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Evolution: the Facts.

The Atheist

The Grammar Tyrant
The Atheist
Joined
Jul 3, 2006
Messages
36,364
PLEASE: Read the OP first.

It occurs to me, seeing yet more fundies explaining why evolution is bunkum, that they come from the same pod as "No plane" CTists - lacking facts, behaving irrationally and refusing to accept evidence.

Now, there are lots of places where scientific evolutionary theory is available on the net, but I wondered if maybe a few of the excellent scientists involved in JREF could make up a thread containing factual analysis of evolution from several different angles - much as Gravy has with his outstanding series on 9/11 and WTC.

If there's support for the idea, let's kick it off and have the thread as a lasting monument to science's triumph over BS/ID and any other stupid acronym you like. If good enough, we could get it put in spotlight so it doesn't get lost in the dross. I won't be posting any data since I'm not a scientist, but I envisage lots of data such as the stuff dr Adequate and others were recently posting in one troll or another's thread. I'll just keep things on topic, then take all the credit for everyone else's brains! (In business, we call that management.)

These are the type of issues:

Age of the earth - how can we be sure it's not 6011 years old?

How did life arise? What were conditions really like at the dawn of life?

How do species evolve? When does one species "break away" from the other?

What are some examples of intermediate species?

Any algorithms and their connection to methods of proof.

Debunking popular ID myths. Questions to ask IDiots.

I find the best place to start is at the start, so let's have the data about age of the earth. Just copy it from elsewhere if it's handy already as i know lots of age-related posts were made in rittjc's thread.

Any takers? If there's support, I'll see if we can get it stickied.
 
Wowbagger said:
www.TalkOrigins.org

I have no time to point to specific articles in it, right now, but everything you are looking for is in there.
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Yep, been there.

It may well be that that's sufficient.

If so, I wonder why so much evidence is given in IDiot troll threads. Just trying to make use of the "E" in JREF...
 
It's a good idea, TA, and one I can get behind, but not really in such a broad framework. Specific questions, sure.

Maybe this should be a question/answer thread? Those wanting specific answers not easily obtainable on talkorigins can ask their questions here?
 
I've found that posting links to TalkOrigins is not an effective debating tool. The responses range from "oh, that's not a peer-reviewed journal so everything it says is suspect" to "oh, I've read that but I don't find it convincing" and "u will BURN un HELFFIER fr ETUERHNTY"

In short, they don't read it.
 
Another topic to add to the list is "What is evolution?" I'm surprised at how many people don't actually know what it is.
 
Taffer said:
It's a good idea, TA, and one I can get behind, but not really in such a broad framework. Specific questions, sure.

Maybe this should be a question/answer thread? Those wanting specific answers not easily obtainable on talkorigins can ask their questions here?
Click to expand...

Goodo! Nothing like having a geneticist aboard! I think I might switch it around a little, based on the following responses:

UnrepentantSinner said:
Here are a few links to radiometry and dating that I posted recently.

USGS links page for isotopic analysis.
http://www.usgs.gov/science/science.php?term=609
Radiometric dating.
http://www.usgs.gov/science/science.php?term=954
"How do geologists date rocks?"
http://wrgis.wr.usgs.gov/docs/parks/gtime/radiom.html

This Dynamic Earth is a fantastic primer for the layman on how plate tectonics works. It gives, during the discussion of several topics, numerous evidences the Earth is old.
Click to expand...

Excellent, thanks.

arthwollipot said:
I've found that posting links to TalkOrigins is not an effective debating tool. The responses range from "oh, that's not a peer-reviewed journal so everything it says is suspect" to "oh, I've read that but I don't find it convincing" and "u will BURN un HELFFIER fr ETUERHNTY"

In short, they don't read it.
Click to expand...

That's how I see it.

Normal Dude said:
Another topic to add to the list is "What is evolution?" I'm surprised at how many people don't actually know what it is.
Click to expand...

Another excellent point. Probably the ideal place to start off - an explanation of the term, followed by the age of the universe & earth.

I think there's maybe a better way to do this - use this thread to set the questions, then start a sticky thread to answer them, one at a time.

More questions, then I'll try to collate them all in case something has been overlooked.

How does that sound?
 
I think that this is a good idea, TA. I like your idea of creating a thread to simply list out the questions that the Forum regularly sees, and then working on articles to address each question. I realize that this is all on TalkOrigins, but it would be nice to have something here that people can readily look at and (more importantly, quote). Plus, we wouldn't have the sheer amount of info that TalkOrigins has -- it'd be less to wade through.

I would like to see competed, vetted answers to specific questions as articles in The Repository (or, better yet, as sticky messages at the top of this Forum), so that they're super easy to access.

I'd be willing to help out, if you all bear in mind that I have an art background. But if I can find the right answers (say, in TalkOrigins, or whatever) and write coherently about them, then anyone can.

Excellent suggestion!
 
The facts:

1. Some animals aren't exactly the same as others.
2. Some of those differences are inheritable.
3. Some of those differences affect the probability that the animal will reproduce.
4. In the case where both 2 and 3 apply, a circular effect is set up in which a difference affects the probability of the animal reproducing, which in turn affects the probability that the difference will show up in the next generation, which means the difference affects the probability of itself existing.
5. In case 4, the differences which decrease the probability of reproduction will create feedback loop which tends to eliminate them from the population. The differences that increase the probability, a feedback loop is created which tends to cause them to spread through the population.
6. As a result, animals tend to have properties that help them reproduce.
7. With the introduction of mutation, the possibilty exists for one species to slowly turn into another.

Note that in 4, the circularity is often attacked as a fallacy, with such inanities as it's a "tautology". There is nothing fallacious about a circular effect.

The Atheist said:
What are some examples of intermediate species?
Click to expand...
All species are intermediate.
 
arthwollipot said:
It's been my experience that all evolution-deniers do not understand evolution.
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Not all do. Behe, Meyer, Dembski, and our own resident Young Earth Creationist, T'ai Chi, all understand evolution.

They just choose to lie about it.
 
Jackalgirl said:
I think that this is a good idea, TA. I like your idea of creating a thread to simply list out the questions that the Forum regularly sees, and then working on articles to address each question. I realize that this is all on TalkOrigins, but it would be nice to have something here that people can readily look at and (more importantly, quote). Plus, we wouldn't have the sheer amount of info that TalkOrigins has -- it'd be less to wade through.

I would like to see competed, vetted answers to specific questions as articles in The Repository (or, better yet, as sticky messages at the top of this Forum), so that they're super easy to access.

I'd be willing to help out, if you all bear in mind that I have an art background. But if I can find the right answers (say, in TalkOrigins, or whatever) and write coherently about them, then anyone can.

Excellent suggestion!
Click to expand...

Cheers, looks to be a popular scheme so far.

I'll PM a couple of the heavyweights - Dr A and Paul A - to see if they want some of the action. I'd say that between them, they've probably answered most of these questions in here at least once already.
 
Art Vandelay said:
All species are intermediate.
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This is one of those phrases that gets bandied about as if its self explanitory, but really should have a paragraph or so to go along with it.

All species, unless they are in the process of going extinct will leave descendants which will be different from them genetically, and possibly no longer interfertile. Intermediate species that the general public are interested in are representatives of those species whic exhibit characteristics similar to or combining characteristics of two species or higher taxa. Examples would be homind species other than humans, Basilosaurus Tiktaalik and Archeopteryx.
 
Art Vandelay said:
All species are intermediate.
Click to expand...

True, but it is also equally true to say that no species are intermediate, since they survive on their own merits and not because they are halfway between one thing and another. Pointing this out usually confuses people though, because they believe that the word "transitional" means a chimera - something which shows characteristics of two different kinds of animal. So it would be important to cover exactly what "transitional" really means in evolutionary terms.
 
arthwollipot said:
True, but it is also equally true to say that no species are intermediate, since they survive on their own merits and not because they are halfway between one thing and another. Pointing this out usually confuses people though, because they believe that the word "transitional" means a chimera - something which shows characteristics of two different kinds of animal. So it would be important to cover exactly what "transitional" really means in evolutionary terms.
Click to expand...

Hee hee. Our posts say the same thing but we're contradicting each other.

So here's another paragraph of clarification. We don't expect to find chimeras like, say, mermen, shedu, centaurs, gryphons, or chimeras for that matter. We also don't expect to find birds with arms and wings. We don't expect to find fish* with legs, iguanas with nipples or shrimp with backbones.

We do expect to find transitionals which exhibit characteristics of species, genera, etc. as long as they don't violate the nested hierarchy of the phylogenetic tree. So while a ignuana with nipples would wreck evolution as we know it, a platypus that lays eggs and has a cloaca, but produces milk and has fur would be expected. A half-lion/half-eagle like a gryphon is not expected, but a feathered dinosaur with forearms transitioning into wings.

* We also need to clarify claudistics and taxonomy in terms of some other phrases I see tossed around "humans are apes" and "humans are fish". Both are true claudistically, but ring hollow to the uninitiated.
 
The Atheist said:
That's what I meant - some species clearly link two different ones.
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The Wikipedia entry on Transitional fossils is a better place to start than the T.O. list because of the previously mentioned knee-jerk rejection, and because it can be updated more frequently.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_transitional_fossils
The cross references to a list of fossil sites and to the entries for the fossils themselves is a great resource.

And as with anything else mentioned on here, if you have the paper name, the author/s or even just a topic name for something discussed on a TO or Wikipedia page, you can plug that into the PubMed search and probably find the original article.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?db=PubMed
 
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