food for thought

[edgeboy]

There is no evidence or scientific proof of macroevolution. There
is only THEORIES.




...put that in your pipe and smoke it!

 

[A_Wanderer]

Is it not the least bit contradictory to accept that mutation and natural selection occur but only on small scales and only over short periods of time but not accept the idea of cumulative small changes over longer periods of time yielding adaptation. It is the same bloody process.

Your assertion that there is no scientific evidence or proof of speciation is wrong, look at the Drosophila on the Hawaiian Islands, look at the Goatsbeard in the US, the selective breeding of Dogs over the last few thousand years to give numerous breeds with their own attributes (even though there are new/no reproductive barriers between them). Just look at the anatomical similarities between the Aves and the Dromaeosaurids, what is so implausible that dinosaurs could have evolved into birds.

'We have the evidence, the scientific facts. We have the scientific theories to explain these facts. You must learn exactly what a scientific theory is; it is a framework for explaining observations that can make testable predictions. The scientific theory is by definition supported by the evidence, if it lacks evidence then it is a hypothesis. Over time theories can be discarded if a better theory is invented or new evidence comes to light that doesn't fit the evidence.

Animals don't magically change into other animals ~ there is genetic variation between parents and offspring, this variation can effect the relative reproductive sucess of the offspring, this pressure will "select" the more useful mutations because those that carry it will have greater breeding sucess. That is the theory of natural selection in a nutshell, it is not a hypothesis; we can see this at work, you take animals and put them in different conditions over the course of generations the offspring will usually be better adapted to their enviornment in some ways.

 

[BVS]

There is no evidence or scientific proof of macroevolution. There
is only THEORIES.




...put that in your pipe and smoke it!

Wow that's a lot of food to think about...

 

[melon]

There is no evidence or scientific proof of macroevolution. There
is only THEORIES.




...put that in your pipe and smoke it!

Yes, there is.

And creationism is an unprovable hypothesis that any person with an education laughs at.

Melon

 

[financeguy]

There is no evidence or scientific proof of macroevolution. There
is only THEORIES.




...put that in your pipe and smoke it!

Wow, that really floored us.

 

[edgeboy]

Read this: http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/biblical_apologetics/49566

 

[melon]

Read this: http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/biblical_apologetics/49566

Pick someone credible, instead of a quack on a computer. Anyone could have written that.

Melon

 

[edgeboy]

....."And creationism is an unprovable hypothesis that any person with an education laughs at."




....What about the doctors and scientists who do believe in
creastionism? What about the people who have studied this
topic there whole lives. Can you really laugh at them?

 

[edgeboy]

Ok melon,Do some of your own research on some of the leading
evolutionists that have admitted that macroevolution is a dead
end theory.

 

[MumblingBono]

Arguments over religion

 

[melon]

No. You came up with the statement, and it is YOUR burden to prove it. All you've come up with is a random link with nothing but meaningless pseudointellectual babble--the same kind of language I expect from a papal encyclical.

WHAT doctors and scientists? 99% of them, if they are truly non-biased, fully believe in evolution. The ones who don't let religion get ahead of reason, which is NOT how science operates. In other words, religious types dismiss evolution solely because their minister tells them to, and they start looking for "excuses" to dismiss evolution, rather than looking at evolution with an open mind and finding flaws on the basis of logic or evidence.

Speaking of "logic," the crux of this argument is that because people cannot physically "see macro-level" evolution, it cannot exist. But if you could "see it," it would instead be "micro-level" evolution. Notice the circular logic? In other words, due to the flawed criteria that you've set that you assume to be true, you've made it impossible to prove it.

So you've written your crap, now PROVE it yourself.

Melon

 

[edgeboy]

....Nope this has nothing to do with religion. Just science.

 

[edgeboy]

....I can't beat you melon. Your such an expert.

 

[melon]

....I can't beat you melon. Your such an expert.

And you're nothing but a troll trying to stir up shit.

Melon

 

[edgeboy]

Listen, I only started this topic because I found out about so many evolutionists and creationists talking about the fact that macroevolution is in more way than one scientifically impossiple.
So don't get mad at me about it.

 

[BVS]

But you haven't shown shit. So yeah it is frustrating to those that want to use this forum for true discussions. When you create a post give us something to debate not a belief of yours and then tell us to put it in your pipe and smoke it. Scientific websites, research, etc...show us something.

 

[A_Wanderer]

Listen, I only started this topic because I found out about so many evolutionists and creationists talking about the fact that macroevolution is in more way than one scientifically impossiple.
So don't get mad at me about it.

Talks cheap.

Science is not about consensus it is about explaination of observation, even if 99% of "scientists" (what type of scientists? chemists, physicists, cosmologists, molecular biologists, paleontologists ~ most of those scientific disciplines have little to do with evolutionary biology) said that macro-evolution did not occur the evidence still supports the theory.

....What about the doctors and scientists who do believe in
creastionism? What about the people who have studied this
topic there whole lives. Can you really laugh at them?

Which ones? What disciplines? What in their minds shows that natural selection cannot lead to speciation?

As for your article I am going to give it a good fisking.

Extrapolation from Micro to Macro
Evolutionism is the story that all varieties of living organisms arose from a single, common ancestor (cell), which spontaneously generated in a primordial soup eons ago. It is the story that is told in schools and universities across the country and in the world. It is the predominant naturalistic story of how living organisms came to their present state.[/b]

The begining of life the "spontaneous generation" of a cell is firstly not an accurate description of the processes that we think may have formed the first self replicating chemicals all those billions of years ago, it is also not relevent too the discussion about evolution. How exactly the first organism came to be has little bearing on the physical processes exerted on the populations afterwards.

The first problem with the story is that it is based upon the extrapolation from microevolution to macroevolution.

It is not an extrapolation, it is a distinction of scale, they are exactly the same processes. Extrapolation is making claims beyond the information that you have, with large scale evolution events like speciation we have a lot of evidence to support the theory; fossil evidence, morpological evidence, genetic evidence etc.

Microevolution refers to the observed reality that there are variations within kinds. One generation of parents passes genes on to the descendants, and these genes contain codes that allow for variety. This is what we see in the various breeds of dogs. This is what we see in the racial differences among people. This is what is observed when insects develop resistance to pesticides. With these observed phenomena, there is no dispute. But note: the changes occur within the kinds, within the already existing gene pool. There is no evidence of one kind becoming another kind (and "kind" here does not equal "species," which is an isolated breeding group within a kind).

And what of observed ring species such as the salamander on the west coast of the USA? that exists in different forms in different environments, mountain forms and coastal forms, and there are areas where they overlap and cannot interbreed ~ they are different species. But you can breed with neighbouring populations with less variation that can breed with neighbouring popluations enabling a slow but steady gene flow between the two. Prime example of speciation, can be verified by the genetic markers that show the differences from an original species. The emergence of the polyploidy in goatsbeard cross breeds leading to a breeding crossbreed that formed a new species was an example of very rapid speciation that occured between 1910 and 1950.

(And incidentally, this does not conflict with the Bible. God's creation of kinds in Genesis shows that they reproduced after their own kind. Cyclical variation within the kind is a part of this.)

And what exactly does Genesis have to do with anything? The story (if taken literally) violates fundamental physical laws of conservation of matter and energy. There is absolutely no scientific proof for the existence of any deity and because of this God should not be a factor in any scientific theory.

Macroevolution refers to the grand changes that result in the formation of new complex organisms. This is the "simple cell to man" part of evolutionism. Vast changes are said to have occurred, driven by natural selection and chance mutations. Macroevolution is the story we are all used to hearing.

These vast changes are just a function of probability, there are a lot of mutations and bits of genetic variation, surely a small but consistent proportion of them can be beneficial in a particular environment. Given a lot of time, a lot of species there are a lot of positive, neutral and negative mutations that take place, life on earth is a dynamic thing, it is not static.

Generally, evolutionists will object to the distinction made between micro and macro. Why? Because once this distinction is recognized, the story will start to crumble.

Yes, because when you start to tear a cohesive and functional theory apart to reconcile it with other beliefs and then apply it selectively ignoring the evidence that supports it it sounds like utter shite. Having micro-evolution but no macro-evolution is a wrongheaded theory, what happens to the cumulative change? does somebody set a reset switch and life reverts back to a base state? of all the billions of mutations and adaptions are they all discarded for a base state after time?

The whole story is based upon the extrapolation from micro to macro. That is, they point to microevolution as their proof, then argue that, therefore, macroevolution has occurred.

We look at an example of microevolution say selectively breeding pesticide resistenece in insects ~ then we look at the natural history of life in the fossil record and genetic code of animals and observe where things have changed on an anatomic and/or molecular level and what changes were neccessary for this to happen.

However, they put it all under the umbrella of "evolution," thereby equivocating and even deceiving those who haven’t learned that there is a difference.

And if they are going to learn the distinction between micro-evolution and macro-evolution will they also be told about the processes of mutation, genetic variation through sexual reproduction, population pressures and deep time? If you only tell them half the truth then is that not also decietful?

They might say something like this: "evolution has been observed," and from this they tell the story of "evolution." But a subtle shift has occurred. The "evolution" that has been observed is micro, not macro. Evolution (micro) has been observed, but evolution (macro) has never been observed. And therein lies the deception.

I can look at dinosaur fossils, I can look at small therapods anatomy and compare it to modern day birds, The similarities in skull and bones, I can then look at recent discoveries from Liaoning in China of feathered dinosaurs from the early cretaceous ~ I could perform cladistic analysis on different specimens to reconstruct similarities and evolutionary relationships ~ such as the appearence of tufted feathers, the keel, lighening of bone structures etc. Hell I could take a certain fossil T-Rex bone, extract a soft tissue protein from inside (truly amazing paleontology that just happened this year) and do a comparison on a molecular level to that of modern day birds (turned out it has quite a few similarities to that of ostriches). These are all pieces of evidence for evolution, common ancestoral forms, variation/modification of existing structures (the inner ear for example, the bones inside the mammalian inner ear are actually reduced and modified jaw bones from the tetrapods, and those in turn were modified gill support structures, the change in the fossil record is demonstrated in the mammal like reptiles where you can see the transitional form between reptiles with the more articulated jaw and mammals with the mandible and reduced jaw bones that now function in hearing as the incus, malleus, and stapes).

The fact is that microevolution does occur; and you might notice that every time an evolutionist cites and example of observed "evolution," it is always an example of micro (from finch beaks to moths, it is all micro).

Yes microevolution is smaller instances of change, the most marked examples of it take place over short periods of time, the longer term speciation events may take thousands of years to occur; as far as observed events go we have not seen many examples, what we can do however is reconstruct speciation events from the descendant species that exist today.

They cannot give any examples of observed macroevolution

The change from dinosaurs into birds is an example of macroevolution. We have a lot of evidence to support this assertion and all the new evidence that is being discovered is giving it an even higher confidence level.

however. Therefore, to separate the two can prove fatal to the theory. They must be the "same," or else they lose the force of the whole story.

By seperating the two of them it really forgets that the underlying mechanism, genetic variation, is the same for both cases, the difference is the degree of genetic variation and in most cases this is a factor of time.

Contrary to the typical explanation, there is no mechanism for extrapolating from micro to macro.

Microevolution involves an existing gene pool.

Yes, small changes, insertions, deletions, crossing over etc. a lot of these occur over a lot of organisms over a lot of time, and a proportion of these may be beneficial and convey benefit to organisms that posess such a trait in certain environments.

Macroevolution must involve the creation of new genetic information.

Polyploidy events can happen in plants and animals, when this happens cells contain two copies of their chromosomes, this is adding genetic material to an organism, what happens when that material undergoes variation?

It must be capable of creating new complex organs.

No, it usually involves slightly modifying old organs, just look at the mamallian bones in the hands and how the same bones exist (although often highly modfied or reduced) in animals as varied as primates, rodents, bats and whales? Why do we see vestigial organs ~ human beings have the coccyx, what purpose does that serve? why would an omnipotent creator endow mankind with such an organ. Furthurmore why would such a creator be lowered to use a means of reproduction that is so prone to change and variation? Why do whales have a vestigial pelvis? why do baleen whales have vestigial leg bones as well? why do whales and dolphins have a vertical swing to move just like land mammals while fish, reptiles and crocodiles have a left to right motion? why would whales have hair? Why do whales produce milk? why are there differences between whales milk and other mammals milk that can be mapped and show degrees of similarity? Why do people have appendixes?

Yet, there is no scientific proof anywhere that natural selection and chance mutation create new information; this has not been observed in the lab or the field.

There are a whole number of processes on a molecular level that can produce significan ammounts of new genetic materal through somewhat rare but actually observed events such as polyploidy ~ just look at the flowering plants for examples of how this can aid in speciation.

And that is exactly what must be proved in order to justify this extrapolation.

What this means is that the "macro" part of evolutionism is a story based more upon materialistic philosophy than upon scientific data.

And thats the rub isn't it. Science is materialistic, it is looking at the universe as it is, it is not metaphysical, it is not pure philosophy (although there is philosophy to the processes and logic of scientific thought). The best scientific data is obtained in the universe and this is by it's very nature "materialistic". Of course this is also an attack on the Godless materialistic secular societies that are no doubt the result of scientific enquiry. The types of societies where people can do what they want and are not bound by the doctrines of religiousity, which I suspect is something that is considered a bad thing by the author of this article.

It is pure speculation. It is taking minimal evidence involving only cyclical variations within a stabilized kind and generalizing from this a mechanism capable of creating completely new, complex plants and animals. Both scientifically and logical, it doesn't work.

And this is just the first problem with evolutionism. Should one object, we ask this question: can you cite one, specific example of the observation (lab or field) of macroevolution, in which a new, complex organ was created?

The Queensland Lungfish is a freshwater fish, it has an organ that functions as a lung. This organ is it's swim bladder, it is different from other fishes swim bladders because it has been modified for gaseous exchange of oxygen over it's surface. This is not an example of a spontaneously created new organ ~ it is however an example of what us "evolutionists" observe, a transitional form, the evolution of lungs was dependent on the ability to breath air, now lungfish also posess gills and they lack the lobe fins that would have been neccessary to get onto land. What they do show is a change that probably occured all those hundres of millions of years ago when a fishes with lobe fins and the ability to breath air moved into shallower and shallower waters, environments where the boney fins were adventageous, where population pressures would select for stronger fins, where insects existed on the land around these waters and where the first vertebrates made the move onto land.

Citing an example of microevolution is not enough. We are looking for proof of macroevolution.

And no matter how much proof is presented it will be dismised by these types. Science is self correcting, scientists are not finding the absolute truth, we are finding the best explanation to the evidence at hand ~ there seems to always be room for improvement in our ideas and framework of thought, there are massive changes in thinking, paradigm shifts that propel fields furthur. That is what is lacking in ID and creationism, there is no self correction, there is no room for error or concession when the observation does not fit the hypothesis. It is a predetermined hypothesis that is labelled a theory by it's supporters without going through the labourious processes of peer review, without making testable predictions or giving observation ~ then they turn around ignore any evidence that doesn't fit into their worldview and declare that there is a crisis inside the word of evolutionary biology and will produce lists of scientists who agree with that position without giving any background to their own religious beliefs or their field of research, which often has absolutely nothing to do with evolution.

 

[A_Wanderer]

They threw questions at me, now it's my turn to throw questions out there.

Now we find Banded Iron Formations that show periodic oxidation of Iron in layers, this suggests a periodic change in the ammount of oxygen in the earths atmosphere in earths early history (around 3.5 billion years ago) and these are found until about 2.5 billion years ago. Now, my question is this, given that we have found fossilised cyanobacteria colonies in the form of stromatolites from the archean period we know that life existed on earth at this point.

Why is it then that we do not find any fossils or any evidence at all of higher organisms this far back in the earths geological history?

If higher organisms did exist at this point how exactly were they able to survive the periods without any oxygen in an atmosphere that was much different than that of today (same goes for pretty much all of earths geological history, how could animals that breath different types of atmospheres and fill the same ecological niches have existed in a static state?

 

[A_Wanderer]

Wow not a response

I thought that this sums up the bizzareness of conservatives opposing evolution.

In some ways, evolutionary theory is more compatible with conservative ideas than with leftist ones. Indeed, proponents of applying evolutionary theory to human social structures tend to be viewed by the left with suspicion, particularly on biological explanations for sex roles. As several commentators have pointed out, it's conservatives who reject the notion that complex organization requires deliberate central planning -- in economics. Why should biology be different?