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Evolution: the Facts.

That was just a statistical consideration

Personally I have the right to believe any theory independantly from the likelyhood of its correctness.
Here my choice is clear in "creation theory": 0.00% believed by myself.
Evolution according to Darwin in fact has some logical flaws: 1. Why are there no dynamic changes but evolution evolves stepwise, which is nearly impossible
2. Why does no evolutio occur today, during a time period, when the external life conditions within a short period of time changed more dramatically then ever? 3. Why is this theory such a dogma (dogmas always "stink" and have to be challenged alone for the reason of being a dogma)? Is there any better idea, superior to BOTH others?
 
Personally I have the right to believe any theory independantly from the likelyhood of its correctness.
This is correct. You, personally, can believe whatever irrational fantasies you desire. You can be as wrong as you wish.

That said, when you try to force MY children to believe your irrational nonsense (not saying you do, but there are people out there trying to do so), you're no longer talking about your right to believe what you wish, but rather religious indoctrination. And when you start spouting off like you're some sort of expert (not that you do this, but there are those who do), you're stepping over a MAJOR line. It takes decades to be an expert in even one subdicipline of evolutionary thought. Even Richard Dawkins isn't an expert in all of it (his chapter in The Greatest Show on Earth about fossils was.....well, he tried). Pretending to be an expert when you haven't done the required legwork is fraud.

1. Why are there no dynamic changes but evolution evolves stepwise, which is nearly impossible
I'm sorry, but what are you trying to say here?

I THINK you're saying that evolution occurs in fits and starts. Well, that depends on your perspective. From a biological perspective, evolution takes a long time--just look at the graph a few posts up. TWO MILLION YEARS to double brain size. You can't imagine how long that takes--no one can. Two million years is enough time for a mountain range to appear out of an ocean (McCullough Range in the Great Basin). This can hardly be said to be fast. From a geologic perspective, yeah, two million years isn't that much time--but geology deals with rocks, not organisms.

Also, you have to remember that evolution deals with discrete genes. Mutations arise at specific locations in the genome. That means that biochemically evolution MUST BE somewhat stepwise--there are discrete units of evolution. The problem is, there's so much wiggle room here that in the phenotype you almost never see evolution as stepwise.

2. Why does no evolutio occur today, during a time period, when the external life conditions within a short period of time changed more dramatically then ever?
Evolution IS happening today. Several new species have arisen (one lizard, Nylonase, all of the breeds of cattle, dogs, chickens, etc., and so forth). Again, you need to keep scale in mind. We consider Rome to be a long time ago. The western empire fell less than 2,000 years ago--not nearly enough time for the type of large-scale changes most people want to see to occur. Also, the "Cambrian Explosion" took millions of years. Sure, it was a huge explosion of diversity--but it took place over a time period roughly equivalent to "from the Miocene to today". And finally, we're in the middle of a mass extinction. In some mass extinctions origination rates are suppressed. That's not the case in THIS mass extinction (again, domestic critters and plants can be considered new species [remember, paleontology deals with the morphospecies concept], so there's a fair amount of origination right now), but in, say, the K/Pg mass extinction origination rates were fairly low.

Also, "external life conditions" aren't changing more today than ever before. We have nothing like the Oxygen Revolution (roughly 2.5 GA). If we made the atmosphere 18% cyanide gas or sulfuric acid, that would be the equivalent. A few PPM CO2? Meh. And the re-working of the land isn't really comparable to Pangea. We're affecting things, but the world has experienced major physiological shifts in the past.

. Why is this theory such a dogma (dogmas always "stink" and have to be challenged alone for the reason of being a dogma)?
It's not. You simply don't have the perspective to see the real challenges.

Creationism and Intelligent Design have NOTHING to support them. Check out an ID website sometime--it'll be 99% "Evolution is wrong! Check out this structure!" The other 1% is cherry-picked quotes. Creationist sites are worse--they have that mixed with "Goddidit". These aren't support for an argument. The ID advocates/Creationists simply assume that if they disprove evolution (and nothing they provide does, in my experience) we'll be forced to accept what they say as true.

Evolution HAS been challenged, and our current understanding of the theory is pretty different from what it started off as. There's phyletic gradualism vs. punctuated equilibrium. There's epigenetic factors. The discovery of genetics itself caused a fairly big shift in our understanding of evolution. But the core concept--heritable variation through time--is sound. There's simply been nothing to discredit it. Even Creationists/ID advocates admit this, with their discussion of "macro" vs. "micro" evolution (they always misuse the terms, by the way; it's gotten so bad that most scientists seem to have simply abandoned the terms entirely) and "variation with kinds".

If tomorrow something better came along, I won't say it would be embraced with open arms. Science is harsh, and any new idea would be subject to the most robust criticisms we could offer. But that's not to say we'd dismiss it. Paradigms have been overturned, even relatively recently. It just takes a lot of work.
 
I have... questions ...about the History we are taught as fact, and I believe
evidence, common sense and logic suggests they are valid ones.
Earths Forbidden Secrets explores those questions.

"Earth's Forbidden Secrets"

It is my hope that people will not simply take what is said in this book as the truth, but will research and find out for themselves, for truth is not told, it is realized.
 
I have... questions ...about the History we are taught as fact, and I believe
evidence, common sense and logic suggests they are valid ones.
Earths Forbidden Secrets explores those questions.

"Earth's Forbidden Secrets"

It is my hope that people will not simply take what is said in this book as the truth, but will research and find out for themselves, for truth is not told, it is realized.

For those of us not intending to randomly buy a book and too honest to download it illegally, can you give a quick summation in what it says and how it would alter our understanding of how life on earth behaves?

And would those theories work as well in predicing things as the current theory of evolution does? Bear in mind that current day cancer research pretty much ONLY is legitimate if evolution has occurred, otherwise researching the effects of a medicine in yeast and mice is pointless. This is but one of many examples in the biological and medicinal sciences where the theory of evolution is used and gives tangible results.
 
You must read: Earth's Forbidden Secrets' by Max Igan @ The Crowhouse dot com
Why must I? I spend my life poking around at Earth's secrets, and read books on geology, paleontology, and the like all the time. What does this book have to offer me that, say, "On the Origin of Phyla", "Life of the Past", "Introduction to Taphonomy", Lyelle's "Principles of Geology", and more specific works such as "San Francisco Bay Counties Guidebook" and "Soils and Quaternary Geology of the Southwestern United States" don't already provide? Why, exactly, should I spend time on this book, when I could spend that time reading books by authors whom I already respect and who are acknowledged experts in their fields?

I'm not saying I won't read it--I'm just saying that my time is limited, and I have a great deal on my "To Read" list as it is, material that I know necessarily will provide me with a better understanding of evolution, or the tools to develop my understanding. Why should your book be in this list?

I have... questions ...about the History we are taught as fact,
What are those questions? There are people on this site who are experts in biological evolution and in this planet's geologic history.
 
You must read: Earth's Forbidden Secrets' by Max Igan @ The Crowhouse dot com

Um, if you want to post about that book then start a new thread, do not post in this one. That si a conspiracy theory of teh first water.

If you wish to discuss evolution then choose what you like from that piece of CTR trash and present it.
 
It's kind of humorous to hear people say humans have no instincts and yet believe humans are evolved animals like all the rest.

Of course, human beings have instincts. Doesn't mean they don't learn a lot as they have greater intellectual capacity, much greater, but to pretend all instinct is gone is silly and unscientific.
 
It's kind of humorous to hear people say humans have no instincts and yet believe humans are evolved animals like all the rest.

Of course, human beings have instincts. Doesn't mean they don't learn a lot as they have greater intellectual capacity, much greater, but to pretend all instinct is gone is silly and unscientific.

Could you give some examples of what you consider to be human instincts?
 
It's kind of humorous to hear people say humans have no instincts and yet believe humans are evolved animals like all the rest.

Of course, human beings have instincts. Doesn't mean they don't learn a lot as they have greater intellectual capacity, much greater, but to pretend all instinct is gone is silly and unscientific.

And it probably means you don't know the technical meaning of instinct, humans have three and they usually go away by the age of six weeks.

So argument from ignorance on your part.
 
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randman said:
It's kind of humorous to hear people say humans have no instincts and yet believe humans are evolved animals like all the rest.

Of course, human beings have instincts. Doesn't mean they don't learn a lot as they have greater intellectual capacity, much greater, but to pretend all instinct is gone is silly and unscientific.
Actually, your argument is unscientific. "Instinct" is not a necessary trait in kingdon Animalia--sponges have none, nor do corals, nor do jellyfish, nor do most other organisms (and no, "a behavior" isn't "an instinct"; just because a jellyfish twitches doesn't mean it has instincts). The trait "has instincts" is one shared by some, but certainly not all, members of this kingdom. As you wish to talk about this trait at the kingdom level, your argument fails on taxonomic grounds.
 
Not going to waste time here. You guys can google it for yourselves, but there are lots of human instincts, sexual attraction and creativity. Some argue persuasively that language is an instinct, not the particular language but the drive towards communicating via language. There are others, but if you aren't willing to look up the many arguments and analyses surrounding human instincts, why should I do it for you?
 
Dancing David for one.

I think most folks here tend to disagree with him on that point. He tends to use outdated, and very strict notions of what instincts are.

A lot more about human behavior can understood through more flexible models of innate human traits. Since many of them tend develop along with the brain, it creates the illusion that some insticts are "lost" and other behaviors have to be "learned".
 
Not going to waste time here. You guys can google it for yourselves, but there are lots of human instincts, sexual attraction and creativity. Some argue persuasively that language is an instinct, not the particular language but the drive towards communicating via language. There are others, but if you aren't willing to look up the many arguments and analyses surrounding human instincts, why should I do it for you?

Excuse me but the vauge handwave of "You guys can google it" is just ridiculous and low even by your usual standards of evidence randman.

let me explain something to you

the old defintion of instincts: stereotypic behaviors shown by all members of a species in response to a specific stimuli
they are hardwired patterns of behavior that are not learned

This relates to the more modern usage of Fixed action patternWP

This gets into the difference now of fixed and modal action patterns
modal action patterns:behavioral patterns that occur among most members of a species and are biologically determined
Because there actually is some variability in expression of these hardwired traits.
 

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