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Proving Evolution wrong

aggle-rithm

Ardent Formulist
aggle-rithm
Joined
Jun 9, 2005
Messages
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Location
Austin, TX
All right, creation scientists and ID proponents. It's been a good fight against the evil forces of rationalism, but it's time to step it up a notch.

You've been trying to prove creationism by finding cracks in the theory of evolution, but those egghead scientists keep saying you're wrong. Well, now's your chance. The enemy has commited a major blunder. Evolutionists have actually stated what it would take to prove evolution wrong!

The end is in sight. Now, you can vanquish those evil heretics once and for all, using their own words against them. All you have to do is successfully complete one, that's ONE, item from the following list.

LIST OF THINGS YOU CAN DO TO DISPROVE EVOLUTION:

Find any modern species from known phyla on this Earth with a foreign, non-nucleic acid genetic material.

Find a previously undiscovered species from the known phyla that does not use the "standard genetic code" or a close derivative.

Find a molecule used to store energy in organisms besides ATP, the one we normally find. There are many similar molecules that would work just as well...find one.

Find species that combine characteristics of different nested groupings...conifers with flowers, ferns with woody stems, birds with mammary glands, fish or amphibians with differentiated or cusped teeth.

Find a half-mammal, half-bird intermediate. Since the theory of evolution states that neither evolved from the other, but they both evolved from a common anscestor, such intermediates should never be found.

Find a series of fossils that shows reptiles evolving from birds or mammals.

Find mammalian or avian fossils in Devonian, Precambrian, Cambrian, Ordovician, and Silurian deposits.


Find an organism with a vestigial structure that was not previously functional in one of its ancestors.


Find vestigial nipples or a vestigial incus bone in any amphibians, birds, or reptiles.

Find a mammald with vestigial feathers.

Find a primate with vestigial horns or degenerate wings hidden underneath the skin of the back.

Find a arthropod with a vestigial backbone.

Find a snake with vestigial wings.

Find a fish, amphibian, or reptile which has nipples, hair, or a middle-ear incus bone at any point in embryonic development.

Find leg buds or developing limbs in the embryos of manta rays, eels, teleost fish, or sharks.

Show that a certain species is spread out over the planet wherever the environment is suitable, instead of being confined to a geographic region where evolution says it developed.

Find in South America an irrefutable Epihippus or Merychippus fossil from any time before the Isthmus of Panama arose to connect North and South America (about 12 million years ago).

Find fossil horse ancestors on Australia or Antarctica.

Find a fossil progression in which bird wings are gradually transformed into reptilian arms.

Find a Pegasus.


Find living or fossil birds with both wings and arms.

Find mollusks with chloroplasts.

Find a protein performing a recently evolved functions that is substantially different from proteins performing core functions.

Find an aquatic mammal with gills.

Find a mammal without crossed gastrointestinal and respiratory tracts, or a reptile or mammal without blindspots in its eyes. There is no mechanism by which evolution could "fix" these defects, but an intelligent designer certainly could.

Show that there is a mechanism to shed unused DNA to make cells operate more efficiently.

Show that the cytochrome c protein sequences in different organisms are very different from each other.

Show that there is a mechanism besides heredity that can causally correlate the sequence of a ubiquitous protein with a specific organismic morphology.

Show that different species of mammal have genes inserted by retroviruses in the same chromosomal locations, unless all species related by heredity also have it in the same location.

Show that the sediments of the earth contain a composition of species very similar to modern life as far back as we can see in the sequential layers.

Show that all known species are completely genetically isolated from one another, with no instances of hybrids.

Show that modern observed rates of evolution are inconsistent with the rates found in the fossil record.


*********************

And that's it. Get cracking, people! There's never been a better time to show that you've got God on your side!

PS: Falsifications were gleaned from http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/section1.html
 
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Find a mammal without crossed gastrointestinal and respiratory tracts

I thought whales were an example. :o

Darn. I liked Darwin..
 
Several of these are bogus. I think whoever compiled that list has no idea what "proving wrong" means.

Find a molecule used to store energy in organisms besides ATP, the one we normally find. There are many similar molecules that would work just as well...find one. - guh? Just because we haven't found this yet, there is no reason for such a mechanism not to exist.

Find species that combine characteristics of different nested groupings...conifers with flowers, ferns with woody stems, birds with mammary glands, fish or amphibians with differentiated or cusped teeth. - evolution re-invents the wheel all the time; e.g. jaws probably arose from gill arches several times, independently. All of the above are very improbable but possible.

Find an organism with a vestigial structure that was not previously functional in one of its ancestors. - nonsensical, because the definition of vestigial is that there has to exist a functional version in an ancestor. If that isn't present, it's just an Odd Organ.

Show that a certain species is spread out over the planet wherever the environment is suitable, instead of being confined to a geographic region where evolution says it developed. - Humans. Rats (almost). E. coli.

Show that there is a mechanism to shed unused DNA to make cells operate more efficiently. - no reason for such a mechanism not to exist

Show that the cytochrome c protein sequences in different organisms are very different from each other. - improbable but possible

Show that different species of mammal have genes inserted by retroviruses in the same chromosomal locations, unless all species related by heredity also have it in the same location. - improbable but possible

Show that modern observed rates of evolution are inconsistent with the rates found in the fossil record. - perfectly reasonable in specific circumstances


There are very few findings that would flat-out "prove evolution wrong" - most would just show that parallel computing over a couple billion years can come up with more Hamlets than you ever saw monkeys.
 
Floyt said:
....Find species that combine characteristics of different nested groupings...conifers with flowers, ferns with woody stems, birds with mammary gland, fish or amphibians with differentiated or cusped teeth. - evolution re-invents the wheel all the time; e.g. jaws probably arose from gill arches several times, independently. All of the above are very improbable but possible.
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Not that improbable...

Wikipedia said:
[Piranha] have a single row of sharp teeth in both jaws; the teeth are tightly packed and interlocking (via small cusps) and used for rapid puncture and shearing. Individual teeth are typically broadly triangular, pointed and blade-like (flat in profile). There is minor variation in the number of cusps; in most species, the teeth are tricuspid with a larger middle cusp which makes the individual teeth appear markedly triangular. The exception is Pygopristis, which has pentacuspid teeth and a middle cusp usually only slightly larger than the other cusps. In the scale-eating Catoprion, the shape of their teeth is markedly different and the premaxillary teeth are in two rows, as in most other serrasalmines.
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Agreed with most of the respondents, it's going to take more than a single anomalous finding to disprove evolution, though it would be interesting to see how examples of these 'falsifications' arose. There is just so much evidence in favor of evolution that it would take some serious fundamental error in the premise to require it to change dramatically.

Also, while ATP is the primary energy carrying molecule in known living systems, GTP is also used as an energy carrier in some pathways in many (most? all?) living things. Just saying...
 
No if you want to disprove evolution then you should produce another theory. Then make a prediction that comes true that evolution cannot explain. For example in astronomy there were two theories about the origin of the universe. Steady state and big bang. The later was proved when background radiation was found. This could only be explained in terms of the big bang.
 
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sphenisc said:
http://www.plantphysiol.org/cgi/content/full/123/1/29


And that about wraps it up for Evolution.


P.S. I don't mind sharing my Nobel prize with the authors.
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Symbiosis doesn't count. ;)

But the challenge is a weak one. Lot's of organisms have incorporated some other life form into theirs and pass on the properties via reproduction rather than consumption. I believe that is the hypothesis for mitochondria and maybe ribosomes. Viruses in particular can incorporate their genetic code permanently into other cells.
 
aggle-rithm said:
All right, creation scientists and ID proponents. It's been a good fight against the evil forces of rationalism, but it's time to step it up a notch.

You've been trying to prove creationism by finding cracks in the theory of evolution, but those egghead scientists keep saying you're wrong. Well, now's your chance. The enemy has commited a major blunder. Evolutionists have actually stated what it would take to prove evolution wrong!

The end is in sight. Now, you can vanquish those evil heretics once and for all, using their own words against them. All you have to do is successfully complete one, that's ONE, item from the following list.

LIST OF THINGS YOU CAN DO TO DISPROVE EVOLUTION:.....
Click to expand...
Some of these would only prove life originated more than once. And while it appears there is a single source origin for life on Earth, finding additional original species would not disprove the evidence for evolution of the species we have already discovered.
 
If you want to prove evolution is wrong, at this point, you are going to need a theory that not only explains everything about the wide variety of life forms we see in this world, but would have to do so in more precise details than those using the theory of Evolution would ever hope for.

And, that new theory would have to contradict what Evolution would predict about that level of detail.

Finding a few specific pieces of evidence that seem to contradict Evolution would not be a enough, because those pieces could have evolved through a different set of selection pressures than scientists would previously not have known about. Such as, for example, mollusks with chloroplasts.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
Some of these would only prove life originated more than once. And while it appears there is a single source origin for life on Earth, finding additional original species would not disprove the evidence for evolution of the species we have already discovered.
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The way I paraphrased some of these have probably weakened the arguments. Many of these are falsifications of the idea of common descent, not evolution per se.

Also, some of them were labeled POSSIBLE falsifications.

You'd get a lot more out of the list by reading the source material...I just wanted to simplify it for the benefit of creationists.
 
Wowbagger said:
If you want to prove evolution is wrong, at this point, you are going to need a theory that not only explains everything about the wide variety of life forms we see in this world, but would have to do so in more precise details than those using the theory of Evolution would ever hope for.

And, that new theory would have to contradict what Evolution would predict about that level of detail.

Finding a few specific pieces of evidence that seem to contradict Evolution would not be a enough, because those pieces could have evolved through a different set of selection pressures than scientists would previously not have known about. Such as, for example, mollusks with chloroplasts.
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OK, it seems I've made a mess of this.

The site that I referenced discussed 29 pieces of evidence in favor of the theory of evolution. Each of the items from the list serves to falsify one of those 29 pieces of evidence, but not the entire theory of evolution itself.

Here I think is the main problem with trying to talk to creationists about evolution...it's such a complex, interconnected assembly of ideas that it is impossible to render it down into the type of simple arguments that creationists prefer.
 
I like to show them this:

Marvin Minsky said:
The Process of Evolution is the following abstract idea:

There is a population of things that reproduce, at different rates in different environments. Those rates depend, statistically, on a collection of inheritable traits. Those traits are subject to occasional mutations, some of which are then inherited.

Then one can deduce, from logic alone, without any need for evidence, that:

THEOREM: Each population will tend to increase the proportion of traits that have higher reproduction rates in its current environment.
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So now evolution is proven and all we have to do is argue about whether it can explain life on Earth as we know it evolving in the given time.

~~ Paul
 
jasonpatterson said:
Also, while ATP is the primary energy carrying molecule in known living systems, GTP is also used as an energy carrier in some pathways in many (most? all?) living things. Just saying...
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Not to mention proteins, carbohydrates, fatty acids, nucleic acids, AcCoA, and pretty much any electron carrier....
 
aggle-rithm said:
The site that I referenced discussed 29 pieces of evidence in favor of the theory of evolution. Each of the items from the list serves to falsify one of those 29 pieces of evidence, but not the entire theory of evolution itself.
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That is correct.

Although, I suspect that the theory (as we know it) would be in serious jeopardy, if we did see most of that collection of examples, plus many more like them, coming about more frequently than anyone would be able to predict, from that theory.

At some point, it would just be more efficient to develop an alternative theory that explains it better.

However, even then, it probably wouldn't be a creation event. (Unless there was sufficient evidence that specifically supports it.) It would probably be a different type of evolution (not Darwinian-style natural selection).

So, creationism would still face an uphill battle, even in the "best case scenario". That has a lot to do with the fact that they are not really interested in doing actual science.
 
Let's face it. If biology were confronted with any of these things, then the search would be on for a refined version of evolution which would include the anomaly. That's what we did with classical mechanics when Mercury didn't fit; that's what they do for the Theia theory of the moon when momentums don't balance. This thing of finding something that would falsify evolution is a bit of a red herring in that the fossil record is still quite pliable, and evolution is so flexible that to say "find something" is very likely to succeed, given parallel evolution.

And no, it's certainly not a bad thing to think about consequences of that which we normally take for granted. If Bush had done that before he tore down Hussein's statue, things there would be a lot different.
 
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