Thread: Why Darwinian Evolution Is Flatly Impossible

Originally posted by gameover
You don't have the time? You don't have the energy? You've spent enough time and energy to tell me Im wrong on several occasions and even to post your last post. Is it really that long and difficult to explain? Because all it looks like to me is that you don't know what you're tlaking about. You've taken a position blindly and can't face a challenge to it, except by declaring that what we say is ridiculous. If you don't have time to get invovled and explain yourself then maybe you should stop telling us how stupid we are.

Hey gameover, what is your stance on evolution exactly? Is it just the gaps in fossil records that make you wary of this theory? I ask cause I reread and thats all I could come up with.

I could probably help brady with this evidence for evolution if I knew what he was respondin too .

-spoon

I don't have an explanation as to where different species come from but I find Darwinism flawed and full of holes. I am not a creationist. I am not a Darwinist. The evolutionary gaps are huge and numerous. This isnt just a few small gaps there are massive unexplained holes and spaces between animals. Its obvious that we're all very similar inmany ways and that we are similiar beings in many ways, but that does not prove evolution. It could mean that aliens genetically modify creatures and created new ones and released them. I'm not saying I believe this, and I don't. but this to me is more believable than Darwinism. Darwinism explains why animals adapt, and that makes sense but it can't explain how so many animals we're created with no connection whatsoever. A human cannot exist without the exact correct number of chromosomes. Same as a dog, and a pig, and a fish. Also all of these animals have a different number of chromosomes. So how does this change? WHere did it change? Why is thier no proof of this change, if it did happen?

gameover: Ignorance of evolution is not an agrument against it. What you are referring to with the emergence of new species is called "speciation". Research it.

PS. I have begun my "report" on evidence supporting evolution. I will post it in a new thread in a few days.

I am not claiming to have the answer but you apparently are. So I anxiously await it with an open mind.

hmmmm, seen the documentry in which they had these crazy creationist who were actually professers at some university, anyway they found 'a missing link' it was a species of fish that eventually evolved(ive lost alot of you already i geuss) to become the land dwelling fish, anway this fossil had 7 fingers on each fin as opposed to the 5 that every other fossil of this kind had, they had other examples of similiar fossils with abnormalities like fused bones or extra fins...these were the missing links that never linked.

what i am going to say now is proved but unfortunatly i wouldnt know where to go looking for the article because i read it in New Scientist online.

There is a gene that only naturly activates when an organisim is under envirinmental pressures, this could be anything from lack of plentlyfull food to overheating or freezing or predation, once this gene activates the offsprings of the organisim will have mutations... the mutations will be expressed forms of minor mutations that have not been fully expressed in former generations.

Scientists condicted experients with a plant (cant recall type) where they activated the gene in parent plants and reproduced the offspring, the result was a viriaty of traits expressed in the offspring, a plant that had been a kind of bush changed into a creeping vine like plant, or a stronger stemmed plant, or a more water efficiant plant in the space of one generation, of course a no. of the offspring were hugely unsuccsessfull and died.
All the adaptions could have helped the species survive in certain conditions.
Say in some far out place there is a sudden introduction of a large tree that cuts the light for low gorund plants that grew previosly, the lack of available light causes the gene to activate in the plants that still live, they reproduce and amongst the offspring is a plant with darker leaves which survives never generation and another with large leaves, and then these two plants reproduce making a new healthy plant to continue the species.
Im sure i have missed alot from the atricle seeing i read it last year and also the documentry which was somtime last year, not to mention its late and i am tired.
But i hope i helped

Well, I'm gonna have to bow outta this one. I just don't know enough to present reliable facts on speciation, macroevolution, fossil records and the like. I'm currently reading 29+ Evidences for Macroevolution over at talkorigins, so I'll only be ignorant for so long . It looks like a very well written and thoroughly sourced document, and it even provides a nice neat definition of what a theory must have to be called scientific. From what I've tackled through my flu and assignments, it seems to be pretty pertinent to this topic. Read up if you so wish.

I liked this part

Scientific theories are validated by empirical testing against physical observations. Theories are not judged simply by their logical compatibility with the available data. Independent empirical testability is the hallmark of science—in science, an explanation must not only be compatible with the observed data, it must also be testable. By \"testable\" we mean that the hypothesis makes predictions about what observable evidence would be consistent and what would be incompatible with the hypothesis. Simple compatibility, in itself, is insufficient as scientific evidence, because all physical observations are consistent with an infinite number of unscientific conjectures. Furthermore, a scientific explanation must make risky predictions— the predictions should be necessary if the theory is correct, and few other theories should make the same necessary predictions.

As a clear example of an untestable, unscientific, hypothesis that is perfectly consistent with empirical observations, consider solipsism. The so-called hypothesis of solipsism holds that all of reality is the product of your mind. What experiments could be performed, what observations could be made, that could demonstrate that solipsism is wrong? Even though it is logically consistent with the data, solipsism cannot be tested by independent researchers. Any and all evidence is consistent with solipsism. Solipsism is unscientific precisely because no possible evidence could stand in contradiction to its predictions. For those interested, a brief explication of the scientific method and scientific philosophy has been included, such as what is meant by \"scientific evidence\", \"falsification\", and \"testability\". *

[/b]

That ^^ is how we can call the "theory" of evolution scientific.

Brady, you're on your own on this one . Lookin foward to your post.

-spoon

I personally believe in Darwin. Good ol' Darwin. It seems more logical to me than some bloke appearing out of nowhere and deciding he's allowed to go make everything, then flood it all; it has it's share of holes in it. But then; so does the bible. Archibishop...Usher, or something, went through and added up all the ages of the bible to find out when it was wrote...it wasn't very long ago, less than 10,000 years. And the world's been around alot longer than that.

Still anxiouysly awaiting BradyBakers post....

Originally posted by bradybaker
I have never called anyone stupid.

You're absolutely right. You called everyone insane.

Drop the ego, you're no better than anyone else. I don't care how much you claim to "know", you're still just pissed off that there are people with alternate theories to your "superior" way of thinking.

Damn...that needed to be said a long time ago. Thanks Awaken!


*still waiting for you to enlighten me on this subject. I hope your grueling research is going well...the research that apparently takes a long time to put together.

Originally posted by gameover
Damn...that needed to be said a long time ago. Thanks Awaken!


*still waiting for you to enlighten me on this subject. I hope your grueling research is going well...the research that apparently takes a long time to put together.

Heh, read some stuff on evolution. It DOES take a long time to put together, cause unlike some other theories (that I wont name ) you have to have:

a- a decent scientific knowledge/background
b- a lot of time on your hands to research, and from a reliable source too

Try reading some of the more damanding articles on talkorigins.org! They make you smarter even if you dont agree with them. And they're written so the majority can understand. Get deep into the science behind it and you'd better be ready to devote a shitload of time to it.

-spoon

Research will take long with anything..depending on what youre doing. Are you writing a novel? Or writing a post? Onus has always managed to pull together lots of research on some interesting things, and he always did a great job...but it didnt take this long....and Im still waiting....

But f#ck the time....call me impatient...I still anxiosuly await it. Not because I cant wait to argue it. I really want to ehar what he thinks. Strange though that he cant explain his thoguhts already without researching. Since h already has such an opinion.

I'm sure anything, given enough time and devotion towards, could shape up to be a believable take on existence. It's how each of us has reached our current understandings in the first place. Rather than debating, I'd rather explore what fascinates me, because it makes enough sense to keep me in awe about how the world works, and without question, it's shed light on some interesting aspects of life, existence, social behaviour, etc. Just because science has given us rational understandings for the basic predictable outcomes doesn't mean it's the only way to go about getting answers for other, less tangible things. Some people find resolution in God, some find it in nihilism, etc...No one way of explaining something can ever shed light on reality for every human being, just as no one way of building a car is the 'right' way. Yes each one needs a form of propulsion and the capacity for occupants, but how the manufacturer goes about building the car is completely left up to them. They must build it in a way that they can understand.

Sorry 'bout the wait. I've been really busy lately (work and women and such). I'll have it up in a few days.

The very rock yawns with anticpation of your next fascinating post.
(guess the quote, yay!)

I've heard a few attempts at the explanation of transitional fossils... yet for some reason I'm still having trouble understanding why there is such a huge lack of such fossil evidence. If evolution happened over millions (billions) of years, and each complex organism from the earth worm to the elephant, to the human, etc. that exists now has developed through millions of "variations" or microevolutionistic changes before arriving at the form/species they are in now, shouldn't there be an overload of transitional in-between fossils? (for example when an elephant was half-way to what it is now, perhaps it was some strange creature that no longer exists now since it did not survive... like an "elephango" or something or other, but why don't we see such remains or fossils - AND LOTS OF THEM - of the "in-between" creatures?). This, to me, would seem to be mind-blowing for a die-hard evolutionist.

Obviously, evangel, you don't understand the process of fossilization. Conditions have to be absolutely perfect for a specimen to be preserved.

Originally posted by evangel
If evolution happened over millions (billions) of years, and each complex organism from the earth worm to the elephant, to the human, etc. that exists now has developed through millions of \"variations\" or microevolutionistic changes before arriving at the form/species they are in now, shouldn't there be an overload of transitional in-between fossils? (for example when an elephant was half-way to what it is now, perhaps it was some strange creature that no longer exists now since it did not survive... like an \"elephango\" or something or other, but why don't we see such remains or fossils

Originally posted by bradybaker
Obviously, evangel, you don't understand the process of fossilization. Conditions have to be absolutely perfect for a specimen to be preserved.

But where is the elephango fossil?!

To all the people talking about the lack of transitional fossils, whats the deal? We have plenty. There's even a section there Which I'll quote about elephants specifically (since it came up ) (but I'd recommend just reading the link, formatting doesn't work well on this forum)

Originally posted by http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-...t2b.html#eleph

Elephants

* Minchenella or a similar condylarth (late Paleocene) -- Known only from lower jaws. Has a distinctive broadened shelf on the third molar. The most plausible ancestor of the embrithopods & anthracobunids.
* Phenacolophus (late Paleocene or early Eocene) -- An early embrithopod (very early, slightly elephant-like condylarths), thought to be the stem-group of all elephants.
* Pilgrimella (early Eocene) -- An anthracobunid (early proto-elephant condylarth), with massive molar cusps aligned in two transverse ridges.
* Unnamed species of proto-elephant (early Eocene) -- Discovered recently in Algeria. Had slightly enlarged upper incisors (the beginnings of tusks), and various tooth reductions. Still had \"normal\" molars instead of the strange multi-layered molars of modern elephants. Had the high forehead and pneumatized skull bones of later elephants, and was clearly a heavy-boned, slow animal. Only one meter tall.
* Moeritherium, Numidotherium, Barytherium (early-mid Eocene) -- A group of three similar very early elephants. It is unclear which of the three came first. Pig-sized with stout legs, broad spreading feet and flat hooves. Elephantish face with the eye set far forward & a very deep jaw. Second incisors enlarged into short tusks, in upper and lower jaws; little first incisors still present; loss of some teeth. No trunk.
* Paleomastodon, Phiomia (early Oligocene) -- The first \"mastodonts\", a medium-sized animals with a trunk, long lower jaws, and short upper and lower tusks. Lost first incisors and canines. Molars still have heavy rounded cusps, with enamel bands becoming irregular. Phiomia was up to eight feet tall.

GAP: Here's that Oligocene gap again. No elephant fossils at all for several million years.

* Gomphotherium (early Miocene) -- Basically a large edition of Phiomia, with tooth enamel bands becoming very irregular. Two long rows cusps on teeth became cross- crests when worn down. Gave rise to several families of elephant- relatives that spread all over the world. From here on the elephant lineages are known to the species level.
* The mastodon lineage split off here, becoming more adapted to a forest browser niche, and going through Miomastodon (Miocene) and Pliomastodon (Pliocene), to Mastodon (or \"Mammut\", Pleistocene).

Meanwhile, the elephant lineage became still larger, adapting to a savannah/steppe grazer niche:

* Stegotetrabelodon (late Miocene) -- One of the first of the \"true\" elephants, but still had two long rows of cross-crests, functional premolars, and lower tusks. Other early Miocene genera show compression of the molar cusps into plates (a modern feature ), with exactly as many plates as there were cusps. Molars start erupting from front to back, actually moving forward in the jaw throughout life.
* Primelephas (latest Miocene) -- Short lower jaw makes it look like an elephant now. Reduction & loss of premolars. Very numerous plates on the molars, now; we're now at the modern elephants' bizarre system of one enormous multi-layered molar being functional at a time, moving forward in the jaw.
* Primelephas gomphotheroides (mid-Pliocene) -- A later species that split into three lineages, Loxodonta, Elephas, and Mammuthus:
1. Loxodonta adaurora (5 Ma). Gave rise to the modern African elephant Loxodonta africana about 3.5 Ma.
2. Elephas ekorensis (5 Ma), an early Asian elephant with rather primitive molars, clearly derived directly from P. gomphotheroides. Led directly to:
o Elephas recki, which sent off one side branch, E. hydrusicus, at 3.8 Ma, and then continued changing on its own until it became E. iolensis.
o Elephas maximus, the modern Asian elephant, clearly derived from
o E. hysudricus. Strikingly similar to young E. hysudricus animals. Possibly a case of neoteny (in which \"new\" traits are simply juvenile features retained into adulthood).
3. Mammuthus meridionalis, clearly derived from P. gomphotheroides. Spread around the northern hemisphere. In Europe, led to M. armeniacus/trogontherii, and then to M. primigenius. In North America, led to M. imperator and then M. columbi.

The Pleistocene record for elephants is very good. In general, after the earliest forms of the three modern genera appeared, they show very smooth, continuous evolution with almost half of the speciation events preserved in fossils. For instance, Carroll (1988) says: \"Within the genus Elephas, species demonstrate continuous change over a period of 4.5 million years. ...the elephants provide excellent evidence of significant morphological change within species, through species within genera, and through genera within a family....\"

Species-species transitions among the elephants:

* Maglio (1973) studied Pleistocene elephants closely. Overall, Maglio showed that at least 7 of the 17 Quaternary elephant species arose through smooth anagenesis transitions from their ancestors. For example, he said that Elephas recki \"can be traced through a progressive series of stages...These stages pass almost imperceptibly into each other....In the late Pleistocene a more progressive elephant appears which I retain as a distinct species, E. iolensis, only as a matter of convenience. Although as a group, material referred to E. iolensis is distinct from that of E. recki, some intermediate specimens are known, and E. iolensis seems to represent a very progressive, terminal stage in the E. recki specific lineage.\"
* Maglio also documented very smooth transitions between three Eurasian mammoth species: Mammuthus meridionalis --> M. armeniacus (or M. trogontherii) --> M. primigenius.
* Lister (1993) reanalyzed mammoth teeth and confirmed Maglio's scheme of gradual evolution in European mammoths, and found evidence for gradual transitions in the North American mammoths too.

Not being an evolutionary biologist I can't really present my own case for these transitional fossils but if you're interested enough to follow the thread this far, you'll probably like to follow it a bit further to that link as well . It also has a nice explenation for why gaps occur.

-spoon

Well thats what I was waiting for....but brady baker is taking way too long. This thread is getting old. Ill follow that link later when Im less tired.

I think it was Jesus that said 'The very rocks will shout if the people are quiet'

I didn't bother to read all of the external links, so please forgive me if my point was mentioned there.

One scientific method, as I understand, is simulation. You carefully model your current theory and extrapolate what will happen based on your model and a starting state. If the result of your new theoretical model is much closer to the actual facts than the previous, then it at least deserves further consideration.
For example, Kepplers elliptic planetary orbits matched the position/movement of visible stars better than a perfect circle orbit, and a perfect circle of earth around the sun matches them better than the ptolomean view of earth in the center.

With a modern computer you can simulate just about everything if you do have enough processor cycles. A number of attempts were made to simulate an evolution process (e.g. Tierra, Bongard's Creatures and Genetic Algorithms in general), and that at least proves the concept of microevolution, since evolution by means of selection, mutation and crossover (sexual reproduction) is capable of creating increasingly complex and fit individuals.
I think, that macroevolution emerges in the process, since it has been observed, that some mutations with no apparent benefit pile up (instead of falling out of the gene pool) and at one point a breakthrough is achieved and said mutations are very useful for the organism (a good example would be the evolution of CoreWarriors from simple stationary "rocks" to mobile "papers").

Well... yeah... I just wanted to throw that ball into play and see what happens, because I do find the topic of artificial life interesting.
When I think about it... there is another artificial lifeform besides the evolved ones. One that was created by Intelligent Design: Computer virii.
I wonder what that says about ourselves... the first form of life humans created is essentially a destructive parasite

Originally posted by bradybaker
Obviously, evangel, you don't understand the process of fossilization. Conditions have to be absolutely perfect for a specimen to be preserved.

I understand it pretty well actually - I took geo 101 and 102 and anthro 101 and 102 at a CSU college and was indoctrinated in the California public school system to believe in Darwinist philosophy. I guess none of the classes were very convincing in their explanations. Despite the fact that conditions must be "perfect" lets say that at some point we have a common ancestor with the elephant right? (maybe it's the worm, maybe its an insect or some other simple life form) What is most unconvincing to me is that the gaps are so huge despite "billions" of years. Billions seems like a whole lot of time (a humanly unfathomable amount in fact) to provide say an ancestor that is say something half-way between a worm and an elephant (rather than the examples you gave, Spoon which are actually much closer to the elephant's CURRENT form rather than the type of transitional form I'm interested in)

i only read thru the comments. My take on evolution is that I believe that the evolutionary process is possible, but it doesn't mean that evolution is the only theory that explains how species become what they are.

Just because a toaster exists doesn't mean that all toasts are made by a toaster.

But for the chromosome thing, gameover, have you thought about this:

suppose you are an ancient bird with only 13 chromosomes, and one day you mate, and your offspring had 14 chromosomes. In that case the extra chromosomes didn't kill the bird, it just kind of stay there, doing nothing (being inhibited). At the same time, the inhibited chromosome was mutanted through many generations. After millions of years, there are two kinds of birds derived, the ones that have 13ch, and those that have 14ch, and they look the same or look similar. One day, a natural stress arose, and we find that a lot of 13ch birds died, but the 14ch birds survived. Why? maybe the 14th chromosome contains some gene that allow them to survive the stress.

The point is, it is possible that the extra chromosome did not cause a fetality during the life cycle of an organism. The chromosome hadn't evolved to be essential to the species so to speak. Kind of like how bacteria can hold many chromosomes and still reproduce. I mean, how do you know they can't tolerate an extra chromosome back then? I don't know either, just my thought.

:/