Thread: Evolution is a Fact - Not a Theory

Originally Posted by tkdyo

photolysis. I hope you are not putting me in that group of religious wack jobs. because I clearly said I dont take that stance either. I would like God to regrow a limb as well, would be pretty sweet.

on the note of your explination, yes I get where evolution is coming from. but when it comes to something like eyes, or the repoductive system changes I have not read an actual break down of how these things evolved, I only ever hear about the "remarkable continuity" among the species which proponents of id can just as easily say is proof of a designer. That was pretty much my point

Do you see what you're doing, repeating slippery talking points about the irreducible complexity of systems that require little more than a thought experiment by you or me to see how they fit with every piece of physical evidence thus far gathered in confirming evolutionary theory? We have nearly the full gamut of eye structures present on earth now to fill in all the blanks--how can you use the variety of structures tailored to changing environments and ecological niches as evidence against evolution (regardless of whether you also see it as the work of a "designer")? If any of the pundits feeding you this garbage claim to have a scientific education or any familiarity with the evidence, then they are deliberately misleading you.

when did I say there was evidence against evolution? ID infers evolution by design does it not? Then why dont I ever see an explination of how these things developed rather than just "oh, well they are all so similar" I am not being fed garbage by any religious pundit and I in fact hold no religion as my own currently. So, I dont see what you are getting so worked up about. Im just gathering information by asking questions

Originally Posted by tkdyo

when did I say there was evidence against evolution? ID infers evolution by design does it not? Then why dont I ever see an explination of how these things developed rather than just "oh, well they are all so similar" I am not being fed garbage by any religious pundit and I in fact hold no religion as my own currently. So, I dont see what you are getting so worked up about. Im just gathering information by asking questions

Sorry, but the eyeball schtick is a standard ID talking point, so it automatically sets off alarms. I'm not refering to similarity of structures, but continuity--the chain of increasing complexity between the eyes of, say flatworms-->fish-->frogs-->snakes-->dogs-->humans.

As for "evolution by design," no, ID is descended directly from the movements to keep evolution out of schools and posits that all species were dropped on earth fully formed according to the timeline set forth by number crunching the ages of the patriarchs in the Torah (but they didn't get the number from there--no, they used special, invisible, irreproduceable science).

photolysis. I hope you are not putting me in that group of religious wack jobs. because I clearly said I dont take that stance either. I would like God to regrow a limb as well, would be pretty sweet.

I wasn't labelling you specifically as a religious nutcase, but merely making general comments based on the content of your post.

on the note of your explination, yes I get where evolution is coming from. but when it comes to something like eyes, or the repoductive system changes I have not read an actual break down of how these things evolved, I only ever hear about the "remarkable continuity" among the species which proponents of id can just as easily say is proof of a designer. That was pretty much my point

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_the_eye

I could summarise the general points, but that article does it a lot better. A few others from wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evoluti...itory_ossicles
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_flagella

Originally Posted by Taosaur

Sorry, but the eyeball schtick is a standard ID talking point, so it automatically sets off alarms. I'm not refering to similarity of structures, but continuity--the chain of increasing complexity between the eyes of, say flatworms-->fish-->frogs-->snakes-->dogs-->humans.

As for "evolution by design," no, ID is descended directly from the movements to keep evolution out of schools and posits that all species were dropped on earth fully formed according to the timeline set forth by number crunching the ages of the patriarchs in the Torah (but they didn't get the number from there--no, they used special, invisible, irreproduceable science).

oh, I see. Then I guess I need a new name for evolution by design. I guess I could just call it that, lol. and after reading the eye article from Photolysis I see what you are getting at.

Photolysis. thanks for the articles. The eye one makes a lot of sense. The jaw bone I did know about, its pretty interesting that it could have moved like that. As for the cells, it will be cool to see what solid conclusions more research brings.

In the end. I think Im sitting at around the area that evolution is obviously occurring, but I have a hard time believing that the necessary mutations could all just happen to occur in the places where animals need it most. So, Im leaning towards evo by design but defiantly not creationism or ID.

They don't 'happen where animals need it most'. All sorts of things happen and the vast majority are incredibly bad for the animal, but the animals for which their mutation happens by chance to be an advantage in their environment will survive to pass on that mutation.

If you haven't understood that then I think you've missed the whole point of Darwin's theory.

Evolution is clearly observed to happen but Darwin's theory is the only one which explains it so perfectly. As soon as you understand what it actually means, as Thomas Huxley said, you'll be ashamed you hadn't thought of it before, it's so simple and obvious.

I have a hard time believing that the necessary mutations could all just happen to occur in the places where animals need it most.

I think this might stem from a few things:


A lot of people don't seem to appreciate the amount of times that mutations will go wrong and lead to much worse things. We don't tend to focus on the millions of poor mutations compared to the rare good one.

A lot of people don't seem to appreciate the timescales at which evolution operates on (unless something is very lethal). Decades are a long time for us. A century is a very long time. Trying to understand how long a millenium is, is not an easy task. This is almost impossible when you hit the timescales of millions and billions of years.

Mutations also do not occur when needed. Obviously sometimes they do - we wouldn't be here otherwise - but mutations can occur pretty much anywhere, even if something is perfect and doesn't need changing, and a mutation would be useless. If there was a mutation that gave humans gold eyes say, which conferred no advantage, it would not rapidly spread throughout the population. It would randomly spread and mix. The mutation is not "needed", but it still happened anyway. There are lots of examples of mutations like this, such as eye colour, hair colour, etc.

Now if there were a disease or something that these gold eyed people were hypothetically resistant to, the "gold eye" gene would rapidly spread. The mutation is "needed", but it came about by chance. It was only a coincidence that the mutation happened where it was "needed", and we don't see the countless people that died because they didn't have the correct mutations.

Mutations always occur, regardless of whether they are needed or not (in hindsight), and will not always solve a problem. A species with thin coats in an ice age might not evolve to have thick coats. They might all die before this can happen. Again, we don't tend to see these examples.

We also need to appreciate the numbers we're working with. A mutation might have say a 1 in a billion chance, but if you have a population of 6 billion, the chances are that several people will have it. It's these numbers and timescales that a lot of people don't seem to fully appreciate.

Photolysis, I must say you have done a good job keeping the side of evolution in clarity and elaboration. I thought I would be the one delving into the details, but you have been doing well.

Thank you, and to others for your inquiry and response.

~

Ok, maybe I worded my statement wrong. I understand the point of Darwin's theory. Let me use his classic finches as an example. It is true, each finch gained the necessary mutation to get the varied beaks to help them in their enviroment, and the ones who didnt died out because they couldnt get enough food. Anyone can understand that.

Now using the finches for my point. How is it that just "by chance" some finches genes mutated in the proper way to fit the food they wanted? Surely there must be more to these mutations than blind chance? Not necessarily a higher power, but it seems to me there must be more to mutations then "oh, the genes just happened to mutate in a way that the beaks could fit in holes"

edit: I was typing this when photo made his response. This aspect of evolution I also appreciate and indeed we observe it happening. I just find it miraculous that on all the island every finch's genes just happened to gain the correct mutation for its particular food supply. Or maybe Im switching the order and due to these finch's beaks they adapted to the most ready food supply?

Now using the finches for my point. How is it that just "by chance" some finches genes mutated in the proper way to fit the food they wanted? Surely there must be more to these mutations than blind chance? Not neccessairily a higher power, but it seems to me there must be more to mutations then "oh, the genes just happened to mutate in a way that the beaks could fit in holes"

Evolution doesn't work on blind chance. See my keypad analogy on page 3 for more details.


Here's a suggested way that finches could evolve different beaks

There are 2 islands, A, and B. A has one kind of nut that is very small, B has trees with very large and tough nuts.

Introduce a population of generic finches to each island, which have beaks that are not well adapted to either nut, but can be used to get the nuts nevertheless.

There are variations in everyone and everything, small as they may be. Some birds are of different heights, have different wing spans, beak lengths, muscle mass, and more or less any other characteristic you care to mention. They are similar in most cases, but different nonetheless. We can see this in humans as well. There are slight differences between everyone, though most of us belong in a certain range.

On island A, finches that have smaller beaks find it easier to get the nuts, and so can collect more in a given time, and spend less energy/time collecting them. This means that the ones with smaller beaks are more likely to reproduce than those with larger beaks. Consequentially, the amount of smaller-beaked birds will increase, and the trend will be towards even smaller beaks until the optimum size is reached.

On a large time scale, the smaller beaked finches will win out over their larger beaked rivals. Instead of spending more time breaking into nuts, or whatever, they can be mating and fathering more offspring, and they're more likely to survive worse crops as they can get food more easily and efficiently.

On island B, the finches might struggle to open the nut but they can still do it. Again, variations in beak size and strength will occur, and those with stronger beaks will do better, and expend less energy/time collecting and breaking the nuts.

Again, it's important to understand that this can be a slow process and is about probabilities. Birds with one characteristic might have a 50% chance of surviving a bad situation. Birds with a better beak might have a 75% chance. Both can survive. None can, and so on, but on a large scale, you will expect to see these patterns emerge. In reality, the odds might be something closer to 50% and 51% for a generation, which is why evolution is usually slow and on large time scales.

In a similar way, if you toss a coin a few times, you might get all heads. If you do it an extremely large amount of times, the chances are that you'll get quite close to 50% heads, 50% tails.

The key to evolution is the slight variations that occur between one generation to the next, the corresponding differences in survival probabilities (as tiny as they are), and the large time scales that they can act out on.

Photolysis, I must say you have done a good job keeping the side of evolution in clarity and elaboration. I thought I would be the one delving into the details, but you have been doing well.

Thanks. I'm also grateful to those that are actually reading my posts and trying to understand the points I'm making instead of dismissing them. It's very refreshing to have someone that listens and discusses the points at hand rationally!

O'nus, the more i read your reply's the more i smell a monkey, excuse me for my expression, but thats the way we evolved did we?

read this litle article, and tell me your thoughts on it, now be carefull, the gouvernment is watching you, and i dont think they will pay you if you say its real will they?

http://www.outlawjournalism.com/news/?p=1997

Originally Posted by L

O'nus, the more i read your reply's the more i smell a monkey, excuse me for my expression, but thats the way we evolved did we?

read this litle article, and tell me your thoughts on it, now be carefull, the gouvernment is watching you, and i dont think they will pay you if you say its real will they?

http://www.outlawjournalism.com/news/?p=1997

What do you mean "monkey"? I am not sure what to think of that.

As for the article, I will give me response but first, may I ask you what you are trying to discuss/convince/persuade me of in regards to it..? An alternate explanation?

~

Originally Posted by Mystic7

Ohhh

Originally Posted by Photolysis

it's important to understand that this can be a slow process and is about probabilities

So considering the age of the earth. Explain how sea organisms from the ocean suddenly developed into human beings in such a short period of time. What dramatic DNA change took place and gave us that unusally lucky or unlucky serious of incredible 'natural' breaks. Or maybe you have no idea about the structure of DNA at all. That must be it hey. That you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. I forgive you.

What evolution takes place when 100 monkeys wash their fruit on one island. And then suddenly all the monkeys from all the islands start washing their fruit together for no reason. When they can't contact the other monkeys washing their fruit. It's a bit like dreamviews you know. How everyone is so stupid because they are copying each other without any conventional communication. As you can see that is changing.

grod I have something I want to sell you.....

Originally Posted by Mystic7

So considering the age of the earth. Explain how sea organisms from the ocean suddenly developed into human beings in such a short period of time. What dramatic DNA change took place and gave us that unusally lucky or unlucky serious of incredible 'natural' breaks. Or maybe you have no idea about the structure of DNA at all. That must be it hey. That you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. I forgive you.

What evolution takes place when 100 monkeys wash their fruit on one island. And then suddenly all the monkeys from all the islands start washing their fruit together for no reason. When they can't contact the other monkeys washing their fruit. It's a bit like dreamviews you know. How everyone is so stupid because they are copying each other without any conventional communication. As you can see that is changing.

Key structural mistakes have been highlighted. Review your response and continue after clarifying the mistakes in your rhetoric and their following implications hitherto.

~

Yes, unbalanaced O'nus. Your robotic corrections have being noted.

Originally Posted by Mystic7

Yes, unbalanaced O'nus. Your robotic corrections have being noted.

My title if "Turing Machine" for a purpose then. It would be nonsequitor to do otherwise, would it not? Do you suggest I engage your misguided response?

I am curious and await your clarified elaboration.

~

Originally Posted by Mystic7

So considering the age of the earth. Explain how sea organisms from the ocean suddenly developed into human beings in such a short period of time.

3 billion years or so for life to leave the ocean is not a short time. About 3 quarters the age of the Earth actually. Do you not understand how ignorant you are yet?

What dramatic DNA change took place and gave us that unusally lucky or unlucky serious of incredible 'natural' breaks.

You expect me to travel back in time and document every single base pair and gene mutation that ultimately lead us from our last common ancestor to all the species that now exist?

Or maybe you have no idea about the structure of DNA at all.

I know the structure of DNA quite well actually. Do you understand it?

DNA, or deoxyribonucleic acid is composed of a sugar-phosphid backbone and several base pairs, Adenine, Guanine, Cytosine and Thymine. Uracil replaces Thymine when transcribing to and from RNA.

That must be it hey. That you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. I forgive you.

So I can give a detailed post on my understanding of something, and then you come along and with a few sentences with no proof, facts, or indeed any argument of any substance whatsoever make the claim that I have no idea what I'm talking about.

Try fighting facts with facts, instead of a few sentences from a smart-ass little shit who thinks he knows everything, when every time he opens his virtual mouth he demonstrates nothing but ignorance and an ability to post meaningless questions, make up facts with no source, and post the weakest arguments ever.

What evolution takes place when 100 monkeys wash their fruit on one island. And then suddenly all the monkeys from all the islands start washing their fruit together for no reason. When they can't contact the other monkeys washing their fruit. It's a bit like dreamviews you know. How everyone is so stupid because they are copying each other without any conventional communication. As you can see that is changing.

What? Are you on crack or something. You see, most people try and use some logic in their posts, instead of jumping from one ignorant and nonsensical point to another one.

Originally Posted by tkdyo

Ok, maybe I worded my statement wrong. I understand the point of Darwin's theory. Let me use his classic finches as an example. It is true, each finch gained the necessary mutation to get the varied beaks to help them in their enviroment, and the ones who didnt died out because they couldnt get enough food. Anyone can understand that.

Now using the finches for my point. How is it that just "by chance" some finches genes mutated in the proper way to fit the food they wanted? Surely there must be more to these mutations than blind chance? Not necessarily a higher power, but it seems to me there must be more to mutations then "oh, the genes just happened to mutate in a way that the beaks could fit in holes"

edit: I was typing this when photo made his response. This aspect of evolution I also appreciate and indeed we observe it happening. I just find it miraculous that on all the island every finch's genes just happened to gain the correct mutation for its particular food supply. Or maybe Im switching the order and due to these finch's beaks they adapted to the most ready food supply?

Species don't "happen to gain the correct mutation". Species gain several mutations over time, and the mutations that are fitter and allow for an easier survival and reproduction of that species are the ones that are passed up to new individuals.

E.g. two subspecies of fish, and one of them is more resistant to cold. Which is useless, because they live in warm waters. Then an enviromental change makes their habitat cold. The subspecies that was resistant to cold will survive, not because it miraculously "developed the right mutation", but because it developed a mutation that made them fitter at a given time (as compared to the time when that mutation was completely useless).

my five cents to this thread ^^

why did apes shed all there hair when going into humans... sure is cold during the winter. I would probally die of hypothermia if i didn't have a "coat" on.

Originally Posted by Mystic7

When they can't contact the other monkeys washing their fruit. It's a bit like dreamviews you know.

I was about to say "Monkies don't use Dreamviews", but, you know, you.

Photolysis, if you don't mind, I've taken the liberty of rewriting your response to something more appropriate given Mystic's comments:

Originally Posted by Photolysis

furr

Originally Posted by Riot Maker

why did apes shed all there hair when going into humans... sure is cold during the winter. I would probally die of hypothermia if i didn't have a "coat" on.

Because as we all know, everywhere on Earth has exactly the same climate.

Originally Posted by Mark75

Because as we all know, everywhere on Earth has exactly the same climate.

That sir is where your wrong. so evolution only happend at the in and around the equater. gothchya. and apes only lived near the equater. ok.

With that being said. why are apes ambidextrous and the majority of us are not.

Originally Posted by Riot Maker

That sir is where your wrong. so evolution only happend at the in and around the equater. gothchya.