Proving Evolution

[nahomadis]

Would you care to disprove talk orgins or are you going to be a hypocrite?

 

Remember you said:

 

 

I just clicked on that talkOrigins link and there is too much material. You don't seriously expect me to wage through all that material do you? You choose one article and I will work on it over the next few days and get back to you. Right now it is 1am in the morning in London....and I want to hit the sack mate! Night. Sorry if I upset anyone!

[JustStuit]

I don't care. You can look through and if you find anything you can disprove, choose that one. I doubt you will though.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

TalkOrigins also extensively references its material. Look at whatever bits you find interesting, but don't just ignore it and continue to provide the same fallacies.

[nahomadis]

TalkOrigins also extensively references its material. Look at whatever bits you find interesting, but don't just ignore it and continue to provide the same fallacies.

 

 

I am happy to rebutt an article from the TalkOrigins site, on the condition that you chose an article that provides the best evidence for Evolution (and against Biblical creation).

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Gladly. Try this:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/

[ydoaPs]

Antibiotic resistance is good evidence against molecules-to-man evolution. See an excellent article by Carl Wieland on this here [url']http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v20/i1/superbugs.asp[/url]

did you even read that article? it basically boils down to "it's evolution, but we are against evolution, so it isn't."

 

 

tens of thousands, including all the founders of biological science.

i meant living ones.

Try using a reputable source.

how isn't talkorigins reputable?

[nahomadis]

Gladly. Try this:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/

 

Ok, thanks. I will get cracking right away.

[insane_alien]

I just clicked on that talkOrigins link and there is too much material. You don't seriously expect me to wage through all that material do you?

 

 

I'm sorry but is that not exactly the same as "there's too much information here, it must be false, i'll just ignore it and it'll go away".

[Edtharan]

The Coelacanth is not an intermediate form. It is a fish. It always has been a fish as far back as we can trace it in the fossil record.

If all you look at is Coelacanth fossils then all you will see is Coelacanth fossils. If you look at closely related fossils of the Coelacanth, then you will see the graduall change of other species inot others (like the Coelacanth).

 

The is a transitional form between fish and anphibians (although the Coelacanth seens to be on a branch of this not in a direct line) called the Lobed Fin fish. The next most recognisable form is the Lung fish and then primative anphibians.

 

The fact that a species of Coelacanth are still surviving today does not even aproch refuting my point, it has absolutly nothing to do with it. The fact that a species can survive relativly unchanged due to living within an environemnt that does not present much evolutiononary pressure, does not refurt that this represents an intermediary form. Infact there are changes in the living Coelacanth to the fossil Coelacanth. There are even 2 distinct populations of Coelacanth that have been identified and they have noticeable differences due to their different environemnts.

 

So your argument is invalid in this case. And besides, just because a contemory organism looks like a fossil ancestor does not mean that evolution did not take place. A lot of evolution is not down to physical shape, but to the DNA, and we just don't have a lot of fossil DNA to compare with the modern DNA.

 

In the time that humans have been able to collect and sample DNA we have started to find evidence that the DNA of a population of organisms does change over time and this change can eventually lead to speciation. I will explain:

 

Say you breed fruit flies with different shaped genitalia then a control group (this can, and does happen in wild populations for various reasons). This will eventually lead to a population of fruit flies that can no longer breed with the inital (controll) group. Once this occures the genetic material can no longer pass between these two populations (depending on your definition of "spieces" this new population could already be considdered a seperate species), and they will be in competition with each other.

 

Now you can create a situation where the physical forms of these two populations will favour one over the other. This selective pressure will force each population into different physical forms. Say you select an ability to fly, one group will have flying favoured and the other will have a situation where flying is a disadvantage (in the wild this could be due to lots of spider webs in the trees and an abundace of fruit on the ground).

 

This will create one group that can still fly and another that will loose the ability to fly (would they now be called walks ). The walkers will most likely have developed secondary characteristics that aid their new environment. Longer and more robust legs, maybe a harder exoskeleton to suport them (which might also aid in stoping predators too), if the food source is different or they need to collect it in a differnet way then they migh have differnet mouth parts.

 

So here you have two populations that can't interbreed and are physically dissimilar, but have a recent, common ansestor. These two populations would most likely be sonsiddered differnet spiecies by now by any dictionary definition of the word.

 

This expereiment would take far longer than 200 generations may be near the 200,000 or more to perform. Funding for this would be hard to come by. But the expereiment could be done and there would be a distinct proof/disproof of speciation here.

 

The main argument against evolution that is put foreward is that of speciation. Because speciation is so hard to observe (it takes a long time and is very gradual, and that the entire concept of a species is purely a human construaction and nature is rarely that simple), most creationist arguments centre around this point.

 

Not only is speciation hard to observe, the definition of a species differs between people. Most biologists do agree on a definition (some don't though), but between biologists and non scientists there can be a significant enough difference that it creats a perceived crack (although it doesn't realy exists), that they try to exploit.

 

As an analogy try using your computer to slowly change one colour into another (you can do this with most graphics packages) over a few minutes (say red to blue). If this occures slowly enough you will have trouble stating exaclty when the colour changes from a reddy-blue colour to a bluey-red colour (acutally we call these shade purple - which you could think of as an intermediary colour much like an intermediary form in an onganism). What is also true is that if you stated that at one point the red coulur changes to the blue colour, someone else will think it is at another point.

 

Speciation is not like a light switch in that you cant point to the mother and say "This is species A" and then point to it's offspring and say "This is species B". You might be able to point to one ancestor 100,000 generations ago and say that, but at no point along the way, just by looking at the mother and child will you be able to make that statement.

[GutZ]

I think people fear evolution because if it's right, they know which group is dieing out next.

 

OH...BURN!

[ecoli]

I think people fear evolution because if it's right' date=' they know which group is dieing out next.

 

OH...BURN![/quote']

 

what the hell are you talking about?

[GutZ]

If you fear evolution it's because your going to die out, otherwise it doesn't really affect you at the survivial level.

 

So people who strong opposite/fear it, could be due to that fact.

 

Therefore I am calling those people unevolved, or that subconscious they know they won't evolve.

 

It was a stupid joke hense the "Burn!" part. It was a Kelso comment.

 

You so ruined it all.

 

ANYWAYS.

 

I believe in evolution, I didn't before, but I realize too that your not going to see every little progression and changed state to be clearly say "yeah that looks like evolution" other than I guess microscopic.

 

I read somewhere that even DNA has the ability to evolve. I think it was Scientific American. Something similar to this:

 

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=0003CF8E-7A59-1452-BA5983414B7F0000

 

If DNA evolves...I don't think you can reasonably deny that evolution has some part in this "life changing process". Isn't DNA the instruction set to build and maintain a living organism? Thats how I view anyway. To me thats all the proof I need. I don't think there is anything short of the hand of God coming down and slapping you across the face waking you up to the truth, that can prove it doesn't exist.

 

I am sad though that not much effort being put into study of underwater life. Its all in aerospace (That includes space travel right?).

[the tree]

If you fear evolution it's because your going to die out, otherwise it doesn't really affect you at the survivial level.

Since when did evolution affect the survival of individuals anyway?

[Dark Photon]

i think we all accept that our species will die out eventually.

[Dark Photon]

any one know any good books about genetics?

[PhDP]

any one know any good books about genetics?

 

If you're looking for big, detailed books about genetics, Daniel Hartl (an evolutionary geneticist) has written good books both on genetics and population genetics. I used this one for a course in genetics, and it's very well written.