Is evolution a fact or theory?

[Job 33:6]

Yes, I also saw the ages they gave as well. My focus was around how this directly challenges the conventional dating and evolutionary assumptions... but thank you for pointing that out. Want me to do the math then for you as to the difference between say 540,000,000 million years vs 200,000 years? No? Ok, well as I've pointed out - science is an ineffective tool for unequivocally affirming or disaffirming God and His word so while these articles are very interesting and I am not surprised when evidence like this shows up, my faith is not in the scientific results, but in God's word.

What assumptions does it challenge? You have misunderstood the article my friend. As for a prediction of when speciation might naturally occur in the world, 200,000 years, I would say, is a reasonable amount of time.

It isnt saying when life first appeared on earth. Its just saying when the most recent set of species came into being. And it isnt saying that all species came into being at once either, it says 100,000-200,000 years, with 200,000 being the upper number. And it doesnt even say that all species came about even within 200,000 years, it says 9 out of 10.

 

[dcalling]

Let's test your belief. Name me any two major groups, said to be evolutionarily connected, and I'll see if I can find a transitional. What do you have?

Everything looks like "evolutionarily connected", since they are all created from God from the same set of libraries, A and C are connected, and all of a sudden we found B, which looks like between A/C, so now A/B and B/C are connected, but A/C are still connected. no matter how many transitional you have, there are always gaps, do you agree?

And after millions of years, humans are still primates. The fossil record indicates it took nearly a billion years for bacteria to evolve to eukaryotes. So not surprising. However, macroevolution of new species is well-documented.

or you can say we are all animals. That is our human definitions and groupings.

Which is a prediction of evolutionary theory. Although there are many counter-examples where it's difficult to determine if there's one species or several (as in ring species and cline populations) speciation normally requires reproductive isolation, meaning any intermediate forms would have to die off in order to get that isolation. As Darwin wrote, much earlier.



Which is what we'd expect if there was a worldwide change in environment back in the pleistocene.

Approximately 11,000 years ago a variety of animals went extinct across North America. These were mostly mammals larger than approximately 44 kg (about 100 pounds). Some of the animals that went extinct are well known (like saber-toothed cats, mammoths, and mastodons). Others were less well known animals (like the short-faced skunk and the giant beaver). Some animals went extinct in North America but survived elsewhere, for example, horses and tapirs.

A lot more animals survived too. Read the article, what did the article say when the last true extinction event was?

Before this extinction the diversity of large mammals in North America was similar to that of modern Africa. As a result of the extinction, relatively few large mammals are now found in North America.

http://exhibits.museum.state.il.us/exhibits/larson/lp_extinction.html

The newly-evolved H. sapiens, with greatly superior hunting abilities, seems to have had some effect as well:
One of the great debates about extinction is whether humans or climatic change caused the demise of the Pleistocene megafauna. Evidence from paleontology, climatology, archaeology, and ecology now supports the idea that humans contributed to extinction on some continents, but human hunting was not solely responsible for the pattern of extinction everywhere. Instead, evidence suggests that the intersection of human impacts with pronounced climatic change drove the precise timing and geography of extinction in the Northern Hemisphere. The story from the Southern Hemisphere is still unfolding. New evidence from Australia supports the view that humans helped cause extinctions there, but the correlation with climate is weak or contested. Firmer chronologies, more realistic ecological models, and regional paleoecological insights still are needed to understand details of the worldwide extinction pattern and the population dynamics of the species involved.
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/306/5693/70.full

Geneticists have discovered evidence of the great quaternary extinction. Cool.



Don't see any evidence of design. Just nature proceeding as He intended.



See above. This isn't a surprise to any person familiar with biology.

You are just injecting your own views into scientific findings.

from the article:
"And yet—another unexpected finding from the study—species have very clear genetic boundaries, and there's nothing much in between."
and "In analysing the barcodes across 100,000 species, the researchers found a telltale sign showing that almost all the animals emerged about the same time as humans"
Those are current observed scientific facts, they might have errors due to our current technology (however those are the latest findings), but they are observed facts never the less.

 

[dcalling]

I guess neither you guys actually read the conclusion of the article.

I'll quote just so we have it here with us.


"The simplest interpretation is that life is always evolving," said Stoeckle.

"It is more likely that—at all times in evolution—the animals alive at that point arose relatively recently."

Well....duh.

"The study's most startling result, perhaps, is that nine out of 10 species on Earth today, including humans, came into being 100,000 to 200,000 years ago."

100,000 to 200,000 years ago? Well first off, thats a lot older than 6,000 years. But aside from that, that is 100,000 years in difference.

So really what the article is concluding, is that speciation in 9 out of 10 species, occurs within 200,000 years. Which sounds reasonable to me.

The Bible never said earth is 6000 year old. My understanding of the Bible is, before Adam sinned, he can live for ever, so he might have lived n billion years before he ate the apple.

The article does observed from the current scientific findings (which matured in the last 20 year or so), most living things has clear boundrys in between, and they all appeared around 200k+ years at almost the same time. Looks awfully like God created all things around that time isn't it (there are DNA driftings but they are small)?

 

[The Barbarian]

(Barbarian regarding claim that there are no transitionals)
Let's test your belief. Name me any two major groups, said to be evolutionarily connected, and I'll see if I can find a transitional. What do you have?

(dcalling can't find any)

Neither can anyone else. That alone should be a wake-up call for you.

Everything looks like "evolutionarily connected",

Nope. Even more convincing than all those predicted transitionals, which YE creationist Kurt Wise says are "strong evidence for macroeolutionary theory", is the fact that there are no such transitionals were there shouldn't be any

since they are all created from God from the same set of libraries, A and C are connected, and all of a sudden we found B, which looks like between A/C, so now A/B and B/C are connected, but A/C are still connected. no matter how many transitional you have, there are always gaps, do you agree?

For example, if we note that a man and a certain child have genetic characteristics that are transitional, and then discover that the parent of the child has characteristics that fit between the man and the child, we still have gaps, do you agree? So your conclusion would be that it made no sense to think the grandfather, father, and son were related? Seriously?

or you can say we are all animals.

You are just injecting your own views into scientific findings. As you now see, the fact that currently living animal species seem to have mostly (but not all of them) appeared right about the time of a major change in Earth's climate, fits nicely into evolutionary theory. That's what Darwin predicted would happen in such circumstances. A lot of extinctions, followed by a lot of new species.

And as you also learned, the existence of many, many species that have vague boundaries between themselves and other species completely falsifies your assumptions. If you were right, there wouldn't be any of them. Would you like to learn about some of those?

 

[dcalling]

(Barbarian regarding claim that there are no transitionals)
Let's test your belief. Name me any two major groups, said to be evolutionarily connected, and I'll see if I can find a transitional. What do you have?

(dcalling can't find any)

Neither can anyone else. That alone should be a wake-up call for you.



Nope. Even more convincing than all those predicted transitionals, which YE creationist Kurt Wise says are "strong evidence for macroeolutionary theory", is the fact that there are no such transitionals were there shouldn't be any



For example, if we note that a man and a certain child have genetic characteristics that are transitional, and then discover that the parent of the child has characteristics that fit between the man and the child, we still have gaps, do you agree? So your conclusion would be that it made no sense to think the grandfather, father, and son were related? Seriously?

This is the part how we definte something as scientific or not. Scientific has to be repeatable, verifiable and testable. So we can repeatably test and verify how DNA pattern matches between parent and their kids, can you do that to those so called transitional fossils? You are only ASSUMING those are transition fossils (that they evolved to each other)

 

[The Barbarian]

This is the part how we definte something as scientific or not. Scientific has to be repeatable, verifiable and testable.

Right. So about a century ago, Thomas Huxley, based on anatomical data, predicted that birds evolved from dinosaurs. And a few decades ago, we started finding all sorts of transitional forms between dinosaurs and birds. Repeated confirmation was obtained by multiple specimens, and confirmed by analysis of other scientists.

So we can repeatably test and verify how DNA pattern matches between parent and their kids, can you do that to those so called transitional fossils?

You are only ASSUMING those are transition fossils

Transitional fossils are those having apomorphic characters of two different groups. It doesn't assume anything about evolution as such. They are data confirming predictions. Hence, the numerous transitional forms between reptiles and mammals are confirmation of predictions made earlier. They are, as one YE creationist admits, "strong evidence for macroevolutionary theory.

 

[dcalling]

Right. So about a century ago, Thomas Huxley, based on anatomical data, predicted that birds evolved from dinosaurs. And a few decades ago, we started finding all sorts of transitional forms between dinosaurs and birds. Repeated confirmation was obtained by multiple specimens, and confirmed by analysis of other scientists.

Transitional fossils are those having apomorphic characters of two different groups. It doesn't assume anything about evolution as such. They are data confirming predictions. Hence, the numerous transitional forms between reptiles and mammals are confirmation of predictions made earlier. They are, as one YE creationist admits, "strong evidence for macroevolutionary theory.

I have seen QA make predictions all the time, and a lot of times their predication does come true however their assumption was false because they don't totally understand how systems work. Even developers do that too.

And your claim of "all sorts of transitional forms between dinosaurs and birds", how many is "all sorts"? mind to give a number

God could well be using the same DNA libraries to make things, and they look "transitional", just as 80286 looks like transitional between a 8086 and 80386.

Latest scientific discoveries found that
"And yet—another unexpected finding from the study—species have very clear genetic boundaries, and there's nothing much in between."
and "In analysing the barcodes across 100,000 species, the researchers found a telltale sign showing that almost all the animals emerged about the same time as humans"
https://phys.org/news/2018-05-gene-survey-reveals-facets-evolution.html
So do you believe in God and latest science or some YE creationist?

 

[The Barbarian]

I have seen QA make predictions all the time, and a lot of times their predication does come true however their assumption was false because they don't totally understand how systems work.

The large number of predicted transitional forms is compelling evidence for the theory, but the fact that there are no such transitional forms where the theory says there shouldn't be any, is even more compelling. For the reason you mentioned.

And your claim of "all sorts of transitional forms between dinosaurs and birds", how many is "all sorts"? mind to give a number

By no means a complete list (they're finding new ones almost monthly)
Juvenraptor
Pedopenna
Anchiornis
Archaeopteryx
Confusicusornis
Eoalulavis
Icthyornis
Sinornis
Vorona
Anchiornis
Caihong
Jianianhualong
Xiaotingia

God could well be using the same DNA libraries to make things,

He does. You just don't approve of the way He does it.

"And yet—another unexpected finding from the study—species have very clear genetic boundaries, and there's nothing much in between."
and "In analysing the barcodes across 100,000 species, the researchers found a telltale sign showing that almost all the animals emerged about the same time as humans"
https://phys.org/news/2018-05-gene-survey-reveals-facets-evolution.html

As you learned, this is a confirmation of Darwin's theory. As the Earth's environment changed markedly at that time, Darwin's theory would predict many extinctions and new species. Which is exactly what we see, in the 100,000 to 200,000 year period.

Which, as you know, rules out YE creationism for two reasons.
First, that's far too long a period to fit into YE beliefs.
Second, it's only most of the species. Some are much older. If YE was true, there wouldn't be any exceptions.

As you see, the finding is consistent with evolutionary theory, and with God's creation, but not with YE creationism.

 

[Chinchilla]

How did these shells evolve ?

 

[The Barbarian]

 

[Job 33:6]

The large number of predicted transitional forms is compelling evidence for the theory, but the fact that there are no such transitional forms where the theory says there shouldn't be any, is even more compelling. For the reason you mentioned.



By no means a complete list (they're finding new ones almost monthly)
Juvenraptor
Pedopenna
Anchiornis
Archaeopteryx
Confusicusornis
Eoalulavis
Icthyornis
Sinornis
Vorona
Anchiornis
Caihong
Jianianhualong
Xiaotingia



He does. You just don't approve of the way He does it.

"And yet—another unexpected finding from the study—species have very clear genetic boundaries, and there's nothing much in between."
and "In analysing the barcodes across 100,000 species, the researchers found a telltale sign showing that almost all the animals emerged about the same time as humans"
https://phys.org/news/2018-05-gene-survey-reveals-facets-evolution.html

As you learned, this is a confirmation of Darwin's theory. As the Earth's environment changed markedly at that time, Darwin's theory would predict many extinctions and new species. Which is exactly what we see, in the 100,000 to 200,000 year period.

Which, as you know, rules out YE creationism for two reasons.
First, that's far too long a period to fit into YE beliefs.
Second, it's only most of the species. Some are much older. If YE was true, there wouldn't be any exceptions.

As you see, the finding is consistent with evolutionary theory, and with God's creation, but not with YE creationism.

That's an important point. The fact that transitional fossils aren't in places that we wouldn't expect to find them. No one has ever found, the proverbial Cambrian bunny. Nor an ordovician tetrapod, devonian bird, silurian mammal, or even cenozoic early mammalian species, or cenozoic early reptilian species.

On another note though, I did not know Thomas Huxley had predicted the reptile to bird transition. May I have a source?

 

[Chinchilla]

Don't think you can link invisible string to hundreds of particles of styrofoam

 

[The Barbarian]

On another note though, I did not know Thomas Huxley had predicted the reptile to bird transition. May I have a source?

Here's some of it.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/thomas-henry-huxley-and-the-dinobirds-88519294/

IIRC, he noted the anatomical connection between crocodiles and birds, as well as those of dinosaurs and birds. All three groups are archosaurs.

As the article points out, Huxley was wrong about some things. For example, the ornithischian dinosaurs have only superficially birdlike hips and are not the ancestors of birds.

 

[The Barbarian]

Don't think you can link invisible string to hundreds of particles of styrofoam

That's merely acoustical effects, using sound waves to suspend very light particles. Has nothing whatever to do with gravitational forces.

As you see, the demonstration with elytra was a hoax. They aren't shells, BTW; they are wing covers of beetles.

 

[The Barbarian]

That's an important point. The fact that transitional fossils aren't in places that we wouldn't expect to find them. No one has ever found, the proverbial Cambrian bunny. Nor an ordovician tetrapod, devonian bird, silurian mammal, or even cenozoic early mammalian species, or cenozoic early reptilian species.

You're right, but what I meant is that there are no feathered mammals, no birds with a single lower jaw joint, no cephalopods with vertebrae, etc. There are no transitionals between groups that do not share a last common ancestor.

 

[Job 33:6]

You're right, but what I meant is that there are no feathered mammals, no birds with a single lower jaw joint, no cephalopods with vertebrae, etc. There are no transitionals between groups that do not share a last common ancestor.

Ah yes, that is also true.

 

[Job 33:6]

Here's some of it.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/thomas-henry-huxley-and-the-dinobirds-88519294/

IIRC, he noted the anatomical connection between crocodiles and birds, as well as those of dinosaurs and birds. All three groups are archosaurs.

As the article points out, Huxley was wrong about some things. For example, the ornithischian dinosaurs have only superficially birdlike hips and are not the ancestors of birds.

Yeah it's interesting that the bird hipped dinosaurs are in their own clade while the theropods ultimately have transitionals resulting in true bird like hips.

That was always something I found interesting about dinosaurs.

 

[dcalling]

The large number of predicted transitional forms is compelling evidence for the theory, but the fact that there are no such transitional forms where the theory says there shouldn't be any, is even more compelling. For the reason you mentioned.



By no means a complete list (they're finding new ones almost monthly)
Juvenraptor
Pedopenna
Anchiornis
Archaeopteryx
Confusicusornis
Eoalulavis
Icthyornis
Sinornis
Vorona
Anchiornis
Caihong
Jianianhualong
Xiaotingia

Well, the list you have (some genus and some species) is either fully have a wing or simply lizard like and have no wings. Where is the transition that shows how the wings gradually got bigger?

He does. You just don't approve of the way He does it.

"And yet—another unexpected finding from the study—species have very clear genetic boundaries, and there's nothing much in between."
and "In analysing the barcodes across 100,000 species, the researchers found a telltale sign showing that almost all the animals emerged about the same time as humans"
https://phys.org/news/2018-05-gene-survey-reveals-facets-evolution.html

As you learned, this is a confirmation of Darwin's theory. As the Earth's environment changed markedly at that time, Darwin's theory would predict many extinctions and new species. Which is exactly what we see, in the 100,000 to 200,000 year period.

Which, as you know, rules out YE creationism for two reasons.
First, that's far too long a period to fit into YE beliefs.
Second, it's only most of the species. Some are much older. If YE was true, there wouldn't be any exceptions.

As you see, the finding is consistent with evolutionary theory, and with God's creation, but not with YE creationism.

"And yet—another unexpected finding from the study—species have very clear genetic boundaries, and there's nothing much in between."
and "In analysing the barcodes across 100,000 species, the researchers found a telltale sign showing that almost all the animals emerged about the same time as humans"
https://phys.org/news/2018-05-gene-survey-reveals-facets-evolution.html
The article already clearly stated:
"But the last true mass extinction event was 65.5 million years ago when a likely asteroid strike wiped out land-bound dinosaurs and half of all species on Earth. This means a population "bottleneck" is only a partial explanation at best."
And I already answered you on this once. Keep repeating the wrong answer does not make it right.

 

[The Barbarian]

Well, the list you have (some genus and some species)

Those are all genera. And just a small sampling.

is either fully have a wing or simply lizard like and have no wings.

Nope. None is "lisard like." They are all dinosaurs or birds or some transition between. None of them is at all "lizard like."

Where is the transition that shows how the wings gradually got bigger?

"And yet—another unexpected finding from the study—species have very clear genetic boundaries, and there's nothing much in between."

Some do. Which is what you'd expect. And many others don't, which is what Darwin predicted. Ring species, for example, show a blurring of the boundaries between species as do many, many other organisms.

http://www.actionbioscience.org/evolution/irwin.html

[quote[and "In analysing the barcodes across 100,000 species, the researchers found a telltale sign showing that almost all the animals emerged about the same time as humans"[/quote]

Which is exactly what Darwin predicted would happen if the environment changed drastically. You'd see lots of extinctions and lots of new species. And in the fossil record for that time, it's exactly what we see. However, that is true mainly of large mammalian species. And even there, there are many species that are very, very ancient. Would you like to learn about that?


Approximately 11,000 years ago a variety of animals went extinct across North America. These were mostly mammals larger than approximately 44 kg (about 100 pounds). Some of the animals that went extinct are well known (like saber-toothed cats, mammoths, and mastodons). Others were less well known animals (like the short-faced skunk and the giant beaver). Some animals went extinct in North America but survived elsewhere, for example, horses and tapirs.

Before this extinction the diversity of large mammals in North America was similar to that of modern Africa. As a result of the extinction, relatively few large mammals are now found in North America.
http://exhibits.museum.state.il.us/exhibits/larson/lp_extinction.html

The Quaternary period saw the extinctions of numerous predominantly megafaunal species, which resulted in a collapse in faunal density and diversity, and the extinction of key ecological strata across the globe. The most prominent event in the Late Pleistocene is differentiated from previous Quaternary pulse extinctions by the widespread absence of ecological succession to replace these extinct species, and the regime shift of previously established faunal relationships and habitats as a consequence. The earliest casualties were incurred at 130,000 BCE (the start of the Late Pleistocene), however the great majority of extinctions in Afro-Eurasia and the Americas occurred during the transition from the Pleistocene to the Holocene epoch (13,000 BCE to 8,000 BCE). However, this extinction wave did not stop at the end of the Pleistocene, but continued, especially on isolated islands, in human-caused extinctions, although there is debate as to whether these should be considered separate events or part of the same event.[1] Among the main causes hypothesized by paleontologists are overkill by the widespread appearance of humans and natural climate change.[2] A notable modern human presence first appeared during the Middle Pleistocene in Africa,[3] and started to establish continuous, permanent populations in Eurasia and Australasia from 120,000 BCE and 63,000 BCE respectively,[4][5] and the Americas from 22,000 BCE.[6][7][8][9] A variant of the former possibility is the second-order predation hypothesis, which focuses more on the indirect damage caused by overcompetition with nonhuman predators. Recent studies have tended to favor the human-overkill theory.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaternary_extinction_event

You've already been shown this once. Keep repeating the wrong answer does not make it right.

 

[Job 33:6]

Well, the list you have (some genus and some species) is either fully have a wing or simply lizard like and have no wings. Where is the transition that shows how the wings gradually got bigger?



"And yet—another unexpected finding from the study—species have very clear genetic boundaries, and there's nothing much in between."
and "In analysing the barcodes across 100,000 species, the researchers found a telltale sign showing that almost all the animals emerged about the same time as humans"
https://phys.org/news/2018-05-gene-survey-reveals-facets-evolution.html
The article already clearly stated:
"But the last true mass extinction event was 65.5 million years ago when a likely asteroid strike wiped out land-bound dinosaurs and half of all species on Earth. This means a population "bottleneck" is only a partial explanation at best."
And I already answered you on this once. Keep repeating the wrong answer does not make it right.

The genetic boundaries they're referring to are not temporal or ancestral boundaries. They're referring to boundaries between modern day existing species, which in some cases is accurate, others less so.

You clearly do not understand what the article is saying. The authors even conclude that the most simple and reasonable explanation for their findings is that gradual evolution is always occuring and that incidences of speciation in relation to most current living day species, occured within the last 100-200 thousand years.

In short, you are sourcing an article that supports darwinian gradualism.