What would convince you of evolution?

miss_liz said:

I would need to be able to see speciation. Undeniable speciation, not a guess that it was possibly speciation.

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Could you give us an exmple of what you'd want to see. Would genetic evidence of two closely related species be enough for you, or would you want a cow to give birth to a bison?

miss_liz said:

I'm tired of the line that no transition species exist, because all species are transitional species.

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This is a self-contradictory statement, there cannot be "none" if said none are "all." If people are actually telling you this you need to correct them, by stating that all species do represent positions on the continuity of evolution, but a transitional would be something that clearly exhibits characteristcs combining two groupings. Say, a platypus for example, which has both a cloaca and lays eggs and mammaries and fur.

Silent Bob has already pointed this out, but since it seems to have been glossed over, I want to reiterate his point.

miss_liz said:

The newspapers made the claim because a professor made the claim. Professor Thomas Martin wrote ""This exciting fossil is a further jigsaw-puzzle piece in a series of recent discoveries, demonstrating that the diversity and early evolutionary history of mammals were much more complex than perceived less than a decade ago," he writes in a commentary." {snip} No, it is not the only evidence of mammals of that time period. But it is about the most complex. Prior to this one, evidently, scientists only found evidence of small, shrew-like mammals.

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I'm going to coin a new phrase - Behe's Law. Every time a Creationist reads something in the newspaper discussing biology that uses the word complex, all they will do is focus on that word, and miss the context of what is actually being said.

Note how the actual content of the quote above morphs into what Liz claims it means.

miss_liz said:

This mammal wasn't supposed to have been around yet...until that discovery, it was considered far too complex to have been around.

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Miss Liz, what was discovered was a new species that will change relationships amongst early mammals. It won't throw out mammal common ancestry or any of the other evidences for evolution. This is the equivalent of changing the drapes in a house, it's not the same as demolishing a house, or changing a Ranch into a Tudor.

t_w said:

This is not true at all. The fossils you have mentioned don't contradict the ToE, nor have any genuine fossils that have been found. The principle, or law, of natural selection working on random mutations could still have produced that beaver/otter you mentioned. Besides, the fact that any different fossils being found may cause the ToE to be changed and improved is a great thing, the cornerstone of all science. I don't think you understand how science works - scientists try very, very hard to falsify evolution. By failing, they make the theory stronger. By failing for 150 years, they make the theory undeniable fact - or a notion as befitting of a fact that we can conceive of, on a parallel with gravity, or 'the earth is round'.

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fiddlesticks,in the realm of paleontology,the most important argument against evolution(descent with modification) is that it is hard to say that there has ever been found a single thing which can be classified as transitional or intermediatory. Evolutionists impose their not insubstantial imaginations on fossil discoveries to justify their positions, fraudulent claims and doctored samples are not uncommon.

miss_liz said:

Well, this is the usual evidence I get. We don't really know for sure that a frog is a transitional speices. It's an 'educated' guess.

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There is no room for educated guesses in science. We look at the evidence od frogs and all the evidence points to it being a transitional species between land and water dwelling, much as a lung fish. The evidence is compelling to the degree that if we were talking about a court of law and not a field of study the frog would certainly be found “guilty” of being a transitional life form.

miss_liz said:

And we'll never know for certain.

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You never know anything for certain in life, never. Science deals in the most likely explanation of the facts and evidence presented. the most likely explanation is evolution, no competing theory or notion explains all the evidence and YEC contradicts the evidence. This does not mean their is no God, note that most Christians including the Vatican and the general synod believe in God but accept evolution.

miss_liz said:

Evolution has been taking place for millions of years, supposedly. So there isn't any hardcore evidence for speciation.

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There is plenty of evidence. Endogenous retroviral insertions, DNA, twin nested hierarchies, the Fossil record and observed speciation. What more evidence do you want? YECs have had every bit of evidence they have asked for, they just keep moving the goal posts. This is why o may of them dishonestly conflate the theories of abiogenesis and evolution. They see the former as a less well supported theory and hope to attack the latter by pretending the two are one theory.

miss_liz said:

The evidence for speciation isn't found until millions of years after a transitional organism lived.

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Whatever gives you that idea?

miss_liz said:

That's the problem I have with evolution. We don't know for sure what the world was like millions of years ago. We are making guesses based on fossils (at least from my understanding). Did that make any sense?

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We aren't making guesses at all, we are examining the evidence based on the assumption that the laws of physics are a constant. That's a fair assumption to make I think you will agree?

Ghost

miss_liz said:

Ok, this is sorta off topic, but....what is the difference between a scientific law and a scientific theory?

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Okay, its nice to see some one ask this question if they do not understand. A Scientific Law is an observed fact, something that we always see happen given certain circumstances. The Law of Gravity for example tells us that objects fall to the ground unless lift and thrust are applied.

A scientific theory is the explanation of WHY we see what we see. In this way the theory of gravity tries to explain what causes objects to fall to the ground if lift and thrust are not applied.

Similarly the Law of evolution shows that allele frequencies change in a population over generations, the theory of evolution explains why and what effects this has.

miss_liz said:

That's one reason I have a problem with evolution...evidence keeps on popping up that requires the theory of evolution be 'mended'.

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No, evidence does not keep popping up that require the theory be Mended”. It occasionally pops up that requires the details be amended. To understand this rather confusing distinction you have to understand how scientific theories work, so bear with me and I will try to explain it without being overly verbose.

Scientific theories are actually bundles of several hypothesis, something is not a theory unless their is evidence to support it. However, a theory is effectively composed of two important parts, The Core assumptions and the Peripheral Hypothesis. The core assumption is that the law which we have observed and are attempting to explain is correct. The peripheral hypothesis are the explanations of how it all works. There will only be one core assumption but their can be thousands of peripheral hypothesis in any given theory.

If a peripheral hypothesis is falsified this does not mean the theory is wrong, it means some of the details are inaccurate and we need to go back and look at them again. To use the court case analogy again, if a murderer was on trial the prosecutions theory has the core assumption (that he did it) and several peripheral hypothesis explaining the how, when and where. Of the defence can prove he did not kill the victim at 9.35 because she died at 10.01 this does not prove the killers innocence (ie falsify the core assumption) it falsifies a peripheral hypothesis and the prosecution need to go back and find out what small detail they got wrong.

Same thing in science. if a core assumption is falsified the theory is wrong and we abandon it for a new theory (this is called a Paradigm shift). If a peripheral hypothesis is falsified we know we have a detail wrong and we need to go and find out what it is and how wrong it is, and why.

All scientific theories have peripheral assumptions corrected from time to time, evolution is no different to any other (including gravity).

So far we have never seen anything that comes close to falsifying the theory of evolution, quite the reverse all the new evidence we find supports the core assumption. From time to time we find something that tells us that a peripheral hypothesis needs correcting.

In effect it was Colonel mustard in the library, its just that we now know he used a lead pipe and not the candle stick.

Ghost

truth above all else said:

fiddlesticks,in the realm of paleontology,the most important argument against evolution(descent with modification) is that it is hard to say that there has ever been found a single thing which can be classified as transitional or intermediatory.

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If you don't consider a critter with teeth, a bony tail, and feathers transitional or intermediatory, what would be charactistics of a transitional fossil?

You say they don't exist. What exactly are you saying don't exist. Please be specific. What are the attributes of a transitional fossil?

Evolutionists impose their not insubstantial imaginations on fossil discoveries to justify their positions, fraudulent claims and doctored samples are not uncommon.

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They are very uncommon. I'm guessing less that .5% of all reported finds fall in this category just by looking at the number of finds total compared to the small list of what would be classified as fraudulent or doctored. What do you consider uncommon?

Can you provide anything to back up your claim that these are common? What percentage? How many fraudulent claims and doctored samples are we talking about? Out of how many finds total? Surely you must have some numbers to make this type of claim.

I really hope "truth" responds honestly to the rest of your questions, but I can answer one for you in my expectation of typical Creationist modus operandi.

notto said:

What are the attributes of a transitional fossil?

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Half an wing!
Half an eye!
An oviviparous reproductive system and mammary glands!

Well, maybe not the last one.

I was going to MS Paint a photo of Turkana Boy highlighting the ape like head, and human like body, but I figured another typical Creationist modus operandi - red herring about a hoax or ask a million questions while never addressing why a human skeleton has an ape like skull.

I would be convinced of naturalistic non-teleological evolution if I saw the reductive citric acid cycle organize on the surface of pyrite or if someone demonstates the prebiotic synthesis of RNA or another genetic polymer.

Arik Soong said:

I would be convinced of naturalistic non-teleological evolution if I saw the reductive citric acid cycle organize on the surface of pyrite or if someone demonstates the prebiotic synthesis of RNA or another genetic polymer.

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But if you're talking about examples of evidence that would cause you to accept evolution, why are you talking about 'prebiotic' happenings? The theory of evolution is concerned with the biotic, not the prebiotic.

USincognito said:

I really hope "truth" responds honestly to the rest of your questions, but I can answer one for you in my expectation of typical Creationist modus operandi.



Half an wing!
Half an eye!
An oviviparous reproductive system and mammary glands!

Well, maybe not the last one.

I was going to MS Paint a photo of Turkana Boy highlighting the ape like head, and human like body, but I figured another typical Creationist modus operandi - red herring about a hoax or ask a million questions while never addressing why a human skeleton has an ape like skull.

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Ha! Just noticed the new avatar. Lovely, absolutely lovely!

USincognito said:

Could you give us an exmple of what you'd want to see. Would genetic evidence of two closely related species be enough for you, or would you want a cow to give birth to a bison?

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Genetic similarity is not evidence. And the second example isn't even possible. Right now, I don't think enough evidence exists to support the theory of evolution--a lot of the evidence for evolution is based on fossil records (and similarity in genetics). I can't see one species changing to another. I haven't seen any species change significantly in the past thousands of years. I would need to see recent (not fossil) evidence of macroevolution.

This is a self-contradictory statement, there cannot be "none" if said none are "all." If people are actually telling you this you need to correct them, by stating that all species do represent positions on the continuity of evolution, but a transitional would be something that clearly exhibits characteristcs combining two groupings. Say, a platypus for example, which has both a cloaca and lays eggs and mammaries and fur.

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Ok...so transition species are what I thought they were in the first place. What species did the platypus give rise to (if it is a transition species)?

DJ_Ghost said:

No, evidence does not keep popping up that require the theory be Mended”. It occasionally pops up that requires the details be amended.

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Ok, amended is a better term. What I was trying to say was--what would happen to the theory of evolution if evidence is found that shows organisms of all complexities have always existed? Because then the theory of evolution wouldn't be true at all. That is the major problem I have with it.

miss_liz said:

What I was trying to say was--what would happen to the theory of evolution if evidence is found that shows organisms of all complexities have always existed? Because then the theory of evolution wouldn't be true at all. That is the major problem I have with it.

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Let me get this straight (and try to type whilst laughing) - you have a problem with a theory because - and let me get this right - if it was invalidated by evidence then it would be invalidated by evidence. Thus you reject it anyway.

Are you serious? Is that a joke?

Are you sure, I'm sorry I'm laughing my backside off - you meant to type that?

miss_liz said:

Genetic similarity is not evidence.

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Sure it is. It's a direct prediction of evolution, and thus is evidence supporting it.

Right now, I don't think enough evidence exists to support the theory of evolution--a lot of the evidence for evolution is based on fossil records (and similarity in genetics).

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We could prove evolution without any fossils at all, so that's just silly.

But apart from these two hugely significant lines of evidence (which you so casually dismiss), we have many others such as biogeography.

I haven't seen any species change significantly in the past thousands of years. I would need to see recent (not fossil) evidence of macroevolution.

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I'm sure links have been presented to you. Why are they not good enough? What would convince you?

You seem to want an animal giving birth to a completely different animal, but this wouldn't prove evolution, it would falsify it. Sounds like you are rejecting something other than the real, accepted theory.

What species did the platypus give rise to (if it is a transition species)?

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Not saying that a platypus has given way to other species, but rather that it shows how earlier forms appeared. It has some features of contemporary mammals, but also many features that are more primitive. It is a good example of how our ancestors would have reproduced.

What I was trying to say was--what would happen to the theory of evolution if evidence is found that shows organisms of all complexities have always existed? Because then the theory of evolution wouldn't be true at all.

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???

Well yeah... If evidence were found that falsified evolution, then it wouldn't be true. So? If evidence were found that gravity weren't true, then it wouldn't be true either.

But we haven't found evidence of either yet. So what's the problem?

michabo said:

Well yeah... If evidence were found that falsified evolution, then it wouldn't be true. So? If evidence were found that gravity weren't true, then it wouldn't be true either.

But we haven't found evidence of either yet. So what's the problem?

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The problem is that evidence is being found that is pushing the evolution of complex organisms back in time (like the castorocauda lutrasimilis)--if that makes sense. That is the problem I have with evolution. Because there exists the possibility (which I think is a huge possibility) that scientists will discover evolution cannot be possible--because of the fossil record. And that is a large part of the evidence offered for evolution. We can't really see anything evolving now (macroevolution). We are guessing (or supposing) that some species are transitional. Similarities in DNA don't necessarily mean we all (all organisms) have a common ancestor. I haven't seen organisms mutating and passing these mutations on (I'm talking new limbs or some such thing--not like an extra finger, but a completely new limb or some such thing that has never been seen before).

We could prove evolution without any fossils at all, so that's just silly.

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How? By genetics or what? I have not observed speciation...I really don't think a platypus and a frog are valid examples. I think what happens is this--evolutionists realize transitional species must exist for evolution to be true. So, knowing that organisms are classified (in many different ways), they look at the organisms and try to find something that would 'imply' a certain species is a transitional species. If someone looks hard enough for the evidence, he/she is bound to find some.

I'm sure links have been presented to you. Why are they not good enough? What would convince you?

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Yes, links have been presented--completely biased links. It's almost impossible to find a site that presents evidence and analyzes the evidence. One that doesn't decide what the evidence means.

[SIZE=2 said:

DJ_Ghost[/SIZE]] You never know anything for certain in life, never. Science deals in the most likely explanation of the facts and evidence presented. the most likely explanation is evolution, no competing theory or notion explains all the evidence and YEC contradicts the evidence. This does not mean their is no God, note that most Christians including the Vatican and the general synod believe in God but accept evolution.

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Hmmm...I think you can definitely know things for certain.

miss_liz said:

The problem is that evidence is being found that is pushing the evolution of complex organisms back in time (like the castorocauda lutrasimilis)--if that makes sense. That is the problem I have with evolution. Because there exists the possibility (which I think is a huge possibility) that scientists will discover evolution cannot be possible--because of the fossil record. And that is a large part of the evidence offered for evolution.

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While I disagree that there is a "huge" possibility that that could happen, it is true that it is a possibility. But this is not exclusive to evolution, it is how all science works. The ability of a theory to be changed or discarded is a strength of science, not a weakness.

We can't really see anything evolving now (macroevolution). We are guessing (or supposing) that some species are transitional. Similarities in DNA don't necessarily mean we all (all organisms) have a common ancestor. I haven't seen organisms mutating and passing these mutations on (I'm talking new limbs or some such thing--not like an extra finger, but a completely new limb or some such thing that has never been seen before).

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Yes we can see things evolving now. And similarity in DNA is not the only method by which common ancestry is determined.
Are you saying that you would expect a single organism to "mutate" an entire new limb or structure? That is not the way it works.

How? By genetics or what? I have not observed speciation...I really don't think a platypus and a frog are valid examples. I think what happens is this--evolutionists realize transitional species must exist for evolution to be true. So, knowing that organisms are classified (in many different ways), they look at the organisms and try to find something that would 'imply' a certain species is a transitional species. If someone looks hard enough for the evidence, he/she is bound to find some.

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Yes, genetics provides very good evidence for common ancestry, especially ERVs.

Why don't you think a platypus or frog are valid examples of transitional species? What would you expect a transitional to look like?

Yes, links have been presented--completely biased links. It's almost impossible to find a site that presents evidence and analyzes the evidence. One that doesn't decide what the evidence means.

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You want the sites to analyze the evidence but not say what the evidence means?

Hmmm...I think you can definitely know things for certain.

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Not in science. You said in an earlier post that you want to be a scientist. That's great, but you're going to have to accept the fact that in science all things are tentative.

A good non-fossil related evidence for evolution is ERVs.

And endogenous retrovirus can insert itself into the the DNA of a cell using reverse transcripterase. Under the small possiblity that the ERV is inserted into a sex cell, there is a possibility that cell will pass down the ERV to its offspring. Once an ERV is inserted into the DNA of an organism, all descendants of the organism will have that ERV. The chance of mutations deleting the ERV entirely without leaving a trace is approaches impossibility.

If two organisms had ERVs at the exact same spots in their genome, then those two organisms share a common ancestor. As it is extremely unlikely that ERVs will insert themselves at the exact same spots, it is extremely probable that the shared ERVs are from a common ancestor.

Humans and chimps share six; likely more, as when that number was taken, the chimp genome wasn't fully sequenced.

I didn't use any sources while writing this post; rather, remembing things off of the top of my head, but here's a page from TO about ERVs that go into much more depth than I do. http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/section4.html#retroviruses

Edit: I have the worst problem with pressing the "submit" button accidentally before finishing a post. Excuse me while I finish it.

Edit: Alright, I'm done. Non-fossil related molecular evidence. Just as an example. There's more.

CC, Bon Temps!

USincognito said:

I was going to MS Paint a photo of Turkana Boy highlighting the ape like head, and human like body, but I figured another typical Creationist modus operandi - red herring about a hoax or ask a million questions while never addressing why a human skeleton has an ape like skull.

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I figured I might as well post it and see if my predictions about the responses was correct.

Turkana Boy...

Rotfl. MS Paint image manipulation. Thumbs up!

Cosmowisdom said:

[Darwin] also went on to state "To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree."
This would show that even in his simplest theory of life he also witnessed intelligent design.
He also continues.....
"Reason tells me, that if numerous gradations from a simple and imperfect eye to one complex and perfect can be shown to exist, each grade being useful to its possessor, as is certainly the case; if further, the eye ever varies and the variations be inherited, as is likewise certainly the case and if such variations should be useful to any animal under changing conditions of life, then the difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection, though insuperable by our imagination, should not be considered as subversive of the theory. How a nerve comes to be sensitive to light, hardly concerns us more than how life itself originated; but I may remark that, as some of the lowest organisms, in which nerves cannot be detected, are capable of perceiving light, it does not seem impossible that certain sensitive elements in their sarcode should become aggregated and developed into nerves, endowed with this special sensibility".

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For future reference note that any time a creationist site quotes Darwin or most any biologist as apparently being against evolution... they have almost certainly copied that quote, without checking, from some other creationist who ripped the quote out of context, and dishonestly portrayed the position of the person they are quoting.