Science Disproves Evolution

[laca]

Regarding the hilited area, where did you get the idea that fish were classed as part of tetrapoda (meaning "four footed")?

I might be wrong, but I think he meant the minus to mean "vertebrata" which are not "tetrapoda".

ETA: beaten to it...

 

[Lord Emsworth]

Regarding the hilited area, where did you get the idea that fish were classed as part of tetrapoda (meaning "four footed")?

I am fairly sure this was to be read as an equation. Fish are vertebrates minus tetrapods.

ETA:

ETA: beaten to it...

Me too.

 

[Hokulele]

For example, according to evolution, the fossil record should show a progression of life forms from the simplest to the most complex.

Ignoring the rest of what was wrong with your post, this statement is particularly untrue. Evolution doesn't favor complexity, but the ability to reproduce. There are many cases where evolution has resulted in a simpler life-form, as that was what worked best in the environment. Take a look at many parasites for excellent examples.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_complexity

 

[Hellbound]

Ignoring the rest of what was wrong with your post, this statement is particularly untrue. Evolution doesn't favor complexity, but the ability to reproduce. There are many cases where evolution has resulted in a simpler life-form, as that was what worked best in the environment. Take a look at many parasites for excellent examples.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_complexity

Just to second this, the only reason we do see a trend in evolution to higher complexity (a fact I think many can agree on, at least in most areas), is because the bottom is pretty well full. According to most studies, the majority of life on teh Earth, both in terms of habitable areas, biomass, numebr of sepcies/diversity, or just about any other measure you want to make are single-celled bacteria. There's simply not much room at the bottom for a newcomer. The only way to go where there are still niches that allow for newcomers is up to more complex organisms, more or less.

That's a simplification, but gets the idea across. An analogy would be to a job market...if all the worker jobs are full, the only option is to get your degree and become a manager

 

[RecoveringYuppy]

Although mutation is the ultimate source of all genetic variation, it is a relatively rare event,...” Ayala, p. 63.

Mutation rates have been measured and they are not relatively rare. On the contrary, they are constant, with virtually every act of reproduction producing some mutations.
Here's an article on Ayalya. If he, a religious person, believes what you just quoted why is he still an evolutionist critical of creationism as pseudoscience?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francisco_J._Ayala

-REJ

 

[Simon39759]

You are right. What does invalidate evolution is the lack of physical evidence. Instead, the evidence proves creation. For example, according to evolution, the fossil record should show a progression of life forms from the simplest to the most complex. It doesn't. Instead life forms appear suddenly and perfectly adapted to their environment with no connection to any former life forms.

No. That's just, simply, not true... I don't know how to put it otherwise. That unsupported statement is pretty much the opposite of what is actually observed...

Indeed, that fact was pretty well known and accepted even before Darwin, under the name, 'transformism', what Chuck did is to provide the explanation as to why this was happening...

 

[Belz...]

For example, according to evolution, the fossil record should show a progression of life forms from the simplest to the most complex.

No.

Why do you guys keep saying things that are so obviously false ? Shouldn't you, I don't know, educate yourself and understand evolution before you start arguing against it ?

 

[Simon39759]

No.

Why do you guys keep saying things that are so obviously false ? Shouldn't you, I don't know, educate yourself and understand evolution before you start arguing against it ?

Well, actually, that is an implication of the abiogenesis theory.
If life started through natural means, it makes perfect sense that it'd start as its most basic and, from there, evolve, among other things, toward more complexity...
Life starting as its most simple, the diversification will display a trend with progressively more complex organisms evolving, which is, once again, actually the very trend we observe...

 

[RecoveringYuppy]

Life starting as its most simple, the diversification will display a trend with progressively more complex organisms evolving, which is, once again, actually the very trend we observe...

But not exactly. Diversificaiton implies some organisms will become more complex but the trend isn't towards complexity.

How do you even define complexity? Is our abilility to be multi-celled more complex than all the biochemistry the autotrophs have that we've lost?

 

[Simon39759]

well, normally diversification would go in both direction, but if you start from 'the bottom' and can't get any simpler life-form, diversification will pretty much tend up.

Not only that, but, to some extent, the simplest organisms actually were too simple, and not very efficient and were replaced by more sophisticated bacteria...

 

[temporalillusion]

Why do you guys keep saying things that are so obviously false ?

Pretty simple, the stuff they say about evolution as well as the stuff they say against evolution comes from their resources they read and they just regurgitate (or in some cases shamelessly copy/paste) it.

They see those sites as completely authoritative because they line up with their interpretation of The Bible, and the Bible is 100% Truth, so the actual similarity of what they are saying/copying/pasting to reality doesn't matter, if reality is wrong so much the worse for reality, because if it doesn't line up 100% with the Truth that they know, they can confidently reject it (even if it's centuries of evidence).

 

[Elizabeth I]

What does invalidate evolution is the lack of physical evidence. Instead, the evidence proves creation. For example, according to evolution, the fossil record should show a progression of life forms from the simplest to the most complex. It doesn't. Instead life forms appear suddenly and perfectly adapted to their environment with no connection to any former life forms.

You have already been told once that this is wrong, and why it's wrong. It is dishonest to simply repeat it as if it had only just occurred to you for the first time (and especially when we know it never occurred to you at all - you are just cutting and pasting whatever your creationist sources tell you.)

 

[Lukraak_Sisser]

You are right. What does invalidate evolution is the lack of physical evidence. Instead, the evidence proves creation. For example, according to evolution, the fossil record should show a progression of life forms from the simplest to the most complex. It doesn't. Instead life forms appear suddenly and perfectly adapted to their environment with no connection to any former life forms.

By the way, do you realize that by this argument you accept the fact that the fossil record is an actual representation of species that lived in the distant past in chronological order?
Since a lot of your previous arguments appear to be that the fossils are actually deposited by the flood, mystically sorted so that each layer has its own set of fossils, instead of big at the bottom, small on top.

You can't use both. If it's flood deposits, its irrellevant what species ended up where in the strata.
If its species mysteriously popping up in time fully created, then you'd still have to acknowledge that the earth is far far older than the bible states.

DO you see why some of us might see your arguments as wrong and undefined?

The fossil record is deposited by the flood 4000 years ago, because the fossil record does not show intermediate species appearing in the geological collumn.

Macroevolution over millions of years cannot occur, because some 'kinds' of animals were taken on the ark, from which all species appeared (generally called evolved) in under 500 years.

Just because you use these utterly contradictory arguments in seperate posts does not mean you did not contradict yourself.

 

[Belz...]

Well, actually, that is an implication of the abiogenesis theory.
If life started through natural means, it makes perfect sense that it'd start as its most basic and, from there, evolve, among other things, toward more complexity...
Life starting as its most simple, the diversification will display a trend with progressively more complex organisms evolving, which is, once again, actually the very trend we observe...

Careful, now. Obviously the earliest lifeforms were simple, and complexity came later. But it doesn't follow that evolution results in more complex lifeforms always.

 

[Belz...]

Continuing:

What does invalidate evolution is the lack of physical evidence.

You mean, the overwhelming evidence that almost every scientist in the world knows about and accepts ? Are you even aware that it exists.

I'd also like you to reflect on your qualifications vs theirs, and try to come up with a justification for your certainty that you are correct and that they are not.

Instead life forms appear suddenly and perfectly adapted to their environment with no connection to any former life forms.

That is a flat-out lie. See: horses, for instance.

 

[laca]

Careful, now. Obviously the earliest lifeforms were simple, and complexity came later. But it doesn't follow that evolution results in more complex lifeforms always.

Of course, that is simplistic. But then again, so is their argument.

 

[sphenisc]

Careful, now. Obviously the earliest lifeforms were simple, and complexity came later. But it doesn't follow that evolution results in more complex lifeforms always.

Where do you see any suggestion in Simon's comment that it does?

 

[Dinwar]

Instead life forms appear suddenly and perfectly adapted to their environment with no connection to any former life forms.

How fast is "suddenly"? Crabs, for example, took millions of years to evolve after lobsters arose.

How well-adapted is "perfectly"? The main population may be highly adapted for their environment, but the distal subpopulations may be hanging on by a thread. Besides, the fact that more animals are born than can possibly survive in almost every species seems to indicate that perfection isn't atainalbe in biology. The fact that invasive species often dominate the ecosystems they enter also indicates this (I lived in Alabama for a few years, so I know what an invasive species can do).

How does one measure adaptation? By birth rate? By death rate? By how many things it can eat? By how many predators it has? By the range of temperatures or humidity it can withstand?

How do you look for connections? I mean, obviously the fossil record isn't your main tool--any paleontologist worth their Brunton knows that this statement is false (I suggest Fossil Treasures of the Anza-Borrego Desert as an introductory look at this; facinating read, fairly detailed, but geared towards someone who's never studied geology or paleontology, so it gets right down to basics). Neither is biology (we have fairly detailed phylogenetic trees from DNA evidence). So how do you do it?

 

[Cuddles]

But not exactly. Diversificaiton implies some organisms will become more complex but the trend isn't towards complexity.

Yes it is. Here's a thought experiment - imagine we have a scale that measures complexity, with 1 being the simplest possible organism and 10 being the most complex possible organism. Assuming there are no pressures acting specifically on complexity, so inherent trend towards either complexity or simplicity, you will end up with a random walk around the scale for each evolutionary path. When life starts with abiogenesis, all organisms are at 1. As the random walks progress, organisms spread out along the scale. After one step, some will be at 1, some at 2. After two steps, some will still be at 1, some at 2, some at 3. Of course, some of those at 1 will be organisms that have become simpler again.

Carrying on doing that a large number of times and you end up with an even spread across the whole scale. It will be a dynamic equilibrium with the complexity of any individual line changing all the time, but with the average complexity of the system remaining constant (assuming a large enough sample). At every point until the steady state is reached, the mean complexity will have increased, even though the complexity for any given line can increase or decrease.

Now, this assumes that there is actually such a thing as "maximum possible complexity". If that's not actually the case, then the steady state will never be reached, and overall complexity will always increase. While I doubt there is a solid limit, things like energy costs and redundancy requirements will likely act to limit increases in complexity, so things should be closer to the limited scale than an open one.

I'm pretty sure this is all Simon39759 is saying. Not that every organism will always become more complex, but simply that if you start off with only the simplest possible cases existing, there will inevitably be an overall trend of increasing complexity, regardless of the trend in any individual case.

 

[sphenisc]

Yes it is. Here's a thought experiment - imagine we have a scale that measures complexity, with 1 being the simplest possible organism and 10 being the most complex possible organism. Assuming there are no pressures acting specifically on complexity, so inherent trend towards either complexity or simplicity, you will end up with a random walk around the scale for each evolutionary path. When life starts with abiogenesis, all organisms are at 1. As the random walks progress, organisms spread out along the scale. After one step, some will be at 1, some at 2. After two steps, some will still be at 1, some at 2, some at 3. Of course, some of those at 1 will be organisms that have become simpler again.

Carrying on doing that a large number of times and you end up with an even spread across the whole scale. It will be a dynamic equilibrium with the complexity of any individual line changing all the time, but with the average complexity of the system remaining constant (assuming a large enough sample). At every point until the steady state is reached, the mean complexity will have increased, even though the complexity for any given line can increase or decrease.

Now, this assumes that there is actually such a thing as "maximum possible complexity". If that's not actually the case, then the steady state will never be reached, and overall complexity will always increase. While I doubt there is a solid limit, things like energy costs and redundancy requirements will likely act to limit increases in complexity, so things should be closer to the limited scale than an open one.

I'm pretty sure this is all Simon39759 is saying. Not that every organism will always become more complex, but simply that if you start off with only the simplest possible cases existing, there will inevitably be an overall trend of increasing complexity, regardless of the trend in any individual case.

It also means that Pahu's original statement wasn't quite as egregious an error as Hokulele suggested.