Evolution Talk.

**nitsuJ** · 09-22-2008 06:31 AM

I declare this the evolution thread! Any and all evolution talk will happen in here! Just kidding, but seriously, it will. So, any evolution news, post it here. ;D

Anypoo, today I found a rather interesting article!

It's about an ancient fish (about 380 million years old) that had primitive fingers!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/sciencep...yevolutionfish

Scientists have traced the origin of fingers and toes to fish-like creatures that roamed the seas 380 million years ago, according to a new study.

The findings, published Sunday in the British-based science journal Nature, upend the prevailing theory on the evolution of digits.

It had long been assumed that the first creatures to develop primitive fingers were tetrapods, air-breathing animals that crawled from sea to land some 10 to 20 million years later.

The need to adapt to swampy marshlands and terra firma, the theory went, is what drove the gradual shift through natural selection from fish fins suitable only for swimming to weight-bearing limbs with articulated joints.

The study, however, reveals that rudimentary fingers were already present inside the fins of the shallow-water, meter-long (three-foot long) Panderichthys, a transitional species that was nonetheless more fish than tetrapod.

"What we have shown is that the hand and the foot emerge from pre-existing bits of the fin skeleton that were just reshaped, rather than being entirely new bits that were bolted onto the existing fin skeleton," said co-author Per Ahlberg, a researcher at Uppsala University in Sweden.

The discovery did not come from a new archeological find but from the reexamination of existing fossils, he explained in a phone interview.

Previous research, it turns out, had simply overlooked what was there.

"The problem is that all good specimens of Panderichtys come from one location" -- a brick quarry in Latvia -- "where the clay is almost exactly the same color as the bones," he said.

"With a nice big bone, that is not a problem. But if you are interested in tiny, fragile bones at the outer end of the fin skeleton, it is nearly impossible to see what is going on."

Scientists had been thrown further off the track by the morphology of another animal from the Devonian period, which spanned from 360 to 416 million years ago.

In most ways, Tiktaalik seemed even closer to the true air-breathing tetrapods that first colonized firm land than Panderichtys, and yet its fins remained largely fish-like, lending even more credence to the theory that proto-fingers came during, not before, the transition to land.

But recent research in genetics had suggested that rudimentary digits might have emerged further back along the evolutionary tree than once suspected.

A gene that plays a key role in patterning the hands and feet in mice, for example, was found to express itself similarly in modern-day lung fish, a distant but direct cousin of the tetrapods that first crawled out of the sea.

So Ahlberg and two colleagues decided it was worth taking a closer look at Panderichthys using a new technique. They ran a specimen, still embedded in clay, through a CT scanner at a hospital.

"We could see the internal skeleton very clearly, and were able to model it without ever physically touching the specimen," Ahlberg said.

The image shows stubby bones at the end of the fin skeleton clearly arrayed like four fingers, called distal radials. There are no joints, and the bones are quite short, but there could be no doubt as to what they were.

"This was the key piece of the puzzle that confirms that rudimentary fingers were already present in the ancestors of tetrapods," said lead author Catherine Boisvert, also of Uppsala University.

**Sisyphus50** · 09-22-2008 08:43 AM

Let this be a wake up call to all the conspiracy nuts from the other thread(s) that claim no scientist will ever "release" information that could shake up the currently accepted paradigms.

That's what science is.

**Temperamental** · 09-27-2008 06:50 PM

lmao. Evolution is fake. Honestly.

**nitsuJ** · 09-27-2008 07:23 PM

Originally Posted by Temperamental

lmao. Evolution is fake. Honestly.

Where's your evidence?

Read some articles from this website, then come back and tell us it's fake.

http://evolution.berkeley.edu/

Evidence of evolution:
http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolib...hp?topic_id=46

**Temperamental** · 09-28-2008 01:49 AM

Originally Posted by nitsuJ

Where's your evidence?

Read some articles from this website, then come back and tell us it's fake.

http://evolution.berkeley.edu/

Evidence of evolution:
http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolib...hp?topic_id=46

http://www.harunyahya.com/books/darw...volution01.php

**Sisyphus50** · 09-28-2008 02:11 AM

Originally Posted by Temperamental

http://www.harunyahya.com/books/darw...volution01.php

Congratulations on busting out 10 of the most useless creationist arguments against evolution without understanding anything about them and why they are wrong.

**Sornaensis** · 09-28-2008 02:24 AM

Originally Posted by Temperamental

http://www.harunyahya.com/books/darw...volution01.php

A fucking idiot, what one you are.

That website gives absolutely no empirical evidence.

Simply saying something is false does not make it so.

http://evolution.berkeley.edu/

Evidence of evolution:
http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolib...hp?topic_id=46

and

1- The Theory of Evolution Regards Chance as a Creative Deity

One of evolutionists' greatest errors is to think that life could have formed spontaneously in the environment they refer to as "the primeval Earth."

Why? There is no evidence that life would not have formed when it formed. That's un-logic

The theory of evolution claims that unconscious, unreasoning, inanimate atoms such as phosphorus and carbon assembled themselves together by chance. As a result of such natural phenomena as lightning, volcanic eruptions, ultraviolet rays and radiation, these atoms organized themselves in such a flawless way as to give rise to proteins, cells-and thereafter, fish, rabbits, lions, birds, human beings and all manner of life forms.

Take chemistry, then you may talk about how atoms do "nothing". Any idiot who has taken an introductory level biology class knows that gravity is constantly acting on atoms, and that atoms bond and form compounds on their own.

That is the basic claim made by the theory of evolution, which regards chance as a creative deity. However, belief in any such claim is a violation of reason, logic and science.

Lolwut? That doesn't even make sense. Making up claimed claims and then holding people to whose beliefs you jsut made up is called LYING.

2- Natural Selection Cannot Account for the Complex Structures in Living Things

Well, of course not. That is not what natural selection deals with. Actually, mathematics backs this up: Systems always favor complexity. Specifics? I'm not exacly sure. Look up chaos theory and related topcis.

The theory of evolution maintains that those living organisms that best adapt to their environment have more opportunities to survive and multiply, and therefore, they can pass on their advantageous characteristics to subsequent generations, and species evolve by way of this "mechanism."

And that is erroneous or untrue how?

But the fact is that the mechanism in question-known as natural selection-cannot cause living things to evolve, nor endow them with any new features. It can only reinforce existing characteristics belonging to a particular species.

Lol? Firstly, 'species' is an arbitrary term. For instance, Modern humans are so far apart from our archaic ancsestors that we HAD to create a Sub species for modern man. Again, favorable traits get passed on along with neutrla traits. By the laws of common sense 1+1 = 2 and to therefore 1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1 = 10. Both result in different outcomes, but are governed by the same process.

In any given region, for example, those rabbits able to run fastest will survive, while others die. After a few generations, all the rabbits in this region will consist of fast-running individuals. However, these rabbits can never evolve into another species-greyhounds or foxes, for instance.

Saying "Never" instantly discredits anything you have to say about anything. Especially when what you are saying in visibly untrue

3- Peppered Moths Are No Evidence for Evolution through Natural Selection

Every defined, helpful trait is evidence of evolution.

Of all the supposed "proofs" of the theory of evolution, the most frequently repeated concerns changes in a species of moth in 19th century Britain. It is claimed that due to air pollution during the Industrial Revolution, tree bark was darkened-for which reason dark- colored moths were better camouflaged from predatory birds, and thus their numbers increased.

Which is what happened.

But this is not evolution, because no new species of moth emerged. All that happened was that the ratio ratio of the two already existing types in an already existing species changed. In addition, it has since emerged that the account on which this claim was based was untrue. The well-known photos showing moths clinging to the bark of trees were found to be fabrications. Contrary to what has been claimed, no instance of so-called "industrial melanism"-the darkening of color due to industrial pollution-has ever taken place.

[b]That is incorrect. On both accounts. Firstly, evolution happens every time a new organism is produced. It is NOT identical to what created it, and it will never do the same things, or be in the exact same cicrumstances. On the second account, Saying something is false does not make it so.

4- Just as an Earthquake Cannot Improve a City, Neither Are Mutations Advantageous to Develop Living Things

That doesn't have any bearing on evolution because cities are man-made and have a proven, non-naturalistic explanation for them, and are not capable of constructing themselves.

Mutations are caused by random changes in the DNA in which all the information concerning the human body's characteristics is encoded.

Er, they are caused by errors in the copying of the Acid

Mutations occur due to outside agents such as radiation or chemicals.

Maybe .01% of mutations are caused by this.

Evolutionists maintain that such random genetic changes can cause living things to evolve.

Which is PART of the process (Anyone who says one single thing drives evolution can be discredited immediatly) there are LOADS of causes of evolution. in fact, there are an infinite amout: Stimuli. That's it.

The fact is, though, that mutations are always harmful to living things, do not develop them, and can never endow them with any new functional features (such as wings or lungs, for instance).

Hold it right there... Lungs and wings are adapted forms of more archaic organs: Gills and Limbs. So why does this idiot keep bringing them up?

Mutations either kill or deform the afflicted organism.

WRONGWRONGWRONGWRONG. Actually, most mutations do absokutely nothing at all. For instance, some 71% of the human genome is defunct code for producing viruses.

To claim that mutations improve a species and endow it with new advantages is like claiming that an earthquake can make a city more advanced and modern, or that striking a computer with a hammer will result in a more advanced model. Indeed, no mutation has ever been observed to increase-much less improve-genetic information.

[b]No. This is false. This is what a species is. Observed speciation. E. coli evolve a new trait that contradicts their definition.

5- Life Comes From Life

[b]Life is a continuous interaction of otherwise inanimate chemicals.[b]

The erroneous theory known as "spontaneous generation," which had been around since at least the Middle Ages, maintained that inanimate substances could by chance assamble to produce a living being. The idea that insects formed from food wastes or mice from wheat was widespread up, until the 18th century. Even in the 19th century, when Darwin wrote his book The Origin of Species, the scientific world still widely believed that bacteria could arise from inanimate matter.

lol...

In fact, however, only five years after Darwin published his book, Louis Pasteur announced his results after long studies and experiments, that disproved spontaneous generation, a cornerstone of Darwin's theory. In his triumphal lecture at the Sorbonne in 1864, Pasteur said: "Never will the doctrine of spontaneous generation recover from the mortal blow struck by this simple experiment." (Sidney Fox, Klaus Dose, Molecular Evolution and The Origin of Life, New York: Marcel Dekker, 1977. p. 2)

Yes, we know. Life does not "happen", and neither does pretty much anything. It's all governed by observable processes. Why the hell are the talking about SG? This is old fucking news...

His findings revealed, once again, that life did not emerge spontaneously on Earth, but that it began with a miraculous creation.

LOL!! No they didn't/ All he proved was that most scientists around his time were correct: Life does not simply occur. Miraculous creation would kind of contradict this.

6- No Transitional Forms Have Ever Been Found in the Fossil Record

The theory of evolution claims that the transition from one species to another takes place from the primitive (simple) to the more complex-progressively, and in stages. According to this claim, bizarre, monstrous creatures known as "transitional forms" must have existed during this progress from one species to another. For example, there must have existed half-fish and half-amphibian creatures that, despite still having fish characteristics, had also acquired some amphibious ones, as well as half-human, half-ape creatures, and half-reptile, half-bird life forms.

If any such transitional species had really existed, then their remains should be encountered in the fossil record. But in over a century, there is still not the slightest trace of such intermediate forms that paleontologists have searched for with such great eagerness.

I am not even going to dignify this incedibly erroneous and ignorant statement with a bolded response.

8- Species Living Today Have Undergone No Changes over Hundreds of Millions of Years

"No changes" =/= "Minimal Changes".

Had evolution actually taken place, then living things must have emerged on Earth as a result of small, gradual changes-and to have continued changing over the course of time. Yet the fossil records demonstrate the exact opposite! Different classes of living creatures emerged suddenly, with no ancestors even remotely resembling them, and remained in a stable state, undergoing no changes at all, often for hundreds of millions of years.

Okay Mr. Paleo-Taxonomist-- Where's this galring flaw that every scientist for the last 150 years has been missing?

9- Fish that Ruined Evolutionists' Dreams:Colecanth
Colecanth

Oh jeez, here we go...

Evolutionists used to depict the Colecanth, a fish known only from fossils dating back 400 million years, as very powerful evidence of a transitional form between fish and amphibians. Since it was assumed that this species had become extinct 70 million years ago, evolutionists engaged in all kinds of speculation regarding the fossils. On 22 December 1938, however, a living Colecanth was caught in the deep waters of the Indian Ocean. More than 200 other living specimens have been caught in the years that followed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coelacanth -- There are two species. Modern, and Archaic

All the speculation regarding these fish had been unfounded. Contrary to what evolutionists claimed, the Colecanth was not a vertebrate with half-fish, half-amphibian characteristics preparing to emerge onto dry land. It was in fact a bottom-dwelling fish that almost never rose above a depth of 180 meters (590 feet). Moreover, there were no anatomical differences between the living Colecanth and the 400-million-year-old fossil specimens. This creature had never "evolved" at all.

And where was this ever claimed by reliable sources...?

10- Birds' Wings Cannot Be the Work of Chance

Nope. Go take a physics class and you will know why.

Evolutionists maintain that birds evolved from reptiles-though this is impossible, and a bird's wing alone is sufficient to prove this. In order for evolution of the kind claimed to have taken place, a reptile's forearms would have to have changed into functional wings as the result of mutations taking place in its genes-and quickly! And this is not feasible. First of all, this transitional life form would be unable to fly with only half-developed wings. It would also be deprived of its forearms. That would mean it was essentially deformed and therefore-according to the theory of evolution-would be eliminated.

Wrong. Look at every dromaeosaur ever discovered. This is pathetic. Feathers are modified scales. Birds don scales.

In order for any bird to fly, its wings had to be fully formed in every detail. The wings should be soundly attached to the chest cavity. The bird would need to have a light skeletal structure allowing it to take off, maintain its balance in the air and move in all directions. Its wing and tail feathers would have to be light, flexible and in aerodynamic proportion to one another. In short, everything would have to operate with a flawless coordination in order to make flight possible. How could this inerrant structure in birds' bodies have resulted from a succession of random mutations? That question has no answer.

No. Flying and having wings aren;t mutually exclusive. Microraptor had wings, but could probably only glide. From the way that species such as Deinonychus antirrhopus' arms joints work (They bend back like the winds of a bird!) we can conclude that this lead to the evolution of the flappin-motion needed to attain flight with feathered arms-- wings. All dromaeosaurs have hollow bones as well, just like birds. THeir pubic bones are turned backwards, just like birds.