What are the Weaknesses of Evolution?

[ChordatesLegacy]

I think if you want a very good example of a glaring gap in our knowledge that bears no effect on whether or not the concept is valid it is the fact that we have yet to find the atomic origin of gravity. The atomic origin of every other fundimental force has been found but we dont know what causes gravity. This is a BIG gap in our knowledge about gravity, but there is so much evidence that gravity exists that while this is still an important problem to solve, the lack of an answer poses no threat to the scientific validity of gravity. I would argue that gaps in our knowledge of evolution are analogous to this in that while they are important to solve their lack of an answer poses no threat to the survival of the concept.

I have no doubt that evolution is correct and will stand the test of time, but we could always use some more evidence, just to make the theory stronger.

 

[MarcusHill]

See, this kind of thing is what makes evolution a scientific idea. Scientists come up with a theory and say to the world "please poke holes in this" so it can be made stronger or, if necessary, filed next to phlogiston. Creationists neither invite or consider evidence against their "theories".

 

[FishFace]

I would begin with the fact that "LIFE" is a property of organization, and not one of substance.

In order for evolution to be scientifically plausible one must prove that life, even on the simplest level, can suddenly take place.

Weaknesses in evolution. You're describing abiogenesis, which did not happen suddenly, almost certainly. First, self-sustaining chemical reactions started to take place, which gradually become isolated in micelles, which gradually accumulated the tools of replication, and life began. There's no sudden transition at all, it all happens smoothly.

That either happens by random chance, (Which would be reproduceable)

And you can be quite sure we're trying to reproduce it. It is difficult to do, though, when you don't know what the conditions were under which life first occurred, and when life arose over hundreds of millions of years.

If everything changes into something else, natural selection weeds out the weak, environmental changes shape and form the future generations, etc. Then surely we can reproduce the most basic conditions necessary to "kick" this common and frequent process into gear.

Common and frequent process? Whoever said that abiogenesis was either of those? It need only have happened once. Furthermore, for us to replicate it, we not only need the time, but the precise starting conditions, which we don't know. We have a good idea, but it's hard to reproduce them exactly.

I'm not talking about making a human being, or a mouse, or a fish, or even a microscopic organism.

I'm talking about a simple cell.

Bzzt. Life didn't start with a cell - a cell is not "simple" by any means - a single cell is, in itself, a triumph of evolution. You obviously haven't seen this:

Note that "real theory of abiogenesis" is simplified that means there are more steps than listed.

We could even cheat,... skip the entire DNA-protein relationship, that's like the chicken and the egg, you can't have complex protein without the DNA code to tell it what it is, and you cannot have the DNA blueprint, without it somehow knowing what codes it is supposed to contain.

You're not using your imagination. If you think to yourself, "well, supposing evolution were true, DNA must have come about without protein, or vice-versa - how could that have happened?" then you might actually think of something.
As it happens, scientists are way ahead of you. Very primitive life almost certainly utilized RNA, not DNA, as its genetic code. We can tell this because some strands of RNA actually spontaneously self-replicate. There's no need for any protein - if you give them nucleotides (which form naturally in what is thought to be early-earth conditions) they will just make more of themselves. If you put this inside a tiny bubble of fat, you have a very primitive form of "life." But the RNA would not replicate perfectly, so mutations would gather. After perhaps millions of years, mutations would gather which would produce a strand of RNA capable of catalyzing the formation of more fatty acids. The self-replicating fat bubble now produces more fat throughout its lifespan. When the bubble gets too big, it splits in two, dividing the genetic material along with it.
Lo and behold, you've got primitive mitosis. This is what abiogenesis researchers are trying to achieve, only with pNA instead of RNA.

Surely, if this theory has any basis at all, and we have even the most basic understanding of it, and considering the millions and millions of plant and animal speces we observe today, we could reproduce a simple evidence.

The conditions necessary to create just ONE....Simple...cell.


I'd call that a pretty strong weakness.

But as I have now pointed out to you, your argument falls down for two reasons. Firstly, the theory of evolution doesn't even rely on abiogenesis. If your God wanted to zap in some bacteria, evolution starts just like that. I doubt that actually happened, but if you want to believe that go ahead - I'll freely admit that the evidence is a bit skimpier for abiogenesis than for evolution.
The second reason is that for all your attempted dramatic slow speaking, "ONE...Simple...cell" is not simple at all. You probably couldn't even fathom the vast complexities that go into producing just one of the units that make you as a person. By raising this point, by stressing it so many times, you make it perfectly clear that you don't know much about biology. Don't you think it would be a good idea to learn something about the subject over which you're arguing?

 

[FishFace]

Make one living cell.

Surely something that happens by random chance, all of the time

If you believe that, then you can produce evidence for it! Not one person educated in a relevant field will make that claim.

 

[FishFace]

But my book is based on over 5,000 manuscripts, written by eye witness accounts

Your evidence for them being eyewitnesses?

of highly intelligent prominent witnesses to Christs resurrection

If they were eyewitnesses, then they would likely be disciples - the common man of Jesus' time - not "highly intelligent" or "prominent."

His appearances after He was able to lay down His own life

The only evidence for which is in a few accounts which conflict on several key details. Read The Resurrection Puzzle and get back to us with an interpretation consistent with a plain reading of the whole text.

and found them ALL to be without discrepancy.

They obviously either didn't look hard enough, or looked too hard.

So my books, also have evidence supporting them as well, and were witnessed, by eye witnesses.

Really? How do you know? Did you have an eyewitness at the beginning of the world? Nope. Do you have indirect evidence that the beginning of the world occurred as you say it did? Nope.
As it happens, there is a plethora of natural evidence to support science.

Evolution is one of many theories, it has some basis

Evolution is the only theory that explains the diversity of life, amongst other fascinating details of our biology. For example, it explains why human chromosome two looks exactly as if someone took chimp chromosomes 2p and 2q and glued them together.

Creation is also equally plausible.

That is pure nonsense, and without a jot of data to back it up.

 

[ChordatesLegacy]

To FishFace.

I am not a biologist, but do not viruses hold a key role in the sequence chemical- - - -bacteria.

 

[s41nn0n]

It doesn't include God. That's the main one.

Then there's holes in the fossil record, but these can be explained simply because of how difficult it is for a fossil to be created. We're not going to have a fossil for every single species that ever lived.

Its not difficult to create a fossil

 

[CACTUSJACKmankin]

To FishFace.

I am not a biologist, but do not viruses hold a key role in the sequence chemical- - - -bacteria.

To my understanding existance of RNA viruses is a key piece of evidence for RNA world hypothesis. I will concede to my ignorance about whether or not it is known if viruses themselves are in the line between chsmicals and simple cells. I cant wait to hear someone say "was your great great.........grandfather a virus?" hovindesquely.

 

[CACTUSJACKmankin]

Its not difficult to create a fossil

yes it is, Most animals are taken by scavengers when they die. Fossilization is a very rare phenomena.

 

[ChordatesLegacy]

To my understanding existance of RNA viruses is a key piece of evidence for RNA world hypothesis. I will concede to my ignorance about whether or not it is known if viruses themselves are in the line between chsmicals and simple cells. I cant wait to hear someone say "was your great great.........grandfather a virus?" hovindesquely.

I know viruses have single strands of DNA, whereas bacteria have double strands just like us. I also seem to remember reading that viruses and bacteria swap and share DNA, and if some bacteria are put under extreme stress, they break up into viruses.

To me it seems logical that viruses with the simpler DNA came before bacteria with it’s more complex DNA.

Of course I could be completely wrong.

 

[s41nn0n]

yes it is, Most animals are taken by scavengers when they die. Fossilization is a very rare phenomena.

Not if there was a WORLD flood

 

[MarcusHill]

Not if there was a WORLD flood

No, if there were a WORLD flood there would be a geologic layer rich in an intermingled mix of fossils of all the animals ever (since they were all around at that time). In fact, finding such a layer would disprove the current evolutionary model and give some support to (though not prove) the flood model. I'm sure creationists will launch a major press campaign the moment they find that layer, but I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for it.

 

[ChordatesLegacy]

Not if there was a WORLD flood

The sea floor is inhabited by many scavingers, even the bones are consumed.

 

[elcapitan]

I know viruses have single strands of DNA, whereas bacteria have double strands just like us. I also seem to remember reading that viruses and bacteria swap and share DNA, and if some bacteria are put under extreme stress, they break up into viruses.

To me it seems logical that viruses with the simpler DNA came before bacteria with it’s more complex DNA.

Of course I could be completely wrong.

Yeah. There are RNA viruses, and RNA is single stranded.

Making protein from just RNA is simpler and more direct than starting from DNA. RNA can also catalyze itself, which would have allowed its production before some of the more complex proteins evolved. Thus, early organisms probably had RNA first. Later, DNA evolved because it's is less prone to damage.

 

[CACTUSJACKmankin]

Not if there was a WORLD flood

There is no geologic record of a global flood and if such a thing occured the geology would be obvious so in this case, absence of evidence actually is evidence of absence.

 

[Baggins]

Its not difficult to create a fossil

Not difficult, just rare

 

[Baggins]

Not if there was a WORLD flood

But there wasn't, as the evidence shows.

 

[Loudmouth]

But in regards to evolution, a theory that many claim takes place all around us all of the time, I see it's greatest weakness as the fact that we cannot even reproduce its most basic components.

Well, we have reproduced the basic components of evolution. Those components are mutation, selection, and speciation. Those are the basic mechanisms that drive evolution, and they have all been witnessed numerous times in the lab and in the field.

It's like having a "cave man" tell me that he has proven that gasoline is flamable without having discovered the fire necessary to prove it.

It's like a creationist telling me that a supernatural deity did it without being able to evidence the supernatural deity.

 

[Loudmouth]

I think if you want a very good example of a glaring gap in our knowledge that bears no effect on whether or not the concept is valid it is the fact that we have yet to find the atomic origin of gravity. The atomic origin of every other fundimental force has been found but we dont know what causes gravity. This is a BIG gap in our knowledge about gravity, but there is so much evidence that gravity exists that while this is still an important problem to solve, the lack of an answer poses no threat to the scientific validity of gravity. I would argue that gaps in our knowledge of evolution are analogous to this in that while they are important to solve their lack of an answer poses no threat to the survival of the concept.

If we knew everything there would be no reason to train new scientists. The job of a scientist is to find these gaps and try to fill them. I guess you could claim that gaps in knowledge is a weakness of sorts, but then every single theory in science suffers from this same weakness.

The theory of gravity is a perfect example. We have yet to detect gravity waves or the graviton, but these questions are driving mega-billion dollar projects. Can we say the same of "creation science research"? Nope.

This is why not having gaps is a much greater weakness. A theory that is not able to ask new questions and help discover new knowledge is a very, very poor theory. Because science is an activity it is very, very important that scientific theories allow scientists to produce new science. A good example is the transitional species Tiktaalik rosae. There was a gap in the transition between lobed finned fish and tetrapods like Icthyostega and Acanthostega. Scientists knew the time period where this transition took place, so they found promising strata that dated to the correct time period. What did they find? The very transitional that the theory predicted. So the science went something like this. Find a gap, make a hypothesis, test hypothesis, find new knowledge.

In reality, gaps are good.

 

[FishFace]

To FishFace.

I am not a biologist, but do not viruses hold a key role in the sequence chemical- - - -bacteria.

No. Viruses lack the enzymes to replicate on their own - they need a host cell (e.g. a bacterium) to do that for them. As such, they can only have evolved after other life had.

Things similar to viruses, in certain ways, possibly did take part in the sequence, in as much as there could have been "cells" with a protein coat, RNA genetic material and so on, but they would have to have had ribosomes and suchlike in order to be able to survive.