Evolution or Creationism, Where does the evidence lead?

[smloeffelholz]

This thread is intended to be used by those discussing this topic on the skeptoid website. This will hopefully allow a more in depth discussion by avoiding the 1500 character limit that is enforced at skeptoid. Anyone who wishes to post is more than welcome, but please keep your comments directed at the subject and not at the posters.

I do have a couple of requests for those who wish to post on this thread. First, please keep the argument on topic. This is not a debate on the big bang, or abiogenesis, or god. This is intended to discuss the science behind evolution and creationism. Second, try to refrain from using the shotgun method of debating. Do not simply post 20 broad questions or speculations at once and expect someone to write an entire novel for you. If possible, stick to discussing only a few key topics per post so the thread remains readable. Third, if you are going to use quotes or studies, please do your best to cite them in their full context and where the information was found. Too often, people pull quotes out of text in order to prove a point the quote was never meant to make.

This being said, I look forward to this discussion and hope that everyone involved keeps it civil and informational.

[Cainkane1]

According to my limited scientific of Genetics and anthropology I have read and have been told by the scientific community that evolution has been proven by the fossil record and by DNA comparisons. These conclusions have been proven beyond a reasonable scientific doubt.

[smloeffelholz]

I would have to agree with you there, but there are several people on the skeptoid website who are arguing against evolution. I was hoping to get some of them to post their arguments in this forum to allow a more thorough discussion of their thoughts. So far, no one has taken my invitation.

[UnrepentantSinner]

Subbing, in case any of the C/IDers show up.

[MG1962]

My biggest question, directed to creationists, they often speak of evolution as a fraud or flawed science. However there is no actual science of evolution. It is a discipline that draws heavily from other fields, such as biology, medicine geology etc

Why, when not dealing with evolution are these sciences very good at what they do, finding oil, curing people, finding better strains of wheat. Yet when applied to the question of evolution, they are flawed, or out right dishonest?

[Xiaan]

My biggest question, directed to creationists, they often speak of evolution as a fraud or flawed science. However there is no actual science of evolution. It is a discipline that draws heavily from other fields, such as biology, medicine geology etc

Why, when not dealing with evolution are these sciences very good at what they do, finding oil, curing people, finding better strains of wheat. Yet when applied to the question of evolution, they are flawed, or out right dishonest?

The simple answer is that it conflicts with their ideology whereas those other scientific areas that you mention do not. They have already come to a conclusion about where people have come from and have to justify this belief. To them it is rational as they believe that the word of god is infallible and therefore they can use this rationalize their intellectual dishonesty.

[MG1962]

The simple answer is that it conflicts with their ideology whereas those other scientific areas that you mention do not. They have already come to a conclusion about where people have come from and have to justify this belief. To them it is rational as they believe that the word of god is infallible and therefore they can use this rationalize their intellectual dishonesty.

Yeah I just struggle with the hypocracy lol. I am a thesist, and have never had a problem with clashes of my faith and science. For all I know evolution is God's way of doing business. Maybe if the Bible was a science handbook I might find conflict. But it a s book about human philosophy and the interaction of man with God

[smloeffelholz]

I have to agree with the statements above about the clashing of ideals. This is not only seen in creationists but in several other groups. Take someone who strongly supports organic/natural food. If their child had a problem that was suspected to be genetic, they would trust genetic testing and perhaps even gene therapy to help their child. If you mention genetically engineered food to them, they would act as if it is the spawn of Satan himself. The science behind the two is the same, but one goes against their ideology while the other significantly helps them.

[UnrepentantSinner]

I was going to comment on the OP, Xiaan and MG's comments earlier but had something come up and now am pressed for time so I'll try and reduce it down to a two or three comment sauce than I'll expand on later.

1. Creationists and ideologically motivated IDers consider evolution, as MG noted, not as a theory within Biology that also encompasses subjects like biochemistry, geology and medicine, but as a single totally explanitory philosophy that covers issues as far ranging as Cosmology and Political Science, as smloeffelholz noted in the OP. This phantasm for them, under the umbrella appellation "Darwinism", does little more than try and dispose of methodilogical naturalism as the basis of science.

2. I have encountered a number of TE's over the years and they, like MG noted, don't "compartmentalize" or suffer from cognative dissonance, they see evolution as how God created. They understand there is a difference between "the Creation" and "the Creation narrative" in Genesis. They also accept methodilogical naturalism as the only way science can work and that the Earth is 4.6 billion years old, that life shares a common ancestor and that humans evolved from our fellow apes.

3. Which brings us back to one tactic I use with Creationists who try and argue against the "Darwinist" rubric... if you want to argue against atheism, do so in an appropriate context. If you want to argue against evolutionary theory, than you must be prepared to have science on your side and not go into tangents and apologetics.

As I noted above with a clarification... if any C/IDers from the other forum are willing to join this debate and discuss the evidence and science supporting evolutionary theory - in biology, in geology, in medicine... I welcome their comments.

[evolution disbeliver]

Ok I am here now. Sorry it took a while, but I put in 70+ hours a week.
Before I get started, thank you for the invite. Very gracious of you all.
Just so everybody knows I am only a high school graduate and have been interested in the history of the earth for quite some time. I know only what I have read from both sides of the aisle. And be forewarned, I dont know alot of big fancy science words, but I will try to learn them as we go. I am your basic "John Q Public" if you will.
I have an open mind & very honest. I used to be a staunch believer in evolution but switched to creation about 15 years ago. I believe in god and nothing or nobody will ever change that. Nor will I ever deny him. Dont worry I am not a bible thumper or really a "practicing" religion, nor will I try to persuade any who doesnt believe in him over to my side. I think pretty much everybody who has made there choice has there reasons & that is between you & god, not me. I am here to discuss the differences between evolution and creation mainly because since I have chosen the creation over evolution I have not kept up with it.

Wanna start with carbon dating?
Is it possible that something like a huge solar flare or some cosmic storm could have engulfed the planet with something that could reset or jumble the lifes & half lifes?

[smloeffelholz]

Radiometric dating is as good a place to start as any. I do want to begin by saying that looking at carbon dating only is a big mistake when considering radiometric dating. There are over 40 dating techniques that are used and cross checked against each other. They use different radioactive isotopes with different half lives so each is accurate within different time frames. For an easy to read explanation of radiometric dating, check out the paper called "Radiometric Dating: A Christian Perspective". Just search google for the paper, and it should be one of the first links. Sorry I can't post the address until I make at least 15 posts.

One point that is not stressed enough is that when the age of something is given, (ie 65 million years old) a few different dating methods have given the same age (within an acceptable margin of error) for that item. A scientist does not just use several different techniques until he gets the age he wants. Also, if something has occurred to skew the decay of the radioactive compounds, and the dating methods don't match; the age of the item is said to be indeterminate.

As to resetting the nuclear clocks on Earth, I can't think of a way this could be done. Either vast but proportional amounts of radioactive material would need to be distributed over the earth and throughout the crust, or something would have to cause elements to "undecay" back into their radioactive elements. This is basically impossible and would make the Earth appear to be younger than it actually is.

When it comes to affecting the decay rate of radioactive materials, it happens in only very specific and rare circumstances, and only to a small degree. The article above describes this much better than I will be able to. If you still have questions after looking at the article, feel free to ask me and I will do my best to explain.

[evolution disbeliver]

I did read the article already, found it very interesting. It makes sense that anyone would want to test it from as many as there is. I am not familiar with them so I cant really comment on them individually. I was just wondering if it was possible that it could occur. Something known or unknown as of this current time. I will read the article again.

As far as the idea of liquefaction. Do you think that the earth can shake violently enough to mess up the fossil record? Wouldnt that explain the creationist claim?

[smloeffelholz]

I don't see how liquefaction could cause the current fossil record. Liquefaction causes loose saturated cohesionless soils, i.e. loose sands to act like a very heavy liquid. The bones would be much less dense than the surrounding liquid-like soil and would become buoyant. Under these circumstances, bones that were once buried in the ground would float up to the surface, not sink deeper into the Earth. As an example of this, you can find pictures of concrete sewer drains that have floated over a foot out of the ground due to soil liquefaction (I believe I saw this picture on Wikipedia).

[evolution disbeliver]

If it happened before major decay set in the carcasses would be more dense and sink. I'm not saying it happened to all of them at once unless we could consider a mass extinction. What if it happened several times for each strata (I believe that is the term I am looking for, layers in rock)? If it happened many times like that I think it would come close to what we see today.

[E.J.Armstrong]

If it happened before major decay set in the carcasses would be more dense and sink. I'm not saying it happened to all of them at once unless we could consider a mass extinction. What if it happened several times for each strata (I believe that is the term I am looking for, layers in rock)? If it happened many times like that I think it would come close to what we see today.

Evolution is tested every day in the oil industry because the evolution of microfossils allows geoscientists such as geologists to correlate sedimentary rocks and thereby better locate hydrocarbon bearing deposits.

Oil companies have spent millions of man hours and trillions of dollars drilling wells to search for hydrocarbons. They simply would not do so if creationism was correct. Could I suggest you invest a few hours reading about the science of geology as there is no reputable university teaching geology that agrees that dinosaurs were around at the same time as man as would have to happen if creationism is correct. A stratigraphy primer would be a good place to start. If you google 'stratigraphy primer' you will find many good books

Creationism only works if the bulk of the science used in the search for oil and the nuclear power industry is plain wrong.

[Mark A. Siefert]

Wanna start with carbon dating?
Is it possible that something like a huge solar flare or some cosmic storm could have engulfed the planet with something that could reset or jumble the lifes & half lifes?

No, they would not.


Where is there the slightest bit of evidence that cosmic rays or neutrinos do affect decay rates? The following show the contrary:
Inside standard nuclear fission power generators, neutrino radiation is intense, but the uranium that is not fissioned decays at the usual rate.
Some spacecraft are powered by nuclear decays. Some of them fly in very intense cosmic ray fields (like near Jupiter). If cosmic rays affected decay rates, the power generated would be different from expectations.
To get unweathered rocks, rocks for radiometric dating are usually taken from some depth into an outcrop, where cosmic rays have insignificant effect.
Radiation high enough to affect nuclear decay rates by several orders of magnitude (a change great enough to allow young-earth timescales) would sterilize the planet.
Reversals of the earth's magnetic field do not produce cosmic rays or neutrinos. They may allow more cosmic rays to reach the earth's surface, but not much beyond that, and most rocks used for dating have been buried for most of their history.
Carbon-14 dating is calibrated (http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CD/CD011_1.html) by independent clocks.Source: http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CD/CD004.html

[MG1962]

I did read the article already, found it very interesting. It makes sense that anyone would want to test it from as many as there is. I am not familiar with them so I cant really comment on them individually. I was just wondering if it was possible that it could occur. Something known or unknown as of this current time. I will read the article again.

As far as the idea of liquefaction. Do you think that the earth can shake violently enough to mess up the fossil record? Wouldnt that explain the creationist claim?

When a fossil is discovered, the very first thing is to determine context. When I was digging last in Kansas, we came across a fish that had actually be preserved across 3 million years of strata. We left the find in place for two days while this puzzle was examined.

Investigating the matrix the fossil was found in, it was realised the orginal deposit had been shattered and then reburied by subsquent sedimentary rock and the fossil was re-fossilised if that makes sense.

Now sure there is the claim that the deposit was made to fit into current scientific findings, but a simple chemical test would have shown that the material currently holding the fossil material was not the same as the surrounding rock

[smloeffelholz]

If it happened before major decay set in the carcasses would be more dense and sink. I'm not saying it happened to all of them at once unless we could consider a mass extinction. What if it happened several times for each strata (I believe that is the term I am looking for, layers in rock)? If it happened many times like that I think it would come close to what we see today.

This just isn't true. At no point would an animal body, regardless of the level of decay, be more dense than a liquid-like sand. I said in my previous post that concrete sewer drains have literally floated over a foot out of the ground during liquefaction of the ground. Are you proposing that animal bodies are more dense than concrete?

For a good visual example of this, see if you can find the Mythbusters episode about killer quicksand. In a liquid mixture of sand and water, which would be less dense than sand during liquefaction, people literally pop up out of the mixture like a cork in water. This is what would happen to an animal body in the scenario you proposed.

[evolution disbeliver]

I do remember that episode, he wouldnt go down. I'm not proposing that a carcass is more dense, just trying to get all claims as they are argued. Sorry about the long time between posts. I had been up since 10pm Thursday and had to get some sleep.
What about the claim of non random & random mutations. If I am to believe an organism evolves into another organism over several generations, how can random mutations do that and it be a better organism? If it is survival of the fittest would there not be an abundance of evidence showing the different changes of the organism until it got it right? We really dont have very many different dinos and if they were succesfull one would think there would be alot more evidnce of transitions to birds. For example when we do cloning, isnt it a very low ratio? I know cloning and evolution are apple to oranges.
On the other hand non-random I can grasp. Because it could be pre-determined in the DNA. But say an ice age occurrs. It creeps up slowly over a couple of hundred years, how does, on a DNA level, a species know to change in oder to survive the changing enviroment? Like grow fur, slow metabolic rate, shorten legs, longer tail, etc
That would seem like a very strong case for a creator for me.

[MG1962]

I do remember that episode, he wouldnt go down. I'm not proposing that a carcass is more dense, just trying to get all claims as they are argued. Sorry about the long time between posts. I had been up since 10pm Thursday and had to get some sleep.
What about the claim of non random & random mutations. If I am to believe an organism evolves into another organism over several generations, how can random mutations do that and it be a better organism? If it is survival of the fittest would there not be an abundance of evidence showing the different changes of the organism until it got it right? We really dont have very many different dinos and if they were succesfull one would think there would be alot more evidnce of transitions to birds. For example when we do cloning, isnt it a very low ratio? I know cloning and evolution are apple to oranges.
On the other hand non-random I can grasp. Because it could be pre-determined in the DNA. But say an ice age occurrs. It creeps up slowly over a couple of hundred years, how does, on a DNA level, a species know to change in oder to survive the changing enviroment? Like grow fur, slow metabolic rate, shorten legs, longer tail, etc
That would seem like a very strong case for a creator for me.

Lets tackle the fur. We have an elephant, in a cooling climate. from time to time, mutations are born, some with a little thicker hair than normal, some with out. The ones without die quicker than the ones with that little edge against the cold.

We only observe successful mutations in the fossil record because they led to better adaption, hence more organisms, hence a better chance to find them as fossils

Today we can see a comparrison between two very closely related animals, the Brown Bear and the Panda. At some stage the line that led to the panda bear found a niche of survival by specialising in eating bamboo. The Brown bear kept a more general diet.

Evironmental changes have affected both animals, because of a poor mutation, the panda is probably well on the way to extinction. For the Brown bear, its diet has helped it thrive by living of human refuse.

Now the brown bear could never anticipate its diet would mesh well with human interference with nature, nor was the panda able to anticipate the human interference that has greatly reduced the amount of bamboo

[evolution disbeliver]

But how can a mutation that is random be repeated? If the parents have a baby & it was covered in fur, the chances of that offspring having identical offspring are extremely high. So high I would say it wasnt plausible. Besides if the same mutation occurred in as many generations it would take in oder to change into another organism it would then very definately become non random. This a big one for me to accept. Because if it made it past the first generation & remained a random mutation there should be millions of carcasses somewhere that have very extreme differences between them from nature trying to get it right.
Correct?

[MG1962]

But how can a mutation that is random be repeated? If the parents have a baby & it was covered in fur, the chances of that offspring having identical offspring are extremely high. So high I would say it wasnt plausible. Besides if the same mutation occurred in as many generations it would take in oder to change into another organism it would then very definately become non random. This a big one for me to accept. Because if it made it past the first generation & remained a random mutation there should be millions of carcasses somewhere that have very extreme differences between them from nature trying to get it right.
Correct?

The thing to consider is just how chancy it is for a creature to fossilise, then be in a position for us to locate it. In the media we here of two headed cows lambs snakes etc. And they would appear very common. However we have never found anything remotely like it in the fossil record

[UnrepentantSinner]

Hey ed, I'm late getting back to this thread so I hope you don't mind me covering previous territory for a bit.

Wanna start with carbon dating?
Is it possible that something like a huge solar flare or some cosmic storm could have engulfed the planet with something that could reset or jumble the lifes & half lifes?

No, because we'd see the effects of that in other areas like atmospheric carbon isotopic content 12 v. 14 in ice cores, changes in tree ring growth patterns that otherwise weren't explainible by environment and die-offs of plants/animals that similarly weren't explainable.

Nothing in the "fossil*" record, including things like animal bones which can be carbon dated, exist in a vacuum. They are found in a position in the geological record with evidences of their environment around them from which we can draw conclusions about how they lived. We can determine what an environment was like from other datable items from the same period like ice cores (back 175,000 much further than carbon dating) and tree rings (back to about 15,000 years about 1/3 the range of carbon dating).

Also Carbon dating is not the only radioisotopic method availible. Here's a list of some others (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiometric_dating#Types_of_radiometric_dating), the half-lives of some isotopes being in the billions of years.

* Animal bones are fossils, though they aren't what we normally think of which is skeletal and structural features that have been replaced by mineralization. I'll clarify this in a post below responding to your fossil question.

[evolution disbeliver]

I understand about the fossilizing process. So I can accept the fact that us finding it as the proverbial needle in a haystack. Plus scavengers and such wouldnt leave much to fossilize to begin with. But if they were random should there not be evidence just from the ratio of nature getting right even just once let alone to have it pass on to the next generation. The 2 headed cows are screw ups, not a mutation for the betterment of the species. I am talking about the mutations that would have species survive. Those cannot be random. So one would conclude that it is built into the DNA. If it is, what triggers the mutation? How does it know what kind of mutation to trigger? It cannot be random if it passed from one generation to the next.

Unrepentant Sinner-thank you for that response. I like the way you worded it. Very simple.
But do we know every possible thing in the universe? If we say yes, we are arrogant as a species. The universe is so huge we cant see the end, so it would also be arrogant to say that we know the make up of it. There could be elements, chemicals, and some kind of radiation out there we havent discovered yet. So why would that not be possible?
(Not implying supernatural or god here)

[MG1962]

IBut do we know every possible thing in the universe? If we say yes, we are arrogant as a species. The universe is so huge we cant see the end, so it would also be arrogant to say that we know the make up of it. There could be elements, chemicals, and some kind of radiation out there we havent discovered yet. So why would that not be possible?
(Not implying supernatural or god here)

You are absolutely right. I think we have a thumbnail working model of the Universe....but there is sooooooooooo much out there - it is what makes all this so much fun, ya never know whats around the corner

[evolution disbeliver]

Why I never pursued it as a career I will never know. But it (science as a whole)
has had my interest since I was in high school. So I became a truck driver, talk about variables! lol
Back to the subject, I have never really considered the Gap theory much. But this is probably something somebody already noted somewhere. In Genesis day 1 "the earth was without form & void" yada, yada, yada. That is when he created the forces of nature. ie heat convection(wind), gravity, the basic stuff. Day 2 he created light, yada, yada, yada. Day 3 he created plants, yada, yada, yada. Day 4 the marine animals, the sun & moon, yad, yada, yada. Wait. He didnt create the sun & moon till day 4. So our concept of time is ruined. We cant have "days" without the rotation of the earth . Does this destroy the creation theory? Those damn parables? Not for me. But maybe for many. I would have to step into philosophy to explain myself and that wouldnt be very scientific. So I will have to go with the parable idea and say that a day to god could be a very loooong time for us. Until he created the sun & moon. But as I think more of it, he formed the earth & forces of nature including gravity. Gravity is what hold planets, stars & moons together. This is not done without rotation. So he did create time & space on day one. So it could have been a very slow rotation giving that our day is based on taking 24 hours to rotate 360 using a fixed point in the sky(sun) that wasnt there till 3 "days" later.

See, not all creationists are bad. lol I pick on my side as well. Some will say I will burn in hell. :jaw-dropp
While I do very much believe in god and will never deny him or say there is more than one, for me there is no question. Because for us (in our known "reality") to say he doesnt exist is not true. We cannot refuse the existence of something that isnt bound by "our" reality. At least until we can cross out of or it crosses into ours. Just looking at the evidence of how things change (evolution or variation) over time does not mean it doesnt exist. As far as creationists go the debate between evolution is an argument that shouldnt be. The argument should be with the big bang crowd. My reason for not believing evolution is because I havent seen enough evidence that proves to me personally that it happened that way. For instance, we evolved from monkeys, why are they still here? They should have went extinct long ago. Why are sharks still the same as millions of years ago? Why are there any species still alive today that are the same as they used to be? And if evolution is a constant where do you think we will be going to?
I am now rambling and getting off subject(too much coffee :) buzz, buzz)
Sorry lol

[UnrepentantSinner]

Glad you appreciated it ed. I've been working the last 8 hours and haven't been able to respond further, but will after I get some groceries and go home. For now, in response to your fossil question and what I was alluding to above:

I did read the article already, found it very interesting. It makes sense that anyone would want to test it from as many as there is. I am not familiar with them so I cant really comment on them individually. I was just wondering if it was possible that it could occur. Something known or unknown as of this current time. I will read the article again.

As far as the idea of liquefaction. Do you think that the earth can shake violently enough to mess up the fossil record? Wouldnt that explain the creationist claim?

If it happened before major decay set in the carcasses would be more dense and sink. I'm not saying it happened to all of them at once unless we could consider a mass extinction. What if it happened several times for each strata (I believe that is the term I am looking for, layers in rock)? If it happened many times like that I think it would come close to what we see today.

Trace fossils (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trace_fossil)

[evolution disbeliver]

US with that link you lead me to my next question. Creationists say dino's lived with man. How does a human compression footprint happen in rock with a dino's footprint? Such as the world famous prints from Texas. Please dont give the same old answer as there must have been a dino with a human foot. That doesnt work because of simple anatomy. It couldnt stand up. Unless it looked like us. Although it would make a great movie villain.:)
I did notice that those were conveniently left out of the article.

[MG1962]

US with that link you lead me to my next question. Creationists say dino's lived with man. How does a human compression footprint happen in rock with a dino's footprint? Such as the world famous prints from Texas. Please dont give the same old answer as there must have been a dino with a human foot. That doesnt work because of simple anatomy. It couldnt stand up. Unless it looked like us. Although it would make a great movie villain.:)
I did notice that those were conveniently left out of the article.

Do you mean these tracks?

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

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

[evolution disbeliver]

Yes I do believe those were the ones. I notice that when in some creationist presentations that they say that more have been found in oters parts of the world. Never have heard where.
I am on a different puter now and some of the keys arent working right so if my posts look strange you all know why. (The joys of having a 3 year old)
Back to the DNA, how would it know what to change for te survival of the species? And I understand that we are related to the apes on the DNA level, but since we are all from earth and comprised of the same elements shouldnt we(animals) all have similar DNA?

[UnrepentantSinner]

Again, terribly sorry for being about 12 hours out of the loop, but such is the nature of work and the World Wide Web. :)

... liquefaction.
...would come close to what we see today.

I've never seen liquefaction (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flood_geology#Liquefaction) mentioned by any of the creationists I've debated over the years because most of those I have encountered argued Henry Morris' "hydrological sorting" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flood_geology#Fossils) hypothesis.

Both are terribly problematic when it comes to the fossil record. As EJArmstrong noted above, geology as a practicable science would be utterly impossible - and hydrocarbon exploration (oil, coal and natural gas) would be folly - if we could not make reliable determinations of fossil (again using the term in it's broadest sense) that we could find in certain locations in strata thought to be of a certain geological age. This applies to sandstone, dolomite, oil, coal, basalt, diamonds, chalk, salt and even special cases like the search for Tiktaalik (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiktaalik), in which case paleontologists knew to seach Ellesmere Island because it had Devonian strata and it was predicted that strata would contain fish to terrestrial tetrapod tranistionals.

That's a deathblow for liquifaction and becomes even more problematic when we move beyond microfossils into body and trace fossils when it comes to hydrological sorting. It's also an irony that most Creationists just ignore or try and excuse away that if we found fossils in strata consistent with hydrological sorting it would be the demise of evolutionary theory.

The fact is though, that we never find trouts and trilobites in the same strata. Hydrological sorting says we should. We never find crows and Confuciusornis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confuciusornis) in the same strata. Hydrological sorting says we should. We never find rabbits and Dimetrodons (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimetrodon) in the same strata. We never find lobsters and Ammonites in the same strata. We never find rhinos and triceratops in the same strata. The list of potentially falsifying discoveries we could make for evolutionary theory and evidentiary for Creationism is nearly endless.

And yet, we never make those discoveries...

So here's were microfossils ties back in with hydrological sorting again - remember how I noted that fossils aren't found in vacuums? We never find pollen or fossils of pollen bearing plants in strata that predate the Devonian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pollen#Pollen_in_the_fossil_record). If the hydrological sorting hypothesis suggests or beings like plants that couldn't run should be all over the geological column, why isn't pollen or fossils of pollen bearing plants in all strata?

[evolution disbeliver]

I think it was Hovind that I heard refering to it as liquefaction.
Very good point about the plants being all over the place. That makes sense & I hadnt thought about it that way.
But their argument is that it happened all at once during the flood. If you take carbon dating out of the way it I can see where it could make sense. There is no doubt that the flood happened in my view but I do agree that wouldnt screw with the strata. Besides the flood could have erased alot of the fossil record.
I did notice a long time ago about the modern day animals are convienently left out of the strata in the creationist argument.

[UnrepentantSinner]

What about the claim of non random & random mutations. If I am to believe an organism evolves into another organism over several generations, how can random mutations do that and it be a better organism? If it is survival of the fittest would there not be an abundance of evidence {snip}

Sorry to snip that down, but I wanted to concentrate on two issues you raised.

First off, organisms don't evolve into other organisms in the sense that a salmon has great-great-grandchilden that are frogs... or worse yet that an insect has great-great-great-grandchildren that are elephants. Phylogenies (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phylogeny) are simultaneously one of the most difficult and easiest concepts in biology to understand. No living being is quatitatively different from it's parents or ancestry, it is merely qualitatively differently. A human is still a primate and all primates are still mammals and all mammals are still anmiotes and all amniotes are still vertebrates, etc. If you want a magnificent website showing this check out the Tree of Life (http://www.tolweb.org/tree/). In fact, don't start by clicking on the homepage links, enter a being into the search... elm, walrus, sea cucumber or shiitake and if you get a page, start using the nested hierarchical link function. Oh, and those transitions don't take several generations, they take millions to hundreds of millions of years.

Second, you seem to be conflating "more adapted to it's environment" with "better". Cockroaches aren't "better" evolved otherwise they'd know enough to run from me when I turned the lights on or got out the can of Raid instead of skittering in circles giving me enough time to smoosh or spray them? And yet they've survived 350,000,000 years and made a successful environmental transition from tropical environments to temperate.

And then there's blind cave fish. If evolutionary theory predicted they became "better" wouldn't they have evolved an organ on their forhead which painted their environment with infrared and eyes which could see in that wavelength? But evolutionary theory predicts the opposite - that fucntioning eyes come at a cost during development and of calories to maintain them during maturation and their reproductive cycle... so having eyes in a totally dark environment is not an advantage, but a disadvantage and since our genes can only work with what we have (see biological homoloy - especially the limb part (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homology_%28biology%29), instead of "creating" innovative things like infrared painting organs and infrared viewing eyes... it selects for shutting off unneeded or "useless" organs.

But that gets us into atavisms which, again, is ironically an evidence for evolution and against Creationism. :)

[UnrepentantSinner]

{snip}

Unrepentant Sinner-thank you for that response. I like the way you worded it. Very simple.
But do we know every possible thing in the universe? If we say yes, we are arrogant as a species. The universe is so huge we cant see the end, so it would also be arrogant to say that we know the make up of it. There could be elements, chemicals, and some kind of radiation out there we havent discovered yet. So why would that not be possible?
(Not implying supernatural or god here)

I think I covered both the fossil issue and how mutations give rise to new species above, but if you want clarification, just ask and I'll gladly delve into more detail.

The answer to your non-snipped quote above is of course we don't. I don't understand what knowing every possible thing in the Universe has to do with us understandig the history of the Earth and how live on it came to demonstrate the diversity we find extant and in the fossil record. There could be things about the Universe that humans never understand. There could be things about how the Earth was formed we never understand. There could be things about how life first started that we never understand.

That doesn't have any effect or bearing on the fact that we've found genetic evidence in lampreys connecting them with humans evolutionarily through the study of homoglobin, that we've discovered transitional fossils like Tiktaalik or that humans and chimpanzees are undeniably linked genetically and through the fossil record.

We could still live in an Aristotelian Universe of ether and crystaline spheres, but because of evolutionary theory, we could know who we are and where we came from (obviously within a certain metaphysical context).

[evolution disbeliver]

Yes by betterment I meant more suited for the enviroment. Sorry, you know I'm not a scientist, just interested. :)

Why would there not be things in the universe that exist that we havent discovered yet that could have an impact on our planet? If we dont know it exists, how do we know whether it does or doesnt effect us? That might be more philosophic than scientific but it is still a factor that cant be ignored.

And yes I would like a little more clarification of how we get from a dino to a walrus to a tree to man. I can follow it backwards to a point, but then I when it becomes an entirely different organism I get lost. I can understand the human ape concept and the fish to shark, even dino to bird, but a reptile to mammal, warm blooded to cold blooded? insect to human? How does it go from a to b to c to all of a sudden x? I am checking out that tree of life site right now, maybe the answer I am looking for is there.
I understand about the Aristolian line you gave, we are all connected because we are from the same elements. What I dont understand is how the elements arranged themselves to make the organisms. I would tend to think it that lies at the DNA level. We do still consider DNA as the blueprint of life, or has there been a discovery that I missed? Not being sarcastic, just want to know?

[UnrepentantSinner]

{snip}See, not all creationists are bad.

I've been engaging Creationists for 10 years and except for some who are probably insane or have let all rationality go to the point of intransigence, I have met few how are "bad" and the rest of those get that categorization mainly because they are/were jerks. :D Conversely, I have met few, if any Theistic Evolutionists I would not want to share a meal or enjoy some coffee or a drink with. Speaking of which, I've got 12 Nattys in me so this will have to be my last post for today... more later tonight when I'm back at work.

For instance, we evolved from monkeys, why are they still here? They should have went extinct long ago. Why are sharks still the same as millions of years ago? Why are there any species still alive today that are the same as they used to be? And if evolution is a constant where do you think we will be going to?
I am now rambling and getting off subject(too much coffee :) buzz, buzz)
Sorry lol

The simplist answer to your first query is to posit a reciprocal question - if you were born, why didn't all your grandparents die first? Humans are not evolved from some failed species or genus of monkeys... we're evolved from a successful one, otherwise we could not have evolved from their descendents nor our cousin progeny our fellow apes.

As to your second question, sharks are not the same as they were millions of years ago. "Sharks" the colloquial definition haven't changed much in 10s of millions of years, but individual species and genuses have changed. You won't find Hammerheads and Makos in the fossil records in Jurassic (IIRC). A perfect example of how beings find their niche, and change over time, but still remain within that nich is the Coelacath which you can investigate further (meaning scientific realities vs. Creationist claims) at The Dinofish.com website (http://www.dinofish.com/).

And I'm too bombed to post more, bed calls, but MG's links about the Paluxy prints effectively debunks them. The Ica stones are known frauds. Mkele Momebe remains a legend. The Loch Ness Monster and Champ remain anecdotal and questionable from the supposed photographs and here's the important thing if any dinosaur should actually still exist that Creationist sources won't tell you... a living dinosaur today would not falsify evolutionary theory (see my Coelacanth link above), while a Cambrian chicken or a Jurassic rabbit would bring evolutionary theory down like a house of cards.

Human and dino prints contemporaneously would do the same thing, but we have yet to find any that withstand study and worse yet, we have no evidence from trash middens of any human civilization hunting dinosaurs and disposing of their skins, bones, horns, etc. or using those hunting tropies as they have with every other known animal since we evolved. In this case, the archeological evidence is even more damming than the paleontological.

[UnrepentantSinner]

Yes by betterment I meant more suited for the enviroment. Sorry, you know I'm not a scientist, just interested. :)

I'm not either. I'm a guy with a BA in History and Political Science who works as a security guard and has just taken on a cause celebre. I've also been arguing with Creationists for a long time in case that wasn't totally obvious. ;) And while my typing is coherent, there's enough beer in my blood to make me sleepy after my night shift that I'll need to address the rest of your questions this evening after 11pm CDT or tomorrow morning if I'm busy. Thanks for having an open mind and reding my posts and taking my links.

[evolution disbeliver]

I didnt mean to imply that a living dino would falsify evolution. For my own inner child would love to have a living breathing dino. As far as archaeological evidence of man and dino, what about cave drawings found with animals that can only be described as dinos. Did they dig up the fossils and put them together as we have? So they would know what they look like. Or are they all part of the mass hysteria of creationism? Continuing with the living dinos how is it that nearly every culture from all over the world have dragons or similar creatures in it's history? More mass hysteria? And sorry for being to general, if species are constantly changing over millions of years, why would 2 species still be around when one has evolved much further than the other. ie Neanderthals were around when we hit the scene yet we are the ones here. Did we commit genocide or did they simply die out? As far as human and ape do you suppose that they are still around because we are in a transitional period where the apes could be extinct in the future?
For the reciprocal question, my grand parents didnt die because a) We are the same species or what ever it is called. and b)According to evolutionary theory several generations are not enough to make the change, it would take millions of years.
Wow that tree of life site is interesting 3 pages from alligators to ants. Interesting. This may take me a while on this link :)
But I dont think it's going to answer my question of how the transitions are made. Is it something that is inherent in DNA? or do we not know?

Your talk of the drinkin is makin me thirsty. Think I'll go grab a few myself. Miller Lite (gotta watch the carbs)

[Inquisitive Raven]

Well, yes it does take generations, but we're talking tens of thousands of generations, not three or four. Or do you really think that if we isolated a population of oh, Norwegian rats with a generation of a year and a same size population of humans with a 20 year long generation from the rest of their species, their descendants would be recognizable as a new species at the same time? I think the rats would get there first.

[Inquisitive Raven]

Just as an observation, we don't go from insect to man. Arthropods had split off from the chordates by the Cambrian Era and genetic lines, once split beyond the species level don't reconnect. There's a point at which they don't reconnect at the species level as well. Ring species are on the way to finding that point.

[evolution disbeliver]

I would think the rats would get there first also. Mainly because the humans are smarter and are able to use tools to their advantage to survive without the use of adaptation.

[Inquisitive Raven]

Transitions are made because populations get separated and genetic changes accumulate. The jumps in the fossil record appear abrupt because so few individuals fossilize, but if we could watch every generation, the transitions wouldn't seem abrupt at all.

[RecoveringYuppy]

And I understand that we are related to the apes on the DNA level, but since we are all from earth and comprised of the same elements shouldnt we(animals) all have similar DNA?
Not even close and for several reasons.

The DNA in us and the apes is a chain with billions of links. Each link comes in four different varieties. Those links are used in groups of three to code for amino acids used to build enzymes and proteins. The groups of three come in 64 varieties and are used to code for 21 different amino acids. 64 is larger than 21 so you'll note that this means the code is redundant meaning there is more than one way to do the same thing using the DNA code. In fact a LOT of ways. The number is beyond astronomical. At each and every point in your DNA there are at least two ways to change the molecule that would have absolutely no effect on you. So, no, being made of the same stuff doesn't even close to explaining our similarities. If we were each specially created from scratch the odds against us having the same code used for the same proteins would be virtually zero. Is .0000000000000000000000000000001% a small number? The number I'm talking about here would have a billion zeroes before the 1.

So, no, being made of the same stuff only suggests (it doesn't even guarantee it) that the building blocks are the same. There are a huge number of ways that DNA could have been different if we weren't related.

And not all plants and animals are equally similar or different. The pattern we find amongst all life on Earth is exactly the same as we find amongst families. You are most similar to your siblings and parents. You are then most similar to your aunts and cousins. More distant relatives are less similar. And we find that that pattern continues, without fail, between all species on Earth.

The proof of evolution begain 250 years ago with a guy named Linneaus. He was the person who started the taxonomic system we still use today (I'm talking about the system that gives us the name "homo sapiens" for example). If you're familiar with his system you'll know that it organizes all of life in to a chart that looks an awful lot like a family tree. He didn't set out with that in mind. In fact he was a Christian creationist who didn't want to believe that all life was related. But his chart sure was strong evidence for life being related. Based on a study of all traits, he found that all life on Earth fit on a family tree.

That's remarkable. You won't find that with most manufactured goods. If you look inside a Porsche you'll find parts that show up in Toyotas. Human designer mix and match components. Whatever "designed" us didn't, or couldn't mix and match. That's exactly what you'd expect if we're all related.

And the family tree that was started 250 years ago has been confirmed in many ways: It was confirmed by finding the fossils of transitional forms that agreed with the tree; It was confirmed by comparisons of proteins in the early 1900s; It was later confirmed again by DNA comparison. And BTW each of these three categories I've mentioned aren't single experiments or anything. They are typicals tens or hundreds of thousands of experiments all confirming each other.

[evolution disbeliver]

I guess to better word my question is how do the splits in the "tree" occur? What makes it happen? I wont accept a standard answer of changes in their environment. Because that is a trigger. I am asking how does it "know" (for lack of a better term) what changes will work & what wont. There has got to be a reason for it other than randomness, the chances of a random gene being duplicated and continually passed from generation to generation are way too high for me to think it is plausible. Unless there is an unknown connection between the environment and it's inhabitants. That is the only explanation that makes sense to me. Which leads us to an unscientific discussion which we agreed not to discuss here.
But I still havent got an answer on this yet. Which is what made evolution lose it's creditability for me. Coupled with the fact that it takes tens of thousands of generations to make the changes & the lack of fossil evidence that could have been wiped out in a world wide flood or other world wide catastrophes that many evolutionists deny happening because there is no evidence or is it that might be construed as a flaw in the theory. Which there is plenty of evidence for a world wide flood. Creation is starting to lose it's grip on my belief as well, but it still does have fewer flaws that I understand and at least attempts to bridge a few gaps between philosophy and science.
There are still parts of evolution & creation that I agree with but I dont see either one as having all the answers for everything and where either one can actually say without any doubt that it is fact. Evolution has gotten much more clearer than the last I was into it. And it is even pulling ahead in my mind. But it still fails to put the gas in the car for me so to speak. At least with creation I can say I believe there is gas in the car. :)
Sorry went philosophical again but that is how I think.

[evolution disbeliver]

You are then most similar to your aunts and cousins. More distant relatives are less similar. And we find that that pattern continues, without fail, between all species on Earth.


Thank god! I was beginning to worry that me and the wife was related! You know the whole Noah story and all. lol:D

[RecoveringYuppy]

There has got to be a reason for it other than randomness, the chances of a random gene being duplicated and continually passed from generation to generation are way too high for me to think it is plausible.
Mutations have been measured and found to be perfectly capable of explaining the variation we see. It's not only plausible, it's an observed fact.

Unless there is an unknown connection between the environment and it's inhabitants. That is the only explanation that makes sense to me.
The kind of connection you seem to be thinking of was proven wrong nearly two centuries ago. The environment does not control the genes, the environment selects amongst the available genes.
Which there is plenty of evidence for a world wide flood.
Not even close. The evidence is overwhelming that a world wide flood is impossible.

[RecoveringYuppy]

Thank god! I was beginning to worry that me and the wife was related! You know the whole Noah story and all. lol:D
And what do you think of the rest of my post?

[cyborg]

the chances of a random gene being duplicated and continually passed from generation to generation are way too high for me to think it is plausible.

Yet you have no problem with the notion that if nothing changes in the gene it will be duplicated and continually passed from generation to generation?

I don't quite think you grasp the notion of "copying" here: so why not give us a start-to-finish explanation of what you think happens.

[evolution disbeliver]

I thought the rest of your post was very informative. But I still dont understand how it answers my question. But...

Mutations have been measured and found to be perfectly capable of explaining the variation we see. It's not only plausible, it's an observed fact.
Those would be non random genes. If Random was as non random as you say wouldnt there be more people winning slot machines?

The kind of connection you seem to be thinking of was proven wrong nearly two centuries ago. The environment does not control the genes, the environment selects amongst the available genes.
How then does the DNA know when & what changes are made. I do not see how randomness is passed. If a Giraffe knows the best food is on the top of the tree he keeps stretching his neck a little bit further and those stretched neck muscles get passed over to the next generation? Once one has a longer neck then it would pass it along to next? But it's random so it may not happen ever again let alone tens of thousands of generations later? No way. Unbelievable for me. What is the average life span of an organisms. I'm not talking specifics, just average of all the different animals that have been on the planet all the way back to the time evolution says it started in the soup. Now that either would cut into the blocks or sections of time when the soup was cooking, or there has got be rather small life spans or this planet was very overcrowded really quick. In my own opinion.

Not even close. The evidence is overwhelming that a world wide flood is impossible.

Why does it not appear possible? Note I did not say when. I know you already know the arguments points, why do you say that their is no evidence? I've seen lots of evidence all over the globe. While I may not subscribe to the idea that it happened in Noah's time or so recently, but it is similar to the dragons story, nearly every culture around the world has a story that is similar. All part of a global mass hysteria? A conspiracy theory that goes back to the very foundations of human history? In evolution that would be a very, very long time. Why is it so easily and quickly discarded like the Loch Ness monster, bigfoot or living dinos & dragons? Why couldnt these creatures be remnants? We find living fossils quite regularly

[evolution disbeliver]

Cyborg sorry I missed your post. In case you didnt know I'm not an expert or claim to be. I am asking these questions mainly for my own knowledge.
If random mutations are as random as they truly are how can they be random?
If they are repeated, even once does that not then become non random?
Second part is if they arent random how does it know what mutation to implement to ensure the continuation of life? ie the branches on the tree of life.
One would think that as many generations it would takes to duplicate it even once per species the planet would become so over populated that nothing could survive.

[RecoveringYuppy]

Those would be non random genes. If Random was as non random as you say wouldnt there be more people winning slot machines?
That doesn't make sense. I have no idea what a random gene would be and I didn't say anything about random being non random.

How then does the DNA know when & what changes are made.
It doesn't. As I said in other words, the idea that the organism incorporates feedback in to it's genes was ruled out as the major driver of evolution nearly two centuries ago. Mutations are random.

I do not see how randomness is passed.
I'm not sure what you mean by that. Do you mean passed on to future generations? Organisms have sex and pass down their genes in the process. Hopefully you meant something else.

If a Giraffe knows the best food is on the top of the tree he keeps stretching his neck a little bit further and those stretched neck muscles get passed over to the next generation?
No, that theory was proposed around 1800 and ruled out shortly thereafter.

Once one has a longer neck then it would pass it along to next?
Yes.

But it's random so it may not happen ever again let alone tens of thousands of generations later? No way.
In the first place, why would it need to happen again later? And in the second place it happens all the time. There are very very few traits present in any population that are completely uniform over the whole population. Can you name any trait present in humans that doesn't vary?
What is the average life span of an organisms. I'm not talking specifics, just average of all the different animals that have been on the planet all the way back to the time evolution says it started in the soup. Now that either would cut into the blocks or sections of time when the soup was cooking, or there has got be rather small life spans or this planet was very overcrowded really quick. In my own opinion.
Not sure what you're getting at here but 20 minutes would be a typical lifespan. A septillion organisms on Earth at any one time would probably be a good guess for the number of organisms.

[RecoveringYuppy]

Why does it not appear possible?
There isn't enough water.

... nearly every culture around the world has a story that is similar. All part of a global mass hysteria? A conspiracy theory that goes back to the very foundations of human history?
How about the obvious explanation that it's just a story? People write stories. No need to imagine they were crazy or in a conspiracy.

Why is it so easily and quickly discarded like the Loch Ness monster, bigfoot or living dinos & dragons? Why couldnt these creatures be remnants? We find living fossils quite regularly
Those are all different subjects with different degrees of evidence. A global flood is discarded because it's refuted by the evidence.

[cyborg]

If random mutations are as random as they truly are how can they be random?

Eh?

If they are repeated, even once does that not then become non random?

If I start off with gene ATCG and copy it and get ATCC then the change from G to C represents a random error in copying.

This change only needs to occur once to be copied many times. It does not need to be repeated for every copy made - which seems to be the mistake you are making here.

Second part is if they arent random how does it know what mutation to implement to ensure the continuation of life? ie the branches on the tree of life.

There is nothing that knows in any way how to ensure the continuation life and hence implement it.

That is why extinctions occur. That is why some species fail.

Maximising the amount of life is the only sure way to mitigate the possibility of all life being destroyed. Speciation maximises the number of forms it takes on.

One would think that as many generations it would takes to duplicate it even once per species the planet would become so over populated that nothing could survive.

Eh?

[evolution disbeliver]

Ok so I probably wont understand DNA. But the way I understood it was that it mutates. If a mutation is random (like a 2 headed cow) and it is somehow beneficial to the organism or gives it an edge over the others in the same generation, how is that then passed onto the next generation? Not to pick on midgets, but you dont see very many of them having midgets themselves. Or Siamese twins producing the same. I do understand the genes are passed on, but the chances of them being the dominate genes are still pretty low right? or are you saying that all mutations are "pre-programmed"? So the exact same mutations that give us a walrus also give us an alligator? They just happened at different times to bring about different species.

As far as not enough water, not even if you take into consideration the ice caps, the air and subterranean? We are worried about global warming melting the glaciers and ice caps and flooding the coasts. Could there not be enough subterranean water to tip it even further inland?

This one is just too funny to pass up..

Can you name any trait present in humans that doesn't vary?

Sense of humor in wives! :D

[evolution disbeliver]

Ok so I probably wont understand DNA. But the way I understood it was that it mutates. If a mutation is random (like a 2 headed cow) and it is somehow beneficial to the organism or gives it an edge over the others in the same generation, how is that then passed onto the next generation? Not to pick on midgets, but you dont see very many of them having midgets themselves. Or Siamese twins producing the same. I do understand the genes are passed on, but the chances of them being the dominate genes are still pretty low right? or are you saying that all mutations are "pre-programmed"? So the exact same mutations that give us a walrus also give us an alligator? They just happened at different times to bring about different species.

As far as not enough water, not even if you take into consideration the ice caps, the air and subterranean? We are worried about global warming melting the glaciers and ice caps and flooding the coasts. Could there not be enough subterranean water to tip it even further inland?

This one is just too funny to pass up..

Can you name any trait present in humans that doesn't vary?

Sense of humor in wives! :D

[evolution disbeliver]

How the hell did I do 2 posts? That was weird.

[RecoveringYuppy]

Ok so I probably wont understand DNA. But the way I understood it was that it mutates. If a mutation is random (like a 2 headed cow) and it is somehow beneficial to the organism or gives it an edge over the others in the same generation, how is that then passed onto the next generation? Not to pick on midgets, but you dont see very many of them having midgets themselves. Or Siamese twins producing the same.
Traits are passed on via sex and reproduction. Dwarfism is certainly heritable in some forms.

As far as not enough water, not even if you take into consideration the ice caps, the air and subterranean?
There is a chance, only a chance, that there is enough water inside the planet to cover the mountains in water. But how exactly would you imagine all that water rushing to the surface of the Earth at the same time and then all rushing back in to the Earth at about the same time?
We are worried about global warming melting the glaciers and ice caps and flooding the coasts. Could there not be enough subterranean water to tip it even further inland?
Further inland a bit sure. To the tops of the mountains? No.

Global warming isn't expected to affect any of the "subterranean" water I referred to earlier. If there is a lot of water inside the Earth it once survived an impact from a meteor the size of Mars. It's not going to move because of a few degrees assuming it's even there.

[sts60]

I thought I'd just offer an "attaboy" to everybody on this thread for conducting such a civil discussion with a lot of back-and-forth.

evolution disbeliever, I'd like to point out something I didn't see mentioned by anyone else:

...Gravity is what hold planets, stars & moons together. This is not done without rotation. ...

Gravitation does not require rotation. It's what holds the rotating bodies together, and binds moons to their primaries, and binds the planets to the Sun, etc. (Minor point in this conversation, I know.)

BTW, I am a Christian and accept that evolution occurs and that the Earth is several billion years old. God really does move in mysterious, subtle, and amazing ways; evolution is one of them, and "deep time" is an awe-inspiring and humbling concept.

[cyborg]

Ok so I probably wont understand DNA. But the way I understood it was that it mutates.

Hmm, I don't think these two statements are as compatable as you think.

If a mutation is random (like a 2 headed cow) and it is somehow beneficial to the organism or gives it an edge over the others in the same generation, how is that then passed onto the next generation?

Mutation occurs to DNA. DNA is what is passed on from one generation to the other. What's not to understand?

Not to pick on midgets, but you dont see very many of them having midgets themselves. Or Siamese twins producing the same.

1) There are varieties of dwarfism which are certainly heritable
2) Being a twin (Siamese or not) is NOT heritable for reasons that are obvious if you take a second to remember what a TWIN is...
3) Not every quality of an organism is expressed in DNA. You can't inherit the fact your mother lost a leg now can you?

I do understand the genes are passed on, but the chances of them being the dominate genes are still pretty low right?

That entirely depends.

or are you saying that all mutations are "pre-programmed"? So the exact same mutations that give us a walrus also give us an alligator? They just happened at different times to bring about different species.

Er no. I'm not sure at all where you're getting this.

As far as not enough water, not even if you take into consideration the ice caps, the air and subterranean? We are worried about global warming melting the glaciers and ice caps and flooding the coasts. Could there not be enough subterranean water to tip it even further inland?

This is another thread - I suggest you start one if you're interested in this. No need to derail this one.

[evolution disbeliver]

All excellent points cyborg. I will be more specific at a later time. Right now the kids are home & it's time for daddy to play with them.
I was referring to genetic mutations, that if evolution is based on random mutations in genes then are you saying that there are only so many mutations that can occur for all species? That would explain to me how something that is random is not actually random. And can be repeated in other species as well.
sts-60 thanks for the input. Good point as well!
RY About the flood, I did say purposely say that I didnt note when it occured. According to evolution and carbon dating the earth is very, very old. Which means that it's surface did not always look the same. With tectonic plates sliding all over the place and smashing and bumping around creating the mountains and valleys would you not think that maybe the earth was a lot flatter at some point in time? And the earth is constantly replenishing itself which is why it is able to maintain life, so would one not theorize that there is just as much water on the earth, in the earth & above the earth as there was so many millions of years ago when the earth was flatter? Would there not be sufficient water to flood the earth then? But if that is accepted then it could lend a certain realization that Noah's ark might actually be true, but in order for that to fit it would mean that man was around longer than we think. If the Gap Theory is true that could be possible.

For all the evolutionists please dont forget that the earth was very, very different than what we have today, so therefore many todays rules do not apply to millions & millions of years ago. It was a totally different environment than what it is today. Just look at your own evidence. The anatomy of a dino is a great example. Just about all of them had comparatively small nostrils when compared to the size of their bodies. Which is proof of a very different environment than todays. Even their sheer size lends one to thing something was goin on with the gravity as well. They should have been crushed under their own weight.

This is one thing that pisses me off about both sides, pick what you want to shoot down not the whole thing. No need to start another thread on the flood. We are discussing creation theory and evolution. The flood is claimed to be part of the creationists argument so therefore it does belong here. If you have read my posts both in the comments section on the corresponding skeptoid episode as well here you will see that I am trying to blow just as many holes in both theories, especially the one I so valiantly hold up!
We are doing very good by not ranting & raving like loonies, this proves we are evolving as a species. lol
:D:p
Gotta go play, back later.
Cheers

[MG1962]

BTW, I am a Christian and accept that evolution occurs and that the Earth is several billion years old. God really does move in mysterious, subtle, and amazing ways; evolution is one of them, and "deep time" is an awe-inspiring and humbling concept.

Thats perhaps the core of why I also dont find conflict in my faith and science. If we accept Gods involvement in the Universe, then we have accept that we are totally clueless to his great plan. I fear that for some that is too big a dent in their ego to handle.

God made us incredible curious, then gave us an amazing playground to exercise that curiosity in

[cyborg]

Even their sheer size lends one to thing something was goin on with the gravity as well. They should have been crushed under their own weight.

Uh, no. Not at all.

This is the sort of simplistic thinking that says that an object of iron weighing millions of tonnes cannot float because it is too heavy.

Absolute weight, you should conclude, is not the important factor as to whether or not a ship sinks. Perhaps you should reconsider your hasty conclusions?

[evolution disbeliver]

Uh, no. Not at all.

This is the sort of simplistic thinking that says that an object of iron weighing millions of tonnes cannot float because it is too heavy.

Absolute weight, you should conclude, is not the important factor as to whether or not a ship sinks. Perhaps you should reconsider your hasty conclusions?

You are right, I shouldnt have tried using the weight.

But I notice that nothing was pointed out about the nostrils & their breathing.
That is another trait about science & evolutionists that helped to run me off. To point out when somebody is wrong very quickly but no mention when they might be right. Their attitude is "that if you are not a scholar you are beneath me"
and yes creationists are the same way, but at least they act like they are happy that you are on their side.

I'm not trying to start a fight, thats just the way the 2 communities come across.

So what about the nostrils & breathing. With small nostrils & the possiblities of "extra" lungs or breathing organ in the larger animals. I know that we can only speculate about the extra organs because of the soft tissue issue. But can somebody point out the atmospheric conditions about that time? Perhaps the nostrils were big enough.

[cyborg]

But I notice that nothing was pointed out about the nostrils & their breathing.
That is another trait about science & evolutionists that helped to run me off. To point out when somebody is wrong very quickly but no mention when they might be right. Their attitude is "that if you are not a scholar you are beneath me"

I think the point here is that you seem to have picked up a multitulde of wrong ideas about these things - approaching this is a completely unstructured and ad hoc way isn't really going to get us anywhere. So can we choose one topic at a time and stick to that rather than picking things randomly from one place to another?

[MG1962]

So what about the nostrils & breathing. With small nostrils & the possiblities of "extra" lungs or breathing organ in the larger animals. I know that we can only speculate about the extra organs because of the soft tissue issue. But can somebody point out the atmospheric conditions about that time? Perhaps the nostrils were big enough.

Sorry I missed this in the tooing and froeing. The size of nostrils dont play that big a part in air intake, they are more about heat. If we look at humans today, we see wide flat noses on negros in Africa. This is an adaption to try and reduce heat stress for the body. Causicans however have a longer bridged nose. This is an adaption for cold. By extending the airway, the air is warmed so that the core temperatrure of the body is less vunerable

Because Dinosaurs appear to have been cold blooded, they dont need to regulate thier body heat. The hotter the better, they just become ore active

[evolution disbeliver]

I think the point here is that you seem to have picked up a multitulde of wrong ideas about these things - approaching this is a completely unstructured and ad hoc way isn't really going to get us anywhere. So can we choose one topic at a time and stick to that rather than picking things randomly from one place to another?

I agree. That would be a more structured way to go about this. My problem of jumping around is that I have so much intrest in all of it. Also since all of the 'ologies seem to coroborate each other I tend to jump from one to the other to validate or debunk it. Just the way my brain comprehends things for me.
I guess you can say I try to look at too big of a picture. All at once.
EDIT:I will make a concerted effort to stay with each item at the time. Below I start with dinos because that is what interests me the most of all of it.

[evolution disbeliver]

Sorry I missed this in the tooing and froeing. The size of nostrils dont play that big a part in air intake, they are more about heat. If we look at humans today, we see wide flat noses on negros in Africa. This is an adaption to try and reduce heat stress for the body. Causicans however have a longer bridged nose. This is an adaption for cold. By extending the airway, the air is warmed so that the core temperatrure of the body is less vunerable

Because Dinosaurs appear to have been cold blooded, they dont need to regulate thier body heat. The hotter the better, they just become ore active

That makes sense. But what of the findings that Dinos may have been warm blooded? And what about their enviroment? So from the constuction of their nostrils the climate was warmer? And inherrently wetter? & finally could a warmer wetter climate lead to an increased abundance of plant life leading to a higher content in the O2 of the atmosphere leading to an increase in the barometric pressure?
Wow that question is worded like a question at a Presidential press conference!
Sorry guys & girls. :o

[UnrepentantSinner]

Again, I'm terribly sorry for seeming that I'm in a time warp, but while I checked in on this thread repeatedly last night at work I was too busy to committ the time I prefer to when responding to questions (see Shermer's adage about debating Creationists).

I think it was Hovind that I heard refering to it as liquefaction.

Ah. To that I can only reply - avoid listening to Hovind for anything other than enterainment. I hate the over use of "lie" in describing someone who is merely asserting B.S., but in his case it's totally warrented because he's well aware that virtually everything out of his mouth is.. well, a lie.

Very good point about the plants being all over the place. That makes sense & I hadnt thought about it that way.
But their argument is that it happened all at once during the flood. If you take carbon dating out of the way it I can see where it could make sense. There is no doubt that the flood happened in my view but I do agree that wouldnt screw with the strata. Besides the flood could have erased alot of the fossil record.
I did notice a long time ago about the modern day animals are convienently left out of the strata in the creationist argument.

I think I made a pretty convincing case yesterday as to why neither liquifaction nor hydrological sorting explains the fossil record as satisfactorally as the standard geological/paleontological/evolutionary models do. And as I'll note below, just removing carbon dating from the process doesn't eliminate the number of other dating methods which confirm C-14 dating and the other radiometric dating methods I linked to above.

As far as the flood goes, are you familiar with the world-wide Iridium layer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicxulub_crater#Chicxulub_and_mass_extinction) that was lain down between Cretaceous and Tertiary strata? There are myriad problems with the flood narrative (where did the Native Americans, Sub-saharan Africans, East Asians and Australian Aborigines come from - they're not mentioned in Genesis, and why is there no genetic bottleneck in humans nor any other species from about 4,000 years ago?), but the fact that we have this world-wide layer of a rare element at precisely the K/T boundry is damming for the flood explaining the geological column.

Regarding Creationists and fauna in the fossil record, if you listen to some of them, there's three periods - the Pre-Cambrain, Post-Cambrian and strata where we either find "fully ape" hominids, "fully human" hominds and anomolous finds like Paluxy or a supposed trilobite that had been stepped on by booted human.

[evolution disbeliver]

US Yes I knew about the Iridium layer. But my question is could there not have been a world wide flood before that. I do think that a flood would be able to cause mass extinction as much as an object impacting the earth. I just think it's odd that it is so quickly thrown out as false when it seems entirely plausible. I'm not saying that it occurred during the time of humans. Why could it not have happened before or even very close to early humans?
I have heard of studies that try to explain the dragon fear as some kind of "memory" that is passed on through the generations. Those studies say that the early humans had a fear of volcanic activity and that is what shows up in our instinct as dragons. With dragons stories so prominate in our history, why couldnt the same be applied to the flood. There are countless stories of floods destroying the earth (noah, atlantis, babylon, etc) Why couldnt be an instinctive fear of drowning passed on in the genes?

But I would like to stick to one at a time, as previously requested by cyborg above.

[UnrepentantSinner]

Why would there not be things in the universe that exist that we havent discovered yet that could have an impact on our planet? If we dont know it exists, how do we know whether it does or doesnt effect us? That might be more philosophic than scientific but it is still a factor that cant be ignored.

Actually, what you're delving into isn't philosophy so much as ad hoc reasoning. Is I noted previously, carbon dating isn't the only method used in dating, though it's very effective for items under 50,000 years. Since that was your focus, if you're going to suggest there might be "something" that reset the clocks on the C-12/C-14 content, you're going to need to address why all the other dating methods (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Dating_methods) like dendrochronology (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dendrochronology) (tree rings), varves (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varve) and ice cores (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_core) all match up with other dating methods, especially the radiometric methods (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Radiometric_dating) I linked to earlier.

And yes I would like a little more clarification of how we get from a dino to a walrus to a tree to man. I can follow it backwards to a point, but then I when it becomes an entirely different organism I get lost. I can understand the human ape concept and the fish to shark, even dino to bird, but a reptile to mammal, warm blooded to cold blooded? insect to human? How does it go from a to b to c to all of a sudden x? I am checking out that tree of life site right now, maybe the answer I am looking for is there.

Dig around more on the TOLweb site, but don't forget... you're not going backwards per se, as much at watching a film in reverse. The key to phylogenies (see the previous link) is not that we can trace back x became y became z, but that all z's are y's and all y's are x's. All turtles must be reptiles (otherwise evolution is false) and all reptiles must be vertebrates (otherwise evolution is false). In Creationism, there is no requirement that that be so.

A quick primer into how phylogenetics work or are falsified. If beings exhibit certain characteristics, they belong to a group. The more characteristics they share, the more closely they are grouped together. These characteristics are then effected by homology (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homology_%28biology%29). For example, a bat and a bird both have wings and fly, but the bat is covered in fur, has mammary glands and is viviparous, while at bird is covered in feathers, lacks mammary glands and is oviparous. Thus, while bats and birds share wings and flight, it is their differences that place them in the mammal and bird phyogenies, not the similarity.

I understand about the Aristolian line you gave, we are all connected because we are from the same elements. What I dont understand is how the elements arranged themselves to make the organisms. I would tend to think it that lies at the DNA level. We do still consider DNA as the blueprint of life, or has there been a discovery that I missed? Not being sarcastic, just want to know?

You're delving into abiogenesis with this paragraph. Life didn't suddenly go from random elements to fish. In the abiogenetic model, first there elements that self-organized into molecules (think Water, Carbon Dioxide or Methane). Those molecules self-organized into self-replicating precursors of "life". Eventually those self-replicating chemicals (there are examples in polymer chains (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Living_polymerization) evolved into what we know as "life". Once "life" developed as a method of biochemicals to reproduce themselves... imperfectly... evolution was inevitable.

As far as the blueprint of life goes, are you familiar with HOX genes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HOX#Hox_genes)? They explain why a fish develops a fin, a frog develops a forelimb, a bird develops a wing and a human develops an arm.

[RecoveringYuppy]

Why couldnt be an instinctive fear of drowning passed on in the genes?
Who said it couldn't? There very likely is an instinctive fear of drowning and there are very definitely reflexive protections against drowning. But what does that have to do with a worldwide flood? It doesn't take 10 mile deep water to put you in danger of drowning.

[UnrepentantSinner]

I didnt mean to imply that a living dino would falsify evolution. For my own inner child would love to have a living breathing dino.

Me too. :) But as I noted, a living dinosaur today would be much less prolematic for evolutionary theory than a Devonian rabbit or Permain chicken.

As far as archaeological evidence of man and dino, what about cave drawings found with animals that can only be described as dinos. Did they dig up the fossils and put them together as we have? So they would know what they look like. Or are they all part of the mass hysteria of creationism?

Well, here's the problem with that assertion by Creationists. None of the supposed dinosaur glyphs have the context that I mentioned previously. There are no evidences of spearpoint nicks on any dinosaur bone ever found (and to toss archeology into to mix, since humans supposedly had, according to Genesis, agriculture and animal husbandry from day 1, why were there any hunter-gatherer societies on the Earth at all... we simply don't tend to lose technologies we develop... especially simply things like harvesting and rasing livestock) or any horns, bones or hides taken from human settlements or trash middens. Why is that?

Also, we have a number of cross cultural fantastical creatures that show up in mythology like Shedu and Centaurs (half man, half horse), Garuda and Harpys (half human, half bird), Nagas and Questalcoatl (half man, half snake). And I'm not even mentioning the numerous examples of petroglyphs that look like aliens in spacesuits. Are all those glyphs, cultural references and protrayals of actual beings, or the imagination of the artist?

Continuing with the living dinos how is it that nearly every culture from all over the world have dragons or similar creatures in it's history? More mass hysteria?

I have a TE friend of mine who is of Chinese extraction and he is continually bemused by Creationists who assert that European dragon tales are evidence of dinosaurs because in Chinese mythology dragons are serpentine, but tetrapodal and fly not with wings, but with spiritual power and are good omens, not harbingers of doom. I hate to be so harsh, but that blows your "similar" assertion out of the water huh?

And sorry for being to general, if species are constantly changing over millions of years, why would 2 species still be around when one has evolved much further than the other. ie Neanderthals were around when we hit the scene yet we are the ones here. Did we commit genocide or did they simply die out? As far as human and ape do you suppose that they are still around because we are in a transitional period where the apes could be extinct in the future?

The last question first. We're in a period where our fellow great apes are going extinct, but not because of any (technically) naturally selective pressure. The pressure for their extinction is us. We're destroying the Orang environment in Indonesia. We're doing the same with gorillas and chimps in Africa, but the added pressure of "bush meat" and trophy hunting makes their situations all the more precarious. Ultimately, the survival of our fellow great apes might not come down to environment (technically), but our intervention.

Back to your question of why 2 species would continue to be around... why wouldn't they? Unless, as you noted, one actively tried to eradicate the other, they would just continue to exist. And therein lies the environmental aspect of natural selection. It's entirely possible that Neanderthals existed in ever smaller populations after their Pleistocene hayday had passed, but that competition with Sapiens, combined with their specialization (very small clan social structure) sealed their doom. Back to the possible, there might have been a time when Earth was populated with Erectus/Ergaster, Neanderthal and Sapiens simultaneously... and back to your living dino issue - I would love for us to find (at least in the "enlightened" time of 2008) a living Erectus or Neanderthal, if anything for the DNA they could provide us.

For the reciprocal question, my grand parents didnt die because a) We are the same species or what ever it is called. and b)According to evolutionary theory several generations are not enough to make the change, it would take millions of years.
Wow that tree of life site is interesting 3 pages from alligators to ants. Interesting. This may take me a while on this link :)
But I dont think it's going to answer my question of how the transitions are made. Is it something that is inherent in DNA? or do we not know?

Again, refer back to what I mentioned about how somthing that is X will only give birth to an X that might also be a Y, but never a B. And how that Y might give birth to something that might also be a Z, but will never be a C. Ugh, which reminds me of a note about falsifications of evolution I forgot to mention earlier.

If a trout was found with fur, evolution is done.
If an iguana was found with boobies, evolution is done.
If a sea cucumber was found with a vertbrate brain, evolution is done.
If a bird was found with arms as well as wings, evolution is done.
If a human was found with a chitenous exoskeleton, evolution is done.

All of those things would be undersandible within Creationism, but would utterly falsify evolutionary theory... and yet we never find anything that doesn't fit.

[UnrepentantSinner]

But I would like to stick to one at a time, as previously requested by cyborg above.

No problem. It's my bedtime and I'm still 18-24 hours behind reality on this thread. I'll try and address some more one to one's tonight since I'm off. Thank you for putting up with my lateness.

[kev]

[quote=evolution disbeliver;3554463] I just think it's odd that it is so quickly thrown out as false when it seems entirely plausible.

Who said it was "quickly thrown out as false?" Unless I am missing something, it was believed as true for thousands of years. It has only been over the past 100-200 years that it has been PROVEN false. Is it "plausible" that a great, world wide flood could cause a mass extinction? Certainly. But, it is also plausible that a great, worldwide "anything" could cause mass extinction. The flood idea was not "quickly" thrown out. It took a long time to throw it out. But, now that it has been thrown out, it should not need to be "rethrown out" every week.

There are countless stories of floods destroying the earth (noah, atlantis, babylon, etc)?

You are right, but there are also countless stories as to what causes lightning, how the stars were placed in the sky, why the sun rises and sets, where the seasons come from, where you go when you die, how babies are made . . . . .The key here is that they are STORIES. Humans have always sought to explain that which they do not understand with stories. Over the years, those stories have helped to create comfort about ideas that we did not have the technology to explain. Different cultures make up different stories and explain the unexplainable by introducing the supernatural. And, each culture affixes itself in the center of its particular supernatural story, because they are the ones writing it (or telling it).

The funny thing though, about these stories, is that everyone else's version is always a "story" - but your own version, is somehow the inerrant word of the almighty creator (of choice).

Which is more likely?

A.) There are 1000 fictional stories about the creation, told and changed throughout history, to explain what science could not explain at the time. And, there is one story that is actually the recorded word of an almighty creator - looking out for you, and those like you. And this one account, just so happens to be the one you believe in.

Or,

B.) There are 1001 fictional stories about creation.

The major problem you are having with trying to wade through your curiosity about evolution is your lack of understanding about evolution. Your references to mutations resulting in one animal "turning into" another animal, and your references to "How does it KNOW what genes to pick" are misconceptions that make it impossible to comprehend how evolution works. So many of your questions are based on a fundamentally flawed understanding of evolution.

[evolution disbeliver]

US I understand your schedule totally, my days start at 10pm.

I have a TE friend of mine who is of Chinese extraction and he is continually bemused by Creationists who assert that European dragon tales are evidence of dinosaurs because in Chinese mythology dragons are serpentine, but tetrapodal and fly not with wings, but with spiritual power and are good omens, not harbingers of doom. I hate to be so harsh, but that blows your "similar" assertion out of the water huh?
Not necessarily, what one culture derives about something another could get something entirely different. I was meaning them as a whole.
Again, refer back to what I mentioned about how somthing that is X will only give birth to an X that might also be a Y, but never a B. And how that Y might give birth to something that might also be a Z, but will never be a C.
In other words T might give birth to an U while it is not another T it is still closer to a T than a D, but it is still related to the D & T
Right? I am still looking at that site, alot of work has gone into that.

If an iguana was found with boobies, evolution is done.
Boobies are the greatest feature in nature. lol

Actually, what you're delving into isn't philosophy so much as ad hoc reasoning. Is I noted previously, carbon dating isn't the only method used in dating, though it's very effective for items under 50,000 years. Since that was your focus, if you're going to suggest there might be "something" that reset the clocks on the C-12/C-14 content, you're going to need to address why all the other dating methods like dendrochronology (tree rings), varves and ice cores all match up with other dating methods, especially the radiometric methods I linked to earlier.
Exactly why I was said philosphy, I was implying all dating methods. Giving that we really only know the tip of the ice burgh about the universe.

Touch on the rest of yours later tonite.
Now to RY...
Who said it couldn't? There very likely is an instinctive fear of drowning and there are very definitely reflexive protections against drowning. But what does that have to do with a worldwide flood? It doesn't take 10 mile deep water to put you in danger of drowning.
NO it doesnt and it wouldnt take 10 mile deep water to flood the earth. If evolution is corroborated by other sciences then wouldnt Pangaea be rather flat considering it is the only continent on the planet at the time? The highest point being volcanoes? The lower elevations created by erosion? There could technically be no mountain ranges because there is no tectonic plates.
or am I wrong?

[kev]

If evolution is corroborated by other sciences then wouldnt Pangaea be rather flat considering it is the only continent on the planet at the time? The highest point being volcanoes? The lower elevations created by erosion? There could technically be no mountain ranges because there is no tectonic plates.
or am I wrong?



I think you are wrong. Where did you come up with the fact that there were no tectonic plates? Just because they were in a different place, does not mean there were no plates. There are also plates that do not correspond to any continents at all - oceanic plates. The continental plates being in close proximity to each other does not make them, and the oceanic plates, disappear.

[UnrepentantSinner]

Ok so I probably wont understand DNA. But the way I understood it was that it mutates.

In an utterly reductionist context you do understand. DNA is composed of 4 amino acids which are, basically, the letters that compose the language of life. If you want more details read here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dna). Bascially what happens is there is a change in either individual amino acids, or in whole groups of them due to imperfect replication. Those changes can have a negative effect (as some do), a neutral effect (as most do) or, depending on the environment a positive effect.

If a mutation is random (like a 2 headed cow) and it is somehow beneficial to the organism or gives it an edge over the others in the same generation, how is that then passed onto the next generation?

Forget radical changes in morphology because those rarely convey a survival/reproductive advantage. Think in more subtle terms. The answer to your question is simple... if a mutation confers a survival advantage to an individual, that individual is obviously more likely to survive to maturity, to mate and to have not only offspring, but more offspring than others without the survival advantage. The genes of that parent are then passed on to the offspring who, sharing that survival advantage in their DNA, will continue to thrive and reproduce in that environment.

Not to pick on midgets, but you dont see very many of them having midgets themselves.

Dwarfism is a recessive gene and is detrimental to human populations (though not in some populations where it might be selected for due to limited resources) because of skeletal issues and potential reproductive problems for dwarf females who mate with "normal" males (all of this supposes a pre-surgical C-section world). An interesting case of dwarfism is the Roloff family who can be seen in the delightful series Little People, Big World (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_People_Big_World). Amy and Matt are both dwarves but three of their four children are "normal". They are an example of how recessive the dwarfism gene is.

Or Siamese twins producing the same.

Conjoined twins (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conjoined_twins) are not a genetic condition or mutation. They are the result of identical twins who fail to complete their developmental separation in utero. Chang and Eng Bunker (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chang_and_Eng_Bunker) had 22 children between them, and none of them were Conjoined twins because it was a fluke of development in the womb, not a genetic condition.

I do understand the genes are passed on, but the chances of them being the dominate genes are still pretty low right? or are you saying that all mutations are "pre-programmed"? So the exact same mutations that give us a walrus also give us an alligator? They just happened at different times to bring about different species.

See my link earlier about homology. There isn't much difference between a walrus and an alligator since both of them evolved from a reptilian concestor. Alligators developed scales, a three piece jawbone, wide stance and are cold blooded while Walruses developed fur, their reptilian jawbones became their (and our) ear bones, a tripod stance and are warm blooded. And no, they weren't "pre-programmed", they were selected for in populations which, over millions of years led to the diversity of life we see today and in the fossil record.

As far as not enough water, not even if you take into consideration the ice caps, the air and subterranean? We are worried about global warming melting the glaciers and ice caps and flooding the coasts. Could there not be enough subterranean water to tip it even further inland?

Taking the flood narrative literally, there simply is not enough water to cover the mountaintops we know of today (and historically), nor even the mountaintops that were known historically without crazy geological upheaval that we just don't see evidence for in the geological record. To put it simply, the "water" issue is the least of the problems Creationists have regarding taking the Flood narrative literally.

[evolution disbeliver]

I am begining to think the argument is flawed and not the two theories.
It should be about the way it begins not the way it changed. While one theory is based on evidence and follows a logical train of thought, the other is based on what is observed but not tested. The argument has over the years turned into destructive attacks from both sides trying to defend themselves. When it should be used to ensure the betterment of our society and ensure our survival. Creationists seem to be upset more because they think it destroys God, when it should increase their faith in him. Because of the shear odds that evolution would continue let alone get started by itself are astronomical. So I guess that maybe I'm not an evoluton disbeliever totally, I wouldnt say I am a creationist either. I must be a ID'er, but I still subscribe to events in the bible. Some as they are stated, some not. Some are a little far fetched. Some absolutely make sense to me. Some will probably say that I am trying to ride the fence on this, some may say I am afraid too choose a side. But I honestly dont care. I know there is a god, the evidence for that is overwhelming, none of it testable....yet. I do know that there is only one thing left for me to ask..........

are we able to change our board name without joining again? :blush::boggled::D

[evolution disbeliver]

US,
Taking the flood narrative literally, there simply is not enough water to cover the mountaintops we know of today (and historically), nor even the mountaintops that were known historically without crazy geological upheaval that we just don't see evidence for in the geological record. To put it simply, the "water" issue is the least of the problems Creationists have regarding taking the Flood narrative literally.

Not taking it literally as it is written, would there be enough to flood the land high enough it could cause something like a mini-mass extinction? Perhaps hundred or so feet in elevation above sea level? I just cant see a large land animal scrambling up the side of a mountain or herds of animals (or humans) trying to out run fast aproaching flood waters to higher ground.

[evolution disbeliver]

I think you are wrong. Where did you come up with the fact that there were no tectonic plates? Just because they were in a different place, does not mean there were no plates. There are also plates that do not correspond to any continents at all - oceanic plates. The continental plates being in close proximity to each other does not make them, and the oceanic plates, disappear.

That was my understanding of the theory. If all the continents were connected why would there be any plates? I never really studied it in depth. I was a very bad slacker in school unless something interested me. And that was one of them. I would sit and stare at the dino fossils and pics & try to imagine the size and strength that they must have had. I could've cared less about there enviroment at that time. Ahhh, I miss the teen years.:)

[cyborg]

Because of the shear odds that evolution would continue let alone get started by itself are astronomical.

They are? Since when? Who presented these odds? Based on what?

And since it's already happened it hardly seems to make sense to talk about the odds of it not happening.

[dahduh]

I am begining to think the argument is flawed and not the two theories.
It should be about the way it begins not the way it changed. While one theory is based on evidence and follows a logical train of thought, the other is based on what is observed but not tested. The argument has over the years turned into destructive attacks from both sides trying to defend themselves. When it should be used to ensure the betterment of our society and ensure our survival. Creationists seem to be upset more because they think it destroys God, when it should increase their faith in him. Because of the shear odds that evolution would continue let alone get started by itself are astronomical. So I guess that maybe I'm not an evoluton disbeliever totally, I wouldnt say I am a creationist either. I must be a ID'er, but I still subscribe to events in the bible. Some as they are stated, some not. Some are a little far fetched. Some absolutely make sense to me. Some will probably say that I am trying to ride the fence on this, some may say I am afraid too choose a side. But I honestly dont care. I know there is a god, the evidence for that is overwhelming, none of it testable....yet.

I must say this is one of the most honest and thoughtful comments I've encountered for a while. But if the OP will permit a slight philosophical digression, it seems to me your main point of difficulty is deciding what is 'truth'. Science relies upon evidence that is readily accessible to physical inquiry. Gold-plated evidence is repeatable, the same no matter who looks at it, and no matter when someone looks at it.

On the subject of evolution, evidence is often fragmentary and controversial. We are like detectives going in after murder and trying to piece together what actually happened. There may be dozens of hypotheses that fit the evidence, and if there is not enough evidence if may never be possible to eliminate all but one.

Here we have two hypotheses: one, life evolves by a process of natural selection, and two, life was created by an act of God.

Good hypotheses are economical and restrictive, and the theory of evolution is a good example. In the case of evolution, the idea is very simple and can easily be simulated in the laboratory or even a computer. And it is very restrictive: for example in biological systems, statistical probability demands that evolution occur by a very gradual process, and that (unless there were do distinct acts of abiogenesis) all living things must be related and organized into an evolutionary tree. This means if we find a single example of a 'jump' in evolution, or a tree that folds back on itself (like a bunny in the Precambrian), then evolution is disproved. Conversely, if we do find evidence for a 'tree of life' and that over time organisms have only changed slowly, then this is good evidence that evolution is a good hypothesis (although it is not positive proof). Here are some examples of observations that are very suggestive indeed:

1. Morphologically dinosaurs appear to have evolved into birds. So there _has_ to be a series of links somewhere, from creatures that don't have feathers, to creatures that do; and they must be found in geological strata of a very specific age. As indeed they are.

2. Bats have a unique echolocation feature, so there must be intermediate forms from something that doesn't have this ability, to something that does. Indeed, there are.

3. We now understand how DNA works, and that copies of the genome get passed down from generation to generation. So if something 'scars' that DNA in some way, then if it is not harmful and not subject to evolutionary pressures (like in an area of 'junk' DNA), then copies of that scar will be visible thousands of generations later. Indeed, we do find such evidence in quite distinct organism like gorillas and man, indicating that there was a common ancestor to each. It's always very satisfying when a theory predicts something about which nothing was known at the time the theory was postulated.

This is just a tiny sample of examples; there are thousands more. And while no single example is absolute proof that the evolution hypothesis is correct, taken together they are pretty damn convincing. For further information you can't do better than the talkorigins faq page (http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/faqs-qa.html).

Now look at the alternative hypothesis: we are a product of divine creation. Unfortunately this is not a restrictive hypothesis, because no matter what we observe you can always say "well, God made it that way". So God could have created the world 6,000 years ago and planted all the evidence of evolution just to make it look like evolution occurred. Possible, but why would God do that? From there you have to delve into the mind of God, and always the answer is "The mind of God is inscrutable". Because the hypothesis is totally unrestrictive, it also has zero predictive power, and is therefore not useful. But in addition, the God hypothesis is also very uneconomical. It posits the existence of a highly intelligent being to explain our existence; but it provides no explanation for the origins of God. So in the end it doesn't really explain anything at all.

You do mention that "the evidence for that [God] is overwhelming", and if this is true then that might be one avenue of supporting the God hypothesis. It would be very interesting to hear what evidence you have to offer, but I think for that you would have to start another thread.


I do know that there is only one thing left for me to ask..........

are we able to change our board name without joining again? :blush::boggled::D

Don't; you already have a reputation to keep! Rather try think of a really clever avatar that will make it all look intelligently designed!

[Wowbagger]

It seems to me, that most of the time, when one does not believe in evolution, it stems from a distorted understanding of the process. As a result, they tend to ask naive questions.

There is no shame in that. Evolution is not intuitive. But, understanding the basics is something everyone can do, without too much effort.

Before fighting against the theory, I suggest you read up on a good introductory course on it. The following site should suffice for now:

http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/evo_01

Be sure to read through all the pages. Most of them are not terribly long.

I will talk more specifically about the lines of evidence, later.

[evolution disbeliver]

Cyborg

They are? Since when? Who presented these odds? Based on what?

And since it's already happened it hardly seems to make sense to talk about the odds of it not happening.
Can you show me anywhere else in the universe that the same process has repeated?
I just presented them into the argument, but they have been presented to everybody by the creationist for what they say is roughly 6000 years.
For the creationists it is a big part of their argument.
And NO, I havent got the slightest idea of where to find any "scientific evidence for it. Other than simple observation.
dah duh

Quote:
I do know that there is only one thing left for me to ask..........

are we able to change our board name without joining again?
Don't; you already have a reputation to keep! Rather try think of a really clever avatar that will make it all look intelligently designed!
I was actually trying to make light of my situation. I already stated that I am not a bible thumping creationist, I just tended to agree with them. I'm not an intellectual by any means. Which leads to
wowbagger
It seems to me, that most of the time, when one does not believe in evolution, it stems from a distorted understanding of the process. As a result, they tend to ask naive questi