notes somewhere, but it's really just one of many examples of the common M.O. Add vivid imagination and sloppy work to the M.O. The claimed evolutionary origin of man is a major embarrassment to the scientific community, and it's going to be a larger embarrassment in the future. The case is falling apart - not getting better. The more that real science learns - the more that the evolutionary origin of man falls on its face. It's elevated to a cross between comedy and fairy tale, but the die-hards are hanging on by a thread to save face and reputation.

And Christians are nothing but hateful people who carry placards saying God hates gay people and crash the funerals of war-dead from Iraq.

I'll be waiting on your retraction

 

[USincognito]

The point is simple:

Your assertion is incorrect, but I won't to point out that this preface is even more incorrect. The subject is very complex. It involves analysis of fossils and genetic evidence that even when simplified is often way above the head of the average layman. There is no way to make a simple point about human evolution.

...the evidence for the evolutionary origin of man is missing. What used to be has been debunked.

This is, quite simply, wishful thinking or ignorance on your part. I've already shown why Ramapithecus isn't an issue and Nebraska Man is more Creationist myth than evolutionary icon (and I'll get into it further below). And do you know why Piltdown wasn't taken seriously by the Americans and French and eventually uncovered? Because the legitimate finds like Taung child, other Austral and Homo finds contradicted the "brain first" claims of Piltdown supporters. The finds since the 50s have made all the more clear that bipedalism evolved first and the big brain followed. The perfect exampe of this is Turkana Boy who from the neck down looks like a modern gracile human, but his head is clearly that of an ape.
Turkana Boy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Human Ancestors Hall: KNM WT 15000

Additionally we have the fully sequenced human and chimp genomes and comparisons continue to buttress the fact that we are related. Add in human Chromosome 2 and Endogenous Retroviruses and the genetic evidence is even more compelling than the fossil.
Chromosome 2 (human) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Human evolutionary genetics - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Do you see why I said it's not simple? You make a baseless assertion in one sentence and it takes me two lengthy paragraphs and 4 links to respond. This is a very complex issue.

The method of operation among scientists trying to prove the evolutionary origin of man is gross error, imagination, fraud, and hoax. What's left is highly suspect and hanging by a thread.

Kerfluffle. Did you fail to notice that while I explained why your list wasn't a problem that I included lies and frauds by Creationists as counterexamples? Science corrects itself, but lies, like the one I noted about Nebraska Man and the Scopes trial are still being spread by Creationists as of last weekend!

Read again what I said about the tooth. I said that I read about it recently, not that it happened recently. I might have it in my notes somewhere, but it's really just one of many examples of the common M.O. Add vivid imagination and sloppy work to the M.O.

Don't bother looking it up. You're talking about Nebraska Man and you have the story wrong. What actually happened is Osbourne found a peccary molar that actually does look like a human molar. It was never taken seriously since humans evolved in Africa and the Old World, not in North America. An imaginative cartoonist for the London Illustrated Mail made a drawing of what the supposed hominid might have looked like and the story would eventually enter Creationist myth from that drawing. I'm sorry, but the M.O. that is worthy of admonisment here is the Creationist, not the scientific.

The claimed evolutionary origin of man is a major embarrassment to the scientific community, and it's going to be a larger embarrassment in the future. The case is falling apart - not getting better. The more that real science learns - the more that the evolutionary origin of man falls on its face. It's elevated to a cross between comedy and fairy tale, but the die-hards are hanging on by a thread to save face and reputation.

More bluster, horse feathers and empty rhetoric. How about instead of repeating your tired assertions you actually show some work and demonstrate why Turkana Boy, Taung child, and all the other hominid fossils as well as all the genetic evidence is a fraud? I realize it's much easier to repeat a mantra than it is to provide evidence, but it's a much more productive use of your time. You might want to try it with your next reply.

 

[nChrist]

And Christians are nothing but hateful people who carry placards saying God hates gay people and crash the funerals of war-dead from Iraq.

I'll be waiting on your retraction

That's not going to happen, but you can wait if you enjoy waiting. They are both pretty good examples of opposites:

Westborro nuts opposite of Christianity = TRUE

Evolutionary origin of man opposite of science = TRUE

Good compromise = TRUE

If the chickens are dancing, they like the compromise.

 

[Cabal]

That's not going to happen, but you can wait if you enjoy waiting. They are both pretty good examples of opposites:

Westborro nuts opposite of Christianity = TRUE

Evolutionary origin of man opposite of science = TRUE

Goalpost move. Not the evolutionary origin of man - the topic is hoaxes in the fossil record. Very intellectually dishonest to conflate the two, and to generalise.

One or two hoaxes in the fossil record does not mean everything derived from it is false, so please stop slandering hardworking scientists.

Until you do, I'm going to remind you that you're one of those hateful gay-bashing Christians who hates the war-dead from Iraq.

Seriously, stop getting your info from creationist propaganda sites. Your arguments are pathetic, not least because they've been refuted a thousand times already.

 

[nChrist]

I didn't move any goal post. The only thing I've ever talked about is the evolutionary origin of man VERSUS God's account of how He said that He Created man. You should be able to guess which one I believe. I think the chickens are still dancing, but I'll check again. Yep - they're still dancing.

 

[USincognito]

I didn't move any goal post. The only thing I've ever talked about is the evolutionary origin of man VERSUS God's account of how He said that He Created man. You should be able to guess which one I believe. I think the chickens are still dancing, but I'll check again. Yep - they're still dancing.

So you're just going to avoid all the facts I've presented and stick to your already disproven talking points?