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Evolution answers

justintime said:
I think the examples used were the most basic of early life forms like the simple virus which even to modern science is an extremely adaptive and resilient highly complex organism.
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It has been said before, in this thread, probably on this page, but I'll repeat it. There are no example of "early life" still around to study. Even the simplest life around today has had billions of years of evolution. The simplest of viruses you can find today are not comparable to the simplest of life 3.5 billion years ago.
 
This isn`t in the OP specifically that i can recollect, but dont most evolutionary arguments start with the argument of whether or not we `evolved from monkeys`?(Actual: evolved from the common ancestor of the ape)
Isnt that where the debate starts?, as to try to discredit the Biblical account of God specifically creating an Adam & Eve and placing them in the garden?
What are some simple proofs that are scientifically inarguable that we came from that common ancestor?
Now, if that is known and irrefutable, what about the type creature common ancestors of apes came from?,
and can THAT too be easily verified, irrefutably?
If this is true, then what do intelligent design or creationists say? Do they simply deny it anyway? Or do most now accept evolutionary explanations and simply say God caused evolution?
Does anyone know what the Pope`s position is on this?
 
justintime said:
The introduction of irreducible complexity shows that biological systems are too complex to have evolved gradually, thereby proving Darwin worst nightmare.
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"Complex" does NOT mean "could not have evolved gradually".

The algorithm of Natural Selection, itself, as a propensity to accumulate complexity as it goes. The theory, properly understood, implies that, since co-option and symbiotic relationships, and other things like those, end up forming out of it.

Very complex biological systems are those that have a lot of history in their evolution. It is certainly NOT a sign that they could not have evolved.

Those who make these kinds of arguments about complexity are misunderstanding what the Theory of Evolution actually tells us.

For example, Michael Behe once tried to redefine Evolution as a process that adds components over time. But, that's NOT really what the theory is. The theory is about changes in parts over time. This can include gradual changes in function.

If a cell has two gullets, and one of them changes function to aid in swimming, one of them could (eventually) turn into a flagellum, while the other remains a gullet. And, THAT is (in a nutshell) how parts are actually "added".

It happens that every single example, without exception of 'irreducible complexity' so far, has been shown to have been the result of an evolutionary process in the end. It's just that the ID advocates didn't consider certain options of pathways when they made their declarations.

If you don't believe that, give me some challenges on it!

But, that's besides the point, anyway. ID really doesn't tell us anything new or interesting about life. So, the better attitude is to stick with Evolutionary systems, which do:

Investigating "How could this have evolved?" is always more productive than the attitude of "It could NOT POSSIBLY have evolved!"
 
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phunk said:
It has been said before, in this thread, probably on this page, but I'll repeat it. There are no example of "early life" still around to study. Even the simplest life around today has had billions of years of evolution. The simplest of viruses you can find today are not comparable to the simplest of life 3.5 billion years ago.
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Not true.

Melting ice could release old viruses.
http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/climate-weather/stories/melting-ice-could-release-old-viruses

How old are complex retroviruses? At least 400 million years old!!!
http://scienceblogs.com/erv/2012/08...xretroviruses-at-least-400-million-years-old/

Primates came into the scene less than 34 million years ago.
 
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phunk said:
It has been said before, in this thread, probably on this page, but I'll repeat it. There are no example of "early life" still around to study. Even the simplest life around today has had billions of years of evolution. The simplest of viruses you can find today are not comparable to the simplest of life 3.5 billion years ago.
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Given the rapid generational cycle of viruses, I'd say they are MORE evolved than higher organisms that have longer generational cycles.
 
ApolloGnomon said:
Given the rapid generational cycle of viruses, I'd say they are MORE evolved than higher organisms that have longer generational cycles.
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They also have a higher mutation rate so there is more variation to select for in each generation - as well as having larger total populations of viruses.
 
justintime said:
Not true.

Melting ice could release old viruses.
http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/climate-weather/stories/melting-ice-could-release-old-viruses

How old are complex retroviruses? At least 400 million years old!!!
http://scienceblogs.com/erv/2012/08...xretroviruses-at-least-400-million-years-old/

Primates came into the scene less than 34 million years ago.
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Your links and statement do no actually mean "not true" to what phunk said -- "It has been said before, in this thread, probably on this page, but I'll repeat it. There are no example of "early life" still around to study. Even the simplest life around today has had billions of years of evolution. The simplest of viruses you can find today are not comparable to the simplest of life 3.5 billion years ago. "

400 million years is a blink of an eye compared to billions of years.
 
justintime said:
Not true.

Melting ice could release old viruses.
http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/climate-weather/stories/melting-ice-could-release-old-viruses
Click to expand...

DNA has a half life, it can't survive as long as what we're talking about. That article is talking about viruses thousands of years old, the early life we were talking about is a million times older than that.

How old are complex retroviruses? At least 400 million years old!!!
http://scienceblogs.com/erv/2012/08...xretroviruses-at-least-400-million-years-old/
Click to expand...

Again, you don't understand what you're reading. They did not find a 400 million year old virus. They found evidence that retroviruses infected a fish 19 million years ago, and possibly a common ancestor of land and sea tetrapods 400+ million years ago. And that DNA has been changing since then just like any other. And 400 million years is still not much more than 1/9 of the way back to the origins of life.

So yes, still true, there are no modern specimens of early life.
 
Iamme said:
This isn`t in the OP specifically that i can recollect, but dont most evolutionary arguments start with the argument of whether or not we `evolved from monkeys`?(Actual: evolved from the common ancestor of the ape)
Isnt that where the debate starts?, as to try to discredit the Biblical account of God specifically creating an Adam & Eve and placing them in the garden?
What are some simple proofs that are scientifically inarguable that we came from that common ancestor?
Now, if that is known and irrefutable, what about the type creature common ancestors of apes came from?,
and can THAT too be easily verified, irrefutably?
If this is true, then what do intelligent design or creationists say? Do they simply deny it anyway? Or do most now accept evolutionary explanations and simply say God caused evolution?
Does anyone know what the Pope`s position is on this?
Click to expand...

It is the "irrefutable" part which is impossible.

I've actually discussed this with my Christian colleagues - they are of the opinion that if God somehow gave us skills of observing and reasoning, then such a deity would not fabricate all the evidence for the universe being 14-billion years old and the Earth being 4.5-billion years old, nor for life having been around since the first few hundred million years of the Earth. However by definition a hypothetical omnipotent creator could fabricate all this evidence.

We can trace genetic lineages, which such a creator would have to have decided (for reasons unknown) to look exactly as if there were evolutionary relationships between organisms. We can see fossils which also support the same story, and again which the creator would have had to have decided to create in order to mislead. Such a designer would also have seemed to have had some rather arbitrary aesthetic decisions - why create families of animals? Why not bats with feathers, or birds that suckled their young? Why create blind cave fish with eyes that don't work, and which don't work because of mutations in the genes controlling their eye growth rather than just removing those genes altogether?

One could then think of the various occasions where some animals "design features" work properly, whilst others have a glaring omission, for example, why does the vertebrate eye have a blind spot where the nerves go in front of the retina, whilst octopodes have an eye where the nerves go behind the retina and thus lack this blind spot?

If the Octopus and Human were both designed, then the designer of the Human eye missed a trick compared to the designer of the Octopus eye.

If they evolved separately, then it is just that the vertebrate eye structure was good enough (although less elegant in this particular feature).
 
Ask him to prove creationism is true. But also ask him if he can do it without the mention of evolution.
 
In light of all the scholarly facts presented here...i can tell you why there are creationists and why there are billions of believers in an intelligent designer.
Because evolution doesnt thoroughly explain why every living thing sprung from say an amoeba and branched of into all these niches to for such hugely diverse things as moss, grass, flowers, trees(evergreens to giant redwoods and sequoia to hardwoods)...with fruit, vegetables, grains, berries, nuts, cotton, ...
Moles, underground pocket gophers, worms, oysters that filter water, bees to polinate, skunks, venomnous snakes and other venom creatures, stinging jellyfish(including type that looks like clear big ball of silicone caulk!), electric eels, rays, phosphorescence(i have seen ocean waves glow at night) -lightning bugs, woodpeckers(how weird...why no headache?), turtles, armadillos, crustaceans and shellfish, birds of all sorts including those that clean up after death of other creature...(reminding me of fire ants in Texas stripping to the bone, er shell, of an entire sea turtle in just a few days, so i could get a beautiful shell without doing any work), and birds and butterflies that know how to migrate thousands of miles,
possums, creatures with pinching claws, termites, ants, dust mites, flies-fruit flies-dragon flies, bats, walking sticks, praying mantis, camilleons, fish of all types from panfish to sharks, coral, sponges, starfish, sea horses, whales, elephants, crocodiles, giant constrictor snakes, ant eaters, porcupines, lions, antlered animals......
Anyway. It`s just too hard for many to believe, no matter how the science of evolution is spun...that all this diverse stuff evolved from some single source, to become so so different.
There is no way you are going to convince a devout Christian(nor other religions that believe in a deity) that all these super diverse things that dont resemble each other, and do various things in various mediums...under sea, under ground, on land(attached and not), in the air..............
In the Bible, God says `man will be held without excuse` for not believing.
 
Iamme said:
Anyway. It`s just too hard for many to believe, no matter how the science of evolution is spun...
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Argument from personal incredulity.

"I can't imagine how x could be true, therefore x is false".

If it informs us at all, it is only about the imagination of the speaker.

I challenge anyone to read "The Ancestor's Tale" by Dawkins and not at least get a glimmer of all the myriad and reinforcing lines of evidence that elevate evolution from a hypothesis to a Capital-T Theory. The interrelationship of every life form on earth is really sublime in its beauty and majesty.

But when the conversation turns to belief, all of the evidence in the world will not convince a believer.
 
Iamme said:
In light of all the scholarly facts presented here...i can tell you why there are creationists and why there are billions of believers in an intelligent designer.
Click to expand...

No, you apparently can't. This is mildly odd, though, because those particular whys aren't even particularly mysterious, weird, illogical, or poorly investigated.

Iamme said:
Because evolution doesnt thoroughly explain why every living thing sprung from say an amoeba and branched of into all these niches to for such hugely diverse things as moss, grass, flowers, trees(evergreens to giant redwoods and sequoia to hardwoods)...with fruit, vegetables, grains, berries, nuts, cotton, ...
Moles, underground pocket gophers, worms, oysters that filter water, bees to polinate, skunks, venomnous snakes and other venom creatures, stinging jellyfish(including type that looks like clear big ball of silicone caulk!), electric eels, rays, phosphorescence(i have seen ocean waves glow at night) -lightning bugs, woodpeckers(how weird...why no headache?), turtles, armadillos, crustaceans and shellfish, birds of all sorts including those that clean up after death of other creature...(reminding me of fire ants in Texas stripping to the bone, er shell, of an entire sea turtle in just a few days, so i could get a beautiful shell without doing any work), and birds and butterflies that know how to migrate thousands of miles,
possums, creatures with pinching claws, termites, ants, dust mites, flies-fruit flies-dragon flies, bats, walking sticks, praying mantis, camilleons, fish of all types from panfish to sharks, coral, sponges, starfish, sea horses, whales, elephants, crocodiles, giant constrictor snakes, ant eaters, porcupines, lions, antlered animals......
Click to expand...

...You really like listing lots of examples as part of making arguments from ignorance. You also seem to like to demand dramatically inconsistent standards of proof. Neither of these things make your arguments particularly convincing.

Iamme said:
Anyway. It`s just too hard for many to believe, no matter how the science of evolution is spun...that all this diverse stuff evolved from some single source, to become so so different.
Click to expand...

Demonstrably so, much as much of the justification for why people don't accept the logical inference from the comprehensive whole of the data is remarkably poorly supported.

Iamme said:
There is no way you are going to convince a devout Christian(nor other religions that believe in a deity) that all these super diverse things that dont resemble each other, and do various things in various mediums...under sea, under ground, on land(attached and not), in the air..............
Click to expand...

Actually, a large majority of Christians and followers of other religions with deities do accept evolution, including common descent. In and of itself, doing so in no way interferes with believing in a deity. It does interfere with young earth creationist beliefs of various stripes, though, unsurprisingly. That is, of course, because young earth creationist arguments are fallacious, anti-science, and require one to suspend their critical thinking and fact checking.

Iamme said:
In the Bible, God says `man will be held without excuse` for not believing.
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So, the answer to this is "Cool story, bro?" When one doesn't accept that the Bible has any authority, references that rely on its authority and accuracy to work simply won't work in any positive way.
 
justintime said:
The introduction of irreducible complexity shows that biological systems are too complex to have evolved gradually, thereby proving Darwin worst nightmare.
Click to expand...


But there are no known examples of anything that has been verified as being irreducibly complex, so claiming that "the introduction of irreducible complexity" proves "Darwin's. worst nightmare" is equivalent to claiming that "the introduction of alien spaceships with FTL engines" proves "Einstein's worst nightmare".

Either way, it's just a make-believe scenario trying to challenge fact-based theory.
 
justintime said:
Intelligent design challenges the limits of complex adaptation which was one of the most troubling hurdles for Darwin.

The introduction of irreducible complexity shows that biological systems are too complex to have evolved gradually, thereby proving Darwin worst nightmare.
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* Charles Darwin has been dead for 132 years. Science has moved-on way past Darwin's original evolution theory.

* Irreducible complexity argument was blown out of the water years ago. Michael Behe testified in the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, and his side lost in the face of competent testimony by other scientists.

* You have a history of posting outright fabrications, and links to worthless religious sites in support of your pseudoscience.

* Page 78
 
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