The rationale of this post is to for once and for all clear up every misunderstanding or confusion about evolution, which I am seeing all to often on these boards. As a man of science I wish to clear up any misunderstanding or 'fact' that those outside the scientific community tell others. The purpose of this post is NOT to discourage creationism but to explain...
1. What evolution is
2. Why it is accepted in the scientific community
3. Common misconceptions
4. Explain to the 'everyday person' the scientific terms used in evolution and what they really mean.

I also encourage a self-proclaimed creationist to make a post similar to mine, to help those who don't fully understand it.

The Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection

The two scientist most known to be associated with evolution are Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace. Both scientists formulated their theories independently, and each explained how organisms have adapted to different environments.

Darwin published his theory in 1859 in a book called On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection. During this time, the leading theory was called "Special Creation", which stated that all the species on the earth were created independently by God. The key aspect to this theory held that species did not change.

Evolution Direct Definition
Change in characteristics over time
More precisely, the change in allele frequencies over time.

Micro Evolution

Micro Evolution is, in the most general sense, evolution that occurs within a population (Individuals can interbreed and are part of the same gene pool). Biologists who study this level of research indicate evolution is the change of gene frequency within the population.



This image shows a change in gene frequencies. This indicates that the population has evolved.

Processes of Micro Evolution

Mutation

Two green beetles reproduce. 1 of the offspring has mutated and has a brown gene instead of a green one.

Gene Flow

Gene Flow occurs when organisms from another population 'immigrate' to another population. This results in an increase in a certain gene.

Genetic Drift

Certain genes occur more frequently in a population randomly when members reproduce. In this case, brown increases while green decreases.

Natural Selection

This is the most exciting process in terms of observing how evolution works. As you can see in the image, the bird eats the green beetles more frequently because they are more easily seen. Therefore the brown beetles go on to reproduce and their frequency of genes increases.

Macro Evolution
This is the most controversial of the two (micro and macro) evolutionary process, not in the scientific community, but due to certain religious pressures.

Macro evolution is evolution occurring above the species level. Macro Evolution is not able to be observed first hand, unlike Micro Evolution, but that doesn't make it untrue. There are many scientific procedures that are followed to come to the proper conclusion.

The same exact processes involved in Micro Evolution occur in Macro Evolution, just on a much larger scale.


Biologists DO NOT question the holistic conclusions of Evolution, but they do question certain aspects of it. This is a short list of questions they are trying to answer...

1. Does evolution tend to proceed slowly and steadily or in quick jumps?

2. Why are some clades (A group of organisms that includes all the descendents of a common ancestor) very diverse and some unusually sparse?

3. How does evolution produce new and complex features?

4. Are there trends in evolution, and if so, what processes generate them?


Species Change as Time Passes

Darwin proposed that species that exist today have descended from preexisting species that changed through time.

Evidence

Transitional Forms
Darwin and modern scientists believe that extinct species in the fossil record are related to modern living species. Transitional forms are fossils of species with traits that are intermediate between those of older and younger species.

Example- Whales evolved from fox/small dog-sized animals. The oldest fossils suggest their oldest ancestor was a semi aquatic animal similar to hippopotamuses, due to their location in rocks that form in ocean deposits. Limbs reduced in size and became more aquatic.


This is an image of Australopithecus Afarensis which is accepted as an important transition form in the scientific community.

Extinction
Darwin and other scientists interpret the finding of extinct animal fossils as evidence that species are not static, but dynamic. They change and evolve into different species. If species have gone extinct, then they have changed through time. There have been more species that have gone extinct than there are species that exist today. Data suggests that species have gone extinct progressively throughout the history of Earth. One or two catastrophic events do not account for the amount of extinct species.

Structural Homologies


Structural Homologies are morphological traits that are similar. These can be similarities found in different aspects of an organism, including but not limited to such things as limbs (as seen in the above photo). All mammals descended from a common ancestor, and it can be observed that this common ancestor had the same foundation as its descendants.

Artificial Selection

Artificial selection can be described as an 'experimental natural selection'. Artificial selection can be done on both plants and animals. It helps us understand natural selection better due to environmental forces. Selective breeding and artificial selection is most evident in Broccoli/Cabbage/Cauliflower, which is descended from Yellow Mustard.



Evidence for Evolution: Summed Up
-Vast number of species have gone extinct
-Fossils of older species are similar to those of living species in the same area
-Vestigial Traits
-Populations of species are observed to be changing

How to Tell a Population is Evolving due to Natural Selection
1.Variation in the population. Mutations cause the changes seen in the organism. Genetic changes in DNA lead to structural changes which are past to offspring.
2.Heritable Variation. Variation in the genotypes (Genetic code for what can be observed) occur before an organism produces offspring, which causes it to be passed down.
3.Variation in Fitness. Fitness is the ability for an offspring to produce fertile offspring. Organisms in a population have a higher fitness than others and thus have offspring better adapted to its environment.
4.Selection. Those individuals with a gene that leads to better adaptation should have a higher reproductive success, and if it does, selection occurs and adaptation is met.

Common Myths in Evolution: What you need to know!

1. Evolution can only occur in populations. That is, individuals can not change during natural selection. Example: During a drought the beak size of individual finches does not become deeper, the average beak depth of the population increases over time due to higher fitness (remember, fitness means higher rate of reproduction) in deeper beaked individuals.

2. Evolution Doesn't Make Organisms "Better" Organisms that experience evolution do not necessarily get more 'complex' or 'better' due to evolution. They merely change to better fit their environment. For example, Tapeworms evolved from having a sophisticated digestive system to losing their digestive tract. No organism is higher than another.




3. Not all Traits are Adaptive. One of the most prime examples of this are goose bumps and the appendix. Both structures do not contribute or add to an organism's fitness and therefore are not adaptive.

4. Humans and Apes Share a Common Ancestor Humans did not evolve from Apes. They merely share the same common ancestor.

5. Natural Selection is Not Random Natural Selection is not a random process. The phenomenon of genetic variation due to mutation is random but those variants that cause a better 'fit' to the environment will become more widespread.

List of Terms Important in Evolution

Fossil- any trace of an organism that lived in the past.
Fossil Record- All fossils that have been found and described in scientific literature
Geologic Time Scale- Periods of geologic time in eons, epochs, and periods.
Transitional Form- Fossil species with traits that are intermediate between those of older and younger species
Vestigial Traits- Reduced structures that have no function or reduced function but are similar to functioning organs/structures of other organisms
Phylogeny- Family tree of populations or species
Structural Homologies- Morphological traits that are similar
Adaptation- heritable trait that increases fitness of an individual in a particular environment relative to individuals lacking the trait.
Fitness- Ability of an individual to produce offspring.

Evolution Is Just a Theory Argument

A theory is a proposed explanation for a very general class of phenomena or observation. Theories must have a proposed pattern and mechanism. Evolution has both of these. Inferring historical events from contemporary evidence is a valid research program in science. Remember that for some 150 years after the atomic theory was proposed, no one had actually seen an atom. Yet the theory was widely accepted as correct during this time. The theory of Evolution is supported by mountains of evidence and is generally accepted by every biologist. Of course evolution in a theoretical sense changes in minute ways, but the definition concerning how it works holistically has and will remain the same.



This is still a work in progress and will continue to add new parts to this thread. If you have any recommendations as to what should be explained or if you have any questions please post them and I will add them. This is a very brief start to a very large compilation that is planned to help educate the community.

thank you. I enjoyed reading it.

Evolution FOR THE ORIGIN OF THE SPECIES is simply bad science and is incorrect. Natural selection is a species adapting to its environment as dormant genes become active. This creates a different type of the same species or a different breed of the same species. It has never created a completely new species. Extrapolating this adaptation of a species to its environment to try to explain the origin of all species is just plain error. --bad, false science!

The rationale behind this following post is to once and for all clear up the UNSCIENTIFIC errors in the theory of evolution for the ORIGIN OF THE DIFFERENT SPECIES.

Scientific evidence to argue for the existence of God and against evolution for the origin of the species.

The laws of probability will tell you that this universe with all of its ordered complexity, could not have come into being by chance. To have that much order and complexity, the universe had to be designed by an intelligent creator. There is enough coded information in one human chromosome to
fill a small library of books. This had to be designed by an
intelligent creator.
The probability against that happening by chance is very
very high. It's like giving a chimpanzee a typewriter and letting him hit the keys at
random. The probability against his being able to type a small library full of books by hitting keys at random is so high that for all
practical purposes you can consider it impossible.
Because of this, there are some scientists and mathematicians who are forced to
believe in the existence of God by logic alone.
In order for a single cell to live, all of the parts of the cell must be assembled before life starts. This involves 60,000 proteins that are assembled in roughly 100 different combinations. The probability that these complex groupings of proteins could have happened just by chance is extremely small. It is about 1 chance in 10 to the 4,478,296 power. The probability of a living cell being assembled just by chance is so small, that you may as well consider it to be impossible. This means that the probability that the living cell is created by an intelligent creator, that designed it, is extremely large. The probability that God created the living cell is 10 to the 4,478,296 power to 1.
Example: 10 to the 6th power is one million, 10 to the 7th power is 10 million, 10 to the 8th power is 100 million, 10 to the 9th power is a billion; each time the power goes up by one, the number goes up by ten times as much. 10 to the 4,478,296 power, is a tremendously large number.
[The probability of this was calculated by Fred Hoyle, famous astronomer and mathematician.]
The laws conscerning entropy are well established in physics. Entropy is the measure of the randomness or disorder in a system. Entropy is always observed to increase in natural physical processes. Natural processes in science always tend toward more disorder. The idea that the universe could develope the ordered complexity that it has, by natural processes violates the law of entropy, that says disorder must increase in natural processes. Therefore, one must conclude that the complex order that we see in the universe did not come about by chance scientific processes. It was developed on purpose by an intelligent creator. God created it.
The law of entropy exists in thermodynamic systems involving heat, that is true. Entropy also exists as a measure of disorder in a system in statistical mechanics having nothing to do with thermodynamics. S=klnp + c. S = value of measure for a system in a given state. P is the probability of the occurence of that state. K is a fixed constant and c an arbitrary constant. Heat is disordered energy. Entropy is a broader term describing either heat or the amount of disorder in a system. The chemical reactions that you suppose will produce hundreds of thousands of ordered building blocks of amino acids to produce genes cannot occur by chance processes because statistical mechanics says that the reactions will tend toward more disorder. Genes and chromosomes have hundreds of thousands of complexly ordered parts. Accoording to statistical mechanics this much order cannot come from chance scientific processes. It had to come from an intelligent creator.


In instances where order increases to any significant degree it must be deliberately designed to do so. Heat is disordered energy. Something as simple as a refrigerator, that produces more order in a specific region by cooling down temperature, had to be designed to do so.

There are no existing physical rules, that have been observed by science, that indicate that ordered complexity can evolve by random chance occurences. In Science there is an observed law of entropy. In all natural occurences in science, the amount of disorder increases. In other words, the physical laws that are observed in nature lead to more disorder; they do not lead to ordered complexity.
The only thing observed to cause more complexity is an intelligence, of some sort deliberately assembling something together.
Example: A pile of building materials stacked in a pile is hit by a tornado. When the pieces come down, they do not assemble themselves into a house. They just fall into a more disordered pile of building materials. An intelligence must deliberately assemble the materials into a house to get ordered complexity.
God created the ordered complexity in the universe. There are no observed scientific processes that can account for it happening by itself.


Natural selection will weed out inferior members of a species according to environmental requirements. But, this only leads to a species changing to another variety of the same species known as a subspecies; that is all that is observed in nature. [Crickets in dark caves become white with no eyes; also fish in caves.] But natural selection has not been observed to cause one species to change into another new species. Fish do not change into amphibians; amphibians do not change into reptiles; reptiles do not change into mammals. Natural selection cannot account for the origin of the different species. There are a million missing links in the fossil record as it has been found. The intermediate stages that would be necessary for fish to become amphibians, and reptiles to become mammals, have not been found in the fossils. The fossils show evidence that all of the species were originally created by God and they did not evolve into one another.
"Biochemical systems are exceedingly complex, so much so that the chance
of their being formed through random shufflings of simple organic
molecules is exceedingly minute, to a point indeed where it is
insensibly different from zero"
- Hoyle and Wickramasinghe, p.3

"No matter how large the environment one considers, lfe cannot have had
a random beginning. Troops of monkeys thundering away at random on
typewriters could not produce the works of Shakespeare, for the
practical reason that the whole observable universe is not large enough
to contain the necessary monkey hordes, the necessary typewriters, and
certainly the waste paper baskets required for the deposition of wrong
attempts. The same is true for living material"
Ibid., p.148

"The trouble is that there are about two thousand enzymes, and the
chance of obtaining them all in a random trial is one one part in
(10^20)^2000 = 10^40000, an outrageously small probability that could
not be faced even if the whole universe consisted of organic soup. If
one is not prejudiced either by social beliefs or by a scientific
training into the conviction that life originated on the Earth [by
chance or natural processes], this simple calculation wipes the idea
entirely out of court"
Ibid., p.24

"Any theory with a probability of being correct that is larger than one
part in 10^40000 must be judged superior to random shuffling. The
theory that life was assembled by an intelligence has, we believe, a
probability vastly higher than one part in 10^40000 of being the correct
explaination of the many curious facts discussed in previous chapters.
Indeed, such a theory is so obvious that one wonders why it is not
widely accepted as being self-evident. The reasons are psychological
rather than scientific."
Ibid., p.130

"All point mutations that have been studied on the molecular level turn
out to reduce the genetic information and not to increase it."
- Lee Spetner, "Not by Chance"(Brooklyn, New York: The Judaica
Press,Inc.) p.138

"It appears that the neo-darwinism hypothesis is insufficient to explain
some of the observations that were not available at the time the
paradigm took shape. ...One might ask why the neo-darwinian paradigm
does not weaken or disappear if it is at odds with critical factual
information. The reasons are not necessarily scientific ones but rather
may be rooted in human nature"
- Christian Schwabe "On the Validity of Molecular Evolution", Trends in
Biochemical Sciences, July 1986, p.282

"The really significant finding that comes to light from comparing the
proteins' amino acid sequences is that it is impossible to arrange them
in any sort of evolutionary series" - Ibid. p.289

"Thousands of different sequences, protein, and nucleic acid, have now
been compared in hundreds of different species but never has any
sequnces been found to be in any sense the lineal descendant or ancestor
of any other sequence." - Ibid. pp. 289-290

"Each class at a molecular level is unique, isolated and unlinked by
intermediates. Thus molecules, like fossils, have failed to provide the
elusive intermediates so long sought by evolutionary biology." - Ibid
p.290

"There is little doubt that if this molecular evidence had been
available one century ago it would have been seized upon with
devastating effect by the opponents of evolution theory like Agassiz and
Owen, and the idea of organic evolution might never have been
accepted." - Ibid pp.290-291

"In terms of their biochemistry, none of the species deemed
'intermediate', 'ancestral' or 'primitive' by generations of
evolutionary biologists, and alluded to as evidence of sequence in
nature, show any sign of their supposed intermediate status" - Ibid
p.293

Duane T. Gish, The Origin of Mammals : If this view of evolution is true, the fossil record should produce an enormous number of transitional forms. Natural history museums should be overflowing with undoubted intermediate forms. About 250,000 fossil species have been collected and classified?Applying evolution theory and the laws of probability, most of these 250,000 species should represent transitional forms.

Dr. Walt Brown, In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood, page 10: Fossil links are missing between numerous plants, between single-celled forms of life and invertebrates, between invertebrates and vertebrates, between fish and amphibians, between amphibians and reptiles, between reptiles and mammals, between reptiles and birds, between primates and other mammals, and between apes and other primates. The fossil record has been studied so thoroughly that it is safe to conclude that these gaps are real; they will never be filled. ---

Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species:
the number of intermediate varieties, which have formerly existed [must] truly be enormous. Why then is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely-graduated organic chain; and this, perhaps, is the most obvious and serious objection which can be urged against the theory [of evolution].


Dr. Niles Eldredge, paleontologist at the American Museum of Natural History, "Missing, Believed Nonexistent", Manchester Guardian, 26 November 1978:?
"The search for 'missing links' between various living creatures, like humans and apes, is probably fruitless?because they probably never existed as distinct transitional types...But no one has yet found any evidence of such transitional creatures?If it is not the fossil record which is incomplete then it must be the theory."
Lyall Watson, "The Water People", Science Digest, May 1982:
"Modern apes, for instance, seem to have sprung out of nowhere. They have no yesterday, no fossil record. And the true origin of modern humans?of upright, naked, toolmaking, big-brained beings?is, if we are to be honest with ourselves, an equally mysterious matter."

Dr. Collin Patterson, a paleontologist at the Natural History Museum in Britain, when asked why he hadn't included any illustrations of transitional forms in his book, Evolution, he replied in a letter: "I fully agree with your comments on the lack of direct illustration of evolutionary transitions in my book. If I knew of any, fossil or living, I would certainly have included them?I will lay it on the line?there is not one such fossil for which one could make a watertight argument."

"The absence of fossil evidence for intermediary stages between major transitions in the organic design, indeed our inability, even in our imagination, to construct functional intermediates in many cases, has been a persistent and nagging problem for gradualistic accounts of evolution." S.J.Gould. "Evolution Now: A Century After Darwin", 1982, p. 140



Prigogine, a Nobel Prize winning thermodynamicist:
"The probability that at ordinary temperatures a macroscopic number of molecules is assembled to rise to the highly ordered structures and to the coordinated functions characterizing living organisms is vanishingly small. The idea of spontaneous genesis of life in its present form is therefore highly improbable even on the scale of the billions of years during which prebiotic evolution is speculated to have occured."
Ilya Prigogine, et al, Nov 1972, Physics Today p. 23-31

They've also found human and dinosaur footprints in the same rock strata, in places like Turkmenia, in Nicaragua and near the palaxi river in the US.

Noah's flood mixed up all the layers under it. So any fossils from beneath the sedimentary layer cannot be dated to the rock they are found in.

And to sum it all up:

Evolution does not care if anybody believes in it, it will be simply go on

Believes like religion need people to beleive in it or it will perish

Given these two postulates, which one do you think is more believable? Evolution or religion?

antiaging,

Follow this link

This is your claim, now read the refutation in the link provided on that page.

Any other claims you may have are probably located here

I'd advise you look at them and see why they are either untrue or have been based on a misunderstanding of Evolutionary Theory.

Antiaging, your post is riddled with so much scientific falsities its hilarious to read.



The origin of species follows the scientific theory temple to the tee. Yours on the other hand, doesn't.

You don't know what a species is. A species
a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. Evolution does create a completely new species, and what you don't seem to understand is that inference in a scientific sense is completely acceptable. First-hand observation IS NOT NEEDED. Like I stated, for 150 years the atom was generally accepted by everyone even though it was not seen.


The first part you said is true, but you are making false accusations by saying it had to be designed by a creator. Do you understand how a chromosome is made and how it stores information? If you did you would see that it wouldn't have to be designed by such a creator.


Those are bad scientists and mathematicians



You are again, confused with science. The second law of thermodynamics states that isolated systems tend to proceed toward higher entropy. That means this only applies to systems that are closed. Open systems can exhange energy with the outside. Living organisms draw energy by eating.



What you are referencing was the work by Sir Fred Hoyle 'famous' for 'Hoyle's Fallacy'. There is a key problem with his assessment though. His probability statistics is unfounded. Meaning he has no basis to formulate his results. It is impossible to know how many possible combinations existed while life was forming. With this, it is impossible to calculate such results.
Lies, Damned Lies, Statistics, and Probability of Abiogenesis Calculation by Ian Musgrave explains it clearly...

1. They calculate the probability of the formation of a "modern" protein, or even a complete bacterium with all "modern" proteins, by random events.
2. They assume that there is a fixed number of proteins, with fixed sequences for each protein, that are required for life.
3. They calculate the probability of sequential trials, rather than simultaneous trials.
4. They misunderstand what is meant by a probability calculation.
5. They seriously underestimate the number of functional enzymes/ribozymes present in a group of random sequences.

Second, I am not even going to comment on the rest of the post because you were lazy enough to just copy and paste a past post where much of it was discredited, instead of writing up a new one.

Very nice post, Cimber. I was thinking of starting a thread like this myself. When I have the time and feel up to it I'd like to add a few pieces explaining how evolution works, the individual mechanisms and what they do. Much of it is surprisingly simple. I can't help but think if more people were exposed to it, they might not be so quick to reject it.

If you need some help and or references, at your disposition gentlemen...

ouch !!!!!!!!! lol

I would probably say "don't bother". Last time he brought this up, more than a few people (including myself) responded and criticized it, including his egregious misquoting of Niles Eldredge at the bottom. If he's still copy-and-pasting the same nonsense even after detailed refutations, he's probably not going to listen.

-Updated information on the original post-

Very good.

Well said...you are CORRECT

Evolution doesnt give a brass monkies (pun so NOT intended here lol)..if anyone believes in it..it will continue to go on and on

Ok I didnt quite quote your enire post..only due to the size of it

but all I can say is WOW..outstanding post and great effort went into it....by far the only real post that actually explains a lot

Good job !

For those of you interested in recent work in the field of human evolution I can recommend the BBC Radio 4 website which has :-



An exploration of the latest ideas and discoveries in the quest to understand the origins and evolution of humanity.

In the year 2000, zoologist Aubrey Manning presented a series of three programmes on human evolution for Radio 4. In the last seven years, palaeoanthropologists and archaeologists have made a host of stunning discoveries, many of which have defied expectations and overturned cherished theories.

The three programmes of Origins Revisited bring listeners up to date on the latest fossil finds and new ideas about human evolution.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/science/origins_revisited.shtml

I don't know how I missed this. I have grown tired of the creation/evolution threads for the most part. You can explain evolution over and over again and the creationist will still claim it is faults, because if evolution is true it blows their literal view of the Bible out of the water. They would rather reject all the evidence and look like fools than do that. Cinder you did a wonderful job on this thread, but if you look at the latest threads on evolution/creation you can see it fell on deaf ears. How sad. Anyway keep up the good work Cinder many be someone will hear.

Hey Cimber, just a thought you should add something on the evolution of corn since that is pretty well known and is a great example of speciation. I could type something up tomorrow when I get some free time if you would like.

Great post though, I wanted to make something like this as well, but was not sure if I had the time.

I'll be sure to add something later tonight on the matter since I have information on it. Although, plants were never my favorite piece of course work lol

I whole heartedly agree. I took plant biology as a freshman in my undergrad, that lasted all of three days before I dropped it for another class . Its such a good example though, because observed macro-evolution. Well so long as you believe the historical writings on corn!

Watch it, pal. I don't call you names.

From Nachtmahre's helmet :People who speak against mother Teresa are lower than dirt.


This is what you just said in another post ? Forgot already ?


Yours, truly
Angel with a dirty face

Zing

I don't believe I called you "names", but if the shoe fits what can I say.

It's a shame to let such a good thread go to waste.

Here's a good video which explains the process of natural selection with a demonstration. Click.

Nice thread, but you forgot to add:
1) Why the Modern evolutionary synthesis didn't predict or anticipate that the genes controlling how a tiny fruit fly’s body and organs are made also control the making of most animals, including man. (Hox genes)
2) Why the Modern evolutionary synthesis didn't predict that lateral gene transfer played a fundamental role in microbial evolution. Most evolutionary biologists resisted the idea that lateral gene transfer would be so important in microbial evolution.
3) What the Modern evolutionary synthesis's stand is on Junk DNA. Does evolutionary theory predict it should be functional? Or does it predict that its the flotsam and jetsam left over from the tinkering blind watchmaker?
4) Why Darwinian theory explained why RNA polymerase could not proofread. Now it explains why RNA polymerase can proofread.
5) Why Darwinian theory can explain why an appendix would be functionless, and now explains why the appendix does indeed have a function... etc.

Perhaps, as Cimbers thread is an introduction, these objections are a little specific? None particularly damage the essential solidity of Evolutionary theory, and pointing out that correct methodology continually adds to the theory is, well, fairly obvious?
Cheers

Nicely done Cimbers.
For antiaging a nice completely man made species that we created by breeding - Ovis aries The domestic sheep.

Cimber,

Thank you for taking the time to put that intro to evolution together. I appreciate the time and effort you put in to this presentation. Unfortunately I think you’re preaching to the choir, as some of the religious folks see evolution as a clear and present danger to their world view (why I don’t know). Anyway keep fighting the good fight.

Antiaging,

Can you please calculate the odds of god existing for me?

I looked for proof of human footprints along side of dinosaur foot prints, and found tons of articles (mostly on religious sites) but did not see one photo showing them side by side together in the same substrate. Do you have any you can provide? Also I would like to turn your incomplete fossil argument around on you and ask; where are the fossilized remains of humans along side of dinosaurs? After all we have found spear points, knife marks artwork, and other overwhelming evidence of humans existing with and eating mega fauna such as the wooly mammoth, mastodon, and others. Wouldn’t we find this same evidence we existed with dinosaurs?

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/paluxy/onheel.html

See the above link for evidence that refutes your claim for human and dino tracks found in Texas.

As Cimber suggested your arguments would be much more convincing if instead of regurgitating or cutting and pasting the misinformed arguments of others you actually educate your self and show understanding of the evolutionary process. If you really understood you could see how funny your post actually is.

Just a question: wouldn't current evidence suggest that most evolution happens in quick bursts rather than small changes over long time?

Correct me if I'm wrong (which I very well may be), but haven't there been very few "in between" species found, but more often the parent species have been found?

Ha! fantastic Evancj! I was considering throwing Richard Dawkins cascading improbability argument into the ring. I hesitate because it is a quite brutal use of logic, and (if one is using logic as evidence of divine intervention) rather destroys the likelyhood of god as a function of probability.

Actually modern synthesis does include this. Take a high level class on molecular genetics or genetic evolution. Scientific theories update themselves.



Scientists are skeptical of all new ideas, they have to "prove themselves worthy" to be considered. This is how we get science correct. And modern syn. does account for this now now (see reply to number 1).



Junk DNA is an old term that the public is still using. Much of "junk" DNA does have nominal uses. Some still has no function (extended repeats), except maybe to serve as a "marker" to reading systems. So of non-functional DNA does seem to be an artifact of evolution. This can be seen with certain genes not functional in humans, but functional in the other great apes.



Darwin nor his theory never knew what RNA, much less a polymerase was. Since the discovery of genetics we have been able to update evolutionary theory to account for it (which add more support to evolutionary theory). Science is allowed to update its body of knowledge....


See the above reply. Science updates its understandings. Darwin theory never said that the appendix had to be functionless, it did say if it was, it was likely a vestigial organ. Also the function of the appendix is not an absolute, we have good evidence it does function, but that does not mean we are 100% correct.





Evolution progress both ways, "short hops" and "long strides". Its not as simple as "fast or slow". There are many, many, many, factors that contribute to the speed of evolution such as; fecundity, population size, rate of mutation (synonymous and non-synonymous), selection pressures, reproductive success etc. Frankly, this is best suited for a mid to high level class on evolution in a formal education setting (as there is no "quick" answer) rather than a informal forum post on evolution 101.

There have been many "in between" species found. Species is a confusing term, it delivers the idea that a "type" of organism is static. A species does not really exist so to say, unless we were able to stop time. Species are constantly in flux, never ever static. I prefer the idea of lineages as that paints a better picture (at least for me).

I am not sure what you consider in between, if you mean in form and function (which is what you should mean), then my above statement is correct. We have found many fossils which represent transitional form and function of parts.

Despite the feeling I get that most "questioning" evolution are not going to take the initiative to read up on it, I'll post you some links anyway.

A few transition fossils

Also if you are unwilling to take a class on modern biology or evolution then I would recommend these books for help answering your question (about the speed at which evolution occurs).

mheeee.......

all nice and that for evo, i just cant get over 1 thing: species are built to interbreed only with their own species, we can have many breeds in 1 species but they stay the same species no matter in what order these breeds interbreed.
so lets say a population of 1 cell organisms has landed on earth yaY, different species interbreed as they should, but different species cant breed with other species, so later every species will reach their limit of evolution and only the fittest will exist, ok so now we got lets say 10 different species fully loaded by evo for ultimate survivel, and now what ? they start eating eachother, dominance is established, now what ? the fittest one is at it's best he has no reason to evolve no where and he cant evolve any more because he reached the limit of interbreeding combinations.

so when exactly do single cell organisms or what ever is the simplest life form becomes a multi cell creature ?
oh oh and why the frak does he decides to crawl out of water to land, when there is even no food on land for him because he is the first one to crawl onto land ? (why i say in such confidence the first move was onto land, is because if we speak of simplest organisms then they are water bound, no need to break owr head on this 1, right)

now technically when the first multi cell creature crawled to land there should be some 1 waiting for him to be eaten by him, which means the first landers were herbivorous.

now lets think here of another obstacle, the transition Yay. i'l guess first creatures were a pile of slimy mucus that manuvered in water better then when beaching and crawled awkwardly on shore for few minuts and returned to water but every time they did, they thought more and more of the land, over gazilion of years developed more suitable limbs for land till perfection.
but whos hand was in it to start the change is another story.

Wait, wait, wait....
You are starting wrongheaded. Evolution and the various mechanisms by which natural selection is brought about, care nothing for the names we attach (which could be seen as arbitrary, but which have longstanding usage) to the various levels of life. So species aren't "built" to interbreed with their own species - dna works in a very specific manner, and - in one way or another - evolution is the gradual change in dna. So speciation (where you get a new species developing from the old one) is gradual change brought about by various pressures on a population - geographical isolation, environmental change, competition, etc.

If the above didn't resolve this question, could you phrase it another way?


You know all this is easy info to find if you want to look...
Have a look at an evolutionary timeline to clear up what happened when...

Cimber,

I LOVE LOVE LOVE your OP. Many kudos to you!

I see it like this:

Evolution is a pretty solid theory, and yes there are some holes in it that we haven't answered...yet. Creationism has so many holes that it's barely a 'theory' at all. Why would a rational human being choose to believe in the theory out of those two that has the least amount of evidence? That makes the least amount of sense? I never understood that.

Another thing I would like to ask Cimber, is that by the sound of your posts, you are most likely Atheist. But, when talking about evolution, is there any part of the entire theory that states that there was not intelligent design in the beginning? How accepted would it be in the scientific community that a god created the building blocks to what we have now, and designed it with the capability to improve on itself as changes are made? Can you answer those questions without your own personal beliefs please, it has been so hard for me to determine if the theory of evolution discounts an initial intelligent design because people's own opinions come into it.

Thanks!

I work with trees which produce fertile inter-specific crosses routinely. The boundary between two similar species can get pretty blurred.

Example 1: plains cottonwood (Populus sargentii) and eastern cottonwood (P. deltoides) have produced crosses to such an extent that along the western edge of the Great Plains, they have essentially become one species.

Example 2: Rocky Mountain juniper (Juniperus scopulorum) has crossed with eastern red-cedar (J. virginiana) in Wyoming to produce a cross that is so successful it has excluded both parent species from large parts of the state.

Example 3: Loblolly pine (Pinus taeda) is currently subjecting shortleaf pine (P. echinata) to genetic swamping. Human activitiesa are accelerating the trend.

In all three cases, two species are uniting to become a new species. So your statement may need a little modification.

The same thing happened to Bison latifrons: it was swamped by Bison bison. BUT: some Bison latifrons genes still survive in Bison bison and are now part of its genetic complement.

Strictly speaking, living things are not restricted to interbreeding only with their own "kind." This is why genetically modified crops are a concern: should artificial genes escape into unrelated species, we could start a major environmental disaster. What would be the consequences of BT-producing genes rendering a plant like ragweed immune to herbivory? Evolution has a major impact on your life whether you like it or not.
Doug

Have to agree with your excellent post in most respects, but:

That common ancestor was proconsul, a creature so ape-like that if we saw one in a zoo, you or I would immediately proclaim it a chimpanzee. While humans have undergone considerable evolution since proconsul, the chimps have changed very little. While humans AND chimps evolved from proconsul, it's still a fairly-accurate description to say that humans evolved from apes.

The feature that distinguishes the apes from the monkeys is that apes lack tails.

Doug

You all can stay at the zoo but I will always believe humans were created with dignity and grace and our existance is not just by mere coincidence. Evolution to me is like this, you take all the complex pieces of a grandfather clock and disassemble it completely and leave all the thousands of parts inside the grandfather clock. If you shake it over trillions of years every part will eventually fit back perfectly in its original position and make the clock functional again. You woul have to shake it for a pretty long time i'd say, and I don't think that those parts would ever go back to their original positions. And evolution is 10x more complex than the grandfather clock analogy. To me evolution sounds bogus just as to you creationism does, so who's right and who's wrong? I guess we'll see in the end, because if evolutionists are right then we don't have to be responsible for our actions to anybody, and we just turn to dust and our complex and beautiful minds cease to work. But if creationism is correct, and their is an intelligent creator, I feel for atheists because It won't be pretty.

EDIT: As Neph kindly edited his post...

I edited it just for you raptor.

A grandfather clock is a human invention as well as being created for a single purpose. Your anology is a rather poor attempt to disprove evolution, being that cells can adapt, mutate, become infected, die, become unstable ectect. Whereas metal cannot, unless you yourself melt the metal, bend it, shape it, or put the peices together.
A grandfather clock cannot adapt to anything, cells can given the chance through reproductive 'mishaps' - I say 'mishaps' as they can either be generous to survival or a mistake and doom the individual: ie: Zonkey's are sterile, the zebra and donkey can and will mate if they are around one another. However if zebras and donkeys roamed the wild together and breeding between them became a natural thing, then perhaps a zonkey may be born able to mate, and after a few thousand years, eventually you'll have a new speices.
Now, have a grandfather clock and a digital grandfather clock in the same room. After a few thousand years, they will still be standing next to each other, and looking rather decayed. Nothing will have happened apart from this.

The grandfather clock requires human intervention to exist as well as to work.

Your cells need no human intervention to adapt, change, become infected, die or mitose/create more cells.

A very poor anology for you to use. Biological and metalic constructions make very poor attempts of comparative equations.

Edit: fixed a typo.

Thanks.

Nephilim,

Clock components do not reproduce. They do not mutate. They are not subject to natural selection. They do not have a natural affinity for each other.

This video refutes your claim nicely. Click. If you're truly interested in a debate then I'd ask that you watch this video then post what you think.

Ummm hold the phone...how does evolution got anyhting to do with being responsible for our own actions??? how??

Last time i checked evolution was NOT about having responsibility LOL I just highlighted the silly parts to that post of yours that do not show how you understand any of it...evolution AND Creationism....heck to state that only atheists are evolutionists is really NOT that smart of you.......I think you need to brush up on bible study ...cuz frankly you have never shown any wise words to use as a defense.....and tthat grandfather clock analogy was absurd...evolution is about EVOLVING not shaking things together LOL its about evolving...turning into something else GROWTH that takes a lot of time

Seriously though Nep...there are christians on here that can carry out a full on debate on evo v's creation...and they do it was careful wording and they think before they post....these are called smart christians that actually STUDY the bible..therefore they KNOW what they are talking about....and they NEVER post up silly statements to be used a a defense ...

Maybe you should PM Jor-el, Irish, IAMS or PA for help on this... and I am NOT being sarcastic...what i am doing is trying to lay you constructive words...

Correct Raptor

Others have pointed out the ineptness of this analogy, so I want to address the bolded. I have heard this critcism, or sentiment expressed before - in every case by Christians - and I find this more offensive than almost all other misappropriations of evolutionary theory. How on earth can any human look at, say Orangs or Mountain Gorrilla families, and not see the heartbreaking dignity and beauty of these people - and I use the word advisedly - and not feel kinship for them? I predict that, if our primate cousins are not driven to extinction, we will see them - Bonobos, Chimpanzees, Gorrillas and Orang Utans - included in the universal declaration of human rights by 2020.

So very true I feel that many creationists but themselves so high above other animals that its demeening to them. Yes in many aspects we are superior in many others we're not! Many people think that as an atheist or non-believer that you must be lacking some fulfillment in your life. But when I see that I am part of this huge macrocosm or life each species interconnected the sense of wonder is over-whelming!

You find it undignified that life originated from organic ooze, yet you somehow think it fitting that Adam was created from mud?

One does not have to be an atheist to find that Evolution makes more sense than any other idea yet proposed.

Religion has some valid concepts to offer mankind, but only if it can separate itself from the superstitions that it has allowed to grow up around itself. You have a lot of work ahead.
Doug

Some current thinking on the topic holds that because ethics impart a survival benefit to a species, ethics are under genetic control and subject to evolution. So the creationist cry about ethics proving god, turns out to be a false proof.
Doug

The problem is not one of Creationism Vs. Evolution. It is one of Literacy Vs. Illiteracy, not just in evolution, biology and geology, but in the sciences in general and the Bible, as well.

The Bible makes a few statements that can be interpreted as an instantaneous generation of life. But it also can support the creation of life over many millions of years. A great deal of what you are hearing from the Creationist side is no more accurate in regard to the Bible than it is in regard to science.

It is time to save the Bible from fundamentalism.

Doug

I think Doug summed it up pretty much nicely for me.

I understand why and how Creationists come to their conclusions, and that we are never going to change their minds. They do believe humans are the superior race (which I am sure would be fiercely argued by other species) and therefore that if evolution were true, that puts them on the same level as monkeys and bears and slugs and such.

What I never understood was why can't the Bible be interpreted to include both divine and evolutionary theories? This isn't a black and white issue to me, but more shades of gray than anything.

Here are some questions I have never been able to get answers on, from creationists or evolutionists:

Couldn't God have created life forms, and included the tools for each life form to evolve into something higher? With all the variety he included in the earth, wouldn't it have been wise for him to give cells the ability to mutate, and give species the ability to adapt? If fundamentalist creationism is correct, why is it that the 'perfect' human mold that was created first now being improved upon? Why is it that the physical appearance of races changes based on location and environmental circumstance? What did Adam look like? And why don't all of us look like him? On the other hand, why do evolutionists so vehemently deny the possibility of a divine being, when it is possible that something started the evolutionary process?

I think evolution for the most part is irrefutable, but that doesn't mean that there is not a god. I'm not an atheist, but an agnostic, and I admit there is a possibility of some higher form. What evidence is there to prove otherwise?