Links Missing or non-existing?

[blood_pardon]

blood_pardon' date=' i suggest you visit a library. one with an extensive science section. then go look up some of the books or journals on evolutionary biology.

 

if you wanted all the evidence FOR evolution, then you are going to be out of luck, because in order to read all of it as it was presented, it would take longer than your lifetime. infact, there is so much new evidence FOR evolution coming in that you'd never be able to keep up with all of it. even if you looked in a subset of the evidence, say genetics, you still wouldn't be able to keep up.

 

saying 'there's so little evidence for it' is like standing next to everest and saying 'don't see the big deal, its only a 2inch high mole hill.[/quote']

 

I'm fully aware that people run there mouths and publish there papers.Of course Im not going read what everyone wrote and I think it's a ridiculous suggestion to make. Not every article or observation should be deemed 'evidence.' I have access to the same information that you do, and the "best" evidence for macro-E isnt buried in some science journal, it is stratigically placed right in front of the public.

[insane_alien]

so you know there is a massive amount of evidence, there are literally whole libraries worth of observations, experimentation, data, analysis of data, samples, specimens, etc etc. that back up evolution but yet you continue to say

 

'there isn't much evidence'

 

and i probably have access to more material than you do as i have access to several university libraries.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

blood_pardon, have you looked at the page with 29 evidences for macroevolution that I linked you to?

[Syntho-sis]

I'm not sure if it's been mentioned but this is a very weak argument against Evolution in the sense that:

 

There will always be missing transitional species no matter how many are presented. Imagine two cups on a table top. Each one represents a separate species and if you link these two species with a transitional form what are you left with? You create two more missing links/cups. So you link those. Now you have four missing links. It goes on and on.

 

Eventually you realize how foolish this argument is when the Concepts of gradualist evolution are juxtaposed into this format.

 

I hope that makes sense, I'm half asleep.

[insane_alien]

synthosis, that logic doesn't seem to apply to creationists. i have seen them ask for the missing link between generations. they seemed to think an intermediate was required between mother and daughter according to evolution.

[Phi for All]

I'm fully aware that people run there mouths and publish there papers.Of course Im not going read what everyone wrote and I think it's a ridiculous suggestion to make. Not every article or observation should be deemed 'evidence.' I have access to the same information that you do, and the "best" evidence for macro-E isnt buried in some science journal, it is stratigically placed right in front of the public.

Since you accept what you call "micro-E" for small changes over small amounts of time in a population, is it just your belief that the Earth is only 7000 years old that stands in your way regarding longer term evolution, what you call "macro-E"? What effect do you think your "micro-E" would have on populations a million years from now?

 

 

 

It has always seemed to be the adherence to a literal interpretation of Genesis that makes some people claim that the mounds of evidence for speciation is not enough. They start with the assumption that the earth is young and therefore all the evidence must be wrong, no matter what staggering amounts of it there are. And I'm always amazed that they try to argue scientifically with logic like that.

[mooeypoo]

I'm fully aware that people run there mouths and publish there papers.

Fair enough. Some people do run their mouths against creationists, so I know what you mean. Judge the claims by the evidence and not by the person writing them. Isn't that fair?

 

The question is, though, do you have the intellectual honesty to actually read what you oppose so you can criticize it, or are you just going to ignore the sources without even looking at them? We didn't ask you to sign a contract for life, we're just asking you take a look so you can criticize the claim. What, precisely, are you afraid of?

 

~moo

[Mr Skeptic]

I would say our DNA is similar because we are similar. Primates have fingers and thumbs, they stand on two legs upright, they have a face similar to humans, so in my mind it would makes sense for humans and primates to have close genetic codes.

 

Sure, that would explain why unknown DNA and especially coding DNA are similar. But why similar retroviruses? The obvious explanation is, of course, that the retroviruses inserted themselves into primate DNA (that's what retroviruses do). Then, the primate diverged into different species through a few mutations -- we see this sort of thing happening all the time. This elegantly explains why both the unknown and important bits of DNA are similar, and why DNA known to be definitely junk, is also similar. I shall go one further and claim that not only does this fit with macroevolution, but, once one knows what a retrovirus does, is actually a prediction from it. From there once can measure the rate at which a retrovirus inserts itself into an egg cell, the rate at which this tends to be fatal, and start making predictions as to how many other species would have retroviruses.

 

As I understand it, what you're saying is that God put similar retroviruses in our and primate DNA because he made us both similar with the other parts of DNA as well? But there really is no reason he should do this. And that still doesn't answer why we have retroviruses there in the first place. And again, considering the simpler explanation of common ancestry, it again makes God look deceptive. Or, perhaps God is more incompetent than we are and didn't know why he put the retrovirus there? Again though, it's hard to make predictions from a God-based theory, so it really cannot hope to compete against other theories.

 

Micro-E is the idea that small changes do occur within a species, Macro-E is the idea that all creatures descended from the same living organizm and that the small changes that occur accumulate to cause different species.

 

So how can we tell whether that has happened? How can anyone tell the precise moment when a population of one species changes to another?

[blood_pardon]

so you know there is a massive amount of evidence, there are literally whole libraries worth of observations, experimentation, data, analysis of data, samples, specimens, etc etc. that back up evolution but yet you continue to say "there isn't much evidence"

The problem is interpretation. Everyone is viewing the same 'evidence' but that doesn't mean much because each individual must decide if its valid or not.

blood_pardon, have you looked at the page with 29 evidences for macroevolution that I linked you to?

Yes sir and I thought the section on intermdiates was shady. It points to obscure things like similarities in ear bones and jawbones, shows odd shaped bird wings, human skulls vs. primates, and a sea cow with legs which I believe to be fabricated. Talkorigins is a very good site to get the secular side of things, and it's interesting that even their arguments are weak. It sort of confirms what I already believed to be true about evidence surrounding macro-E.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/section.html#morphological_intermediates

I'm not sure if it's been mentioned but this is a very weak argument against Evolution in the sense that:

There will always be missing transitional species no matter how many are presented. Imagine two cups on a table top. Each one represents a separate species and if you link these two species with a transitional form what are you left with? You create two more missing links/cups. So you link those. Now you have four missing links. It goes on and on.

Eventually you realize how foolish this argument is when the Concepts of gradualist evolution are juxtaposed into this format.

 

I'm not demanding that each creature alive on earth should have transitional fossils all the way back. It seems reasonable to assume that if billions of years of life has been sustained there ought to be loads of transitions discovered that prove macro-E beyond a shadow of doubt.

 

 

 

 

Since you accept what you call "micro-E" for small changes over small amounts of time in a population' date=' is it just your belief that the Earth is only 7000 years old that stands in your way regarding longer term evolution, what you call "macro-E"? What effect do you think your "micro-E" would have on populations a million years from now?[/quote']

 

No it's the lack of evidence that stands in my way. Millions of years from now I expect a variety of dogs,lizards, birds, and fish.

[insane_alien]

ah so anything you don't agree with is fabricated.

 

have fun with that.

[jayhawker]

I'm fully aware that people run there mouths and publish there papers.

 

 

Peer review is at the heart of modern science – there is a little more to do with it than scientists “running their mouths”. If you cannot accept this basic concept for whatever reasons, you may be on the wrong forums.

[blood_pardon]

Peer review is at the heart of modern science – there is a little more to do with it than scientists “running their mouths”. If you cannot accept this basic concept for whatever reasons' date=' you may be on the wrong forums.[/quote']

 

I would prefer looking at the evidence myself than allowing a group of men that agree decide whats real or not for me. Creationists have developed there own peer-reviewed journals, do you accept their claims?

[insane_alien]

blood_pardon, the data is presented in the articles(it has to be made available for peer review) so you can determine for yourself whether it is correct or not.

[Mr Skeptic]

Yes sir and I thought the section on intermdiates was shady. It points to obscure things like similarities in ear bones and jawbones, shows odd shaped bird wings, human skulls vs. primates,

 

I thought so as well, which is why I have been focusing on only DNA (similarities here are obvious), and only part of DNA known to be junk (because they cannot be explained by common design unless the designer is stupid).

 

The single example of similar retroviral DNA totally decimates any God-based non-theory (I say non-theory because if it were a theory it would have to make predictions).

 

and a sea cow with legs which I believe to be fabricated.

 

Again easily resolved by looking at the DNA. They have the morphological equivalent to legs in their DNA, but the development cascade of gene activation and deactivation isn't supposed to activate them. But it does occasionally happen, just as once in a while you get two-headed critters for example.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Yes sir and I thought the section on intermdiates was shady. It points to obscure things like similarities in ear bones and jawbones, shows odd shaped bird wings, human skulls vs. primates, and a sea cow with legs which I believe to be fabricated. Talkorigins is a very good site to get the secular side of things, and it's interesting that even their arguments are weak. It sort of confirms what I already believed to be true about evidence surrounding macro-E.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/section.html#morphological_intermediates

There is more to the article than just intermediate forms. Did you look at the rest? It's a very lengthy description.

 

Also, why do you believe the sea cow to be fabricated? If you're interested I could run a search for other papers mentioning that sea cow so you could learn more about it. I have access to many scientific journals through my university.

 

I'm not demanding that each creature alive on earth should have transitional fossils all the way back. It seems reasonable to assume that if billions of years of life has been sustained there ought to be loads of transitions discovered that prove macro-E beyond a shadow of doubt.

And some people would say there are. There are many more transitional fossils than just mentioned in the TalkOrigins article:

 

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

[blood_pardon]

I thought so as well' date=' which is why I have been focusing on only DNA (similarities here are obvious), and only part of DNA known to be junk (because they cannot be explained by common design unless the designer is stupid).

The single example of similar retroviral DNA totally decimates any God-based non-theory (I say non-theory because if it were a theory it would have to make predictions).[/quote']

 

My knowledge of DNA is extremely limited so its possible you are on to something here. It not fair for me to comment on something I know so little about.

 

 

There is more to the article than just intermediate forms. Did you look at the rest? It's a very lengthy description.

Also' date=' why do you believe the sea cow to be fabricated? If you're interested I could run a search for other papers mentioning that sea cow so you could learn more about it. I have access to many scientific journals through my university.[/quote']

 

Im not going to lie I didnt read the rest, I went straight to info relating to this thread. It appears I need to read up on the DNA evidence surrounding macro-E.

The sea cow seemed suspicious because there wasnt an actual photo of the specimen.

Ive examined the transitionals on wiki and I found them all to be ridiculous.

[CharonY]

It is laudable that you recognize areas where you lack knowledge in. However, you should keep in mind that the theory of evolution since its start 150 years has been constantly refined and has stood up to the test of time. There is vast amount of information of every conceivable aspects of it. People devote their whole careers in investigating some phenomena of it. Given the body of evidence and literature out there, it is necessary to recognize that if you find something glaringly obvious to be wrong, there is a good chance that you may got something wrong. A discussion forum is only partially useful to clear up such misinformation. Rather, if there is true interest there are very good books out there (for both, informed students as well as laymen) that you may wan to read. Obviously, given the way this topic has been politicized it is sometimes daunting to differentiate between actual scientific sound literature and pure propaganda.

The important bit to keep in mind is to backtrack and think what part of the theory you want to address, what does it predict and is there really a contradiction? If you think there is, then thing again whether you understood the basics correctly. This is where most people get wrong. On the first look Darwin's original theory (there are a number of changes in the current iteration, btw.) seem so intuitive often misleading people to wrong extrapolations (most notably social darwinism). But again, the literature has increased dramatically since then.

[Mr Skeptic]

Well the nice thing about DNA is that it is a string composed of only four pieces, so it is directly analogous to binary (you need 2 bits per DNA base). You can easily compare them like you would any information on computers, looking for replacements, deletions, or insertions. It is actually fairly simple to copy DNA and to read it -- I have done it myself. They sell kits that allow you to do so. While you can do this, it is quite a bit of effort if you wish to read a significant portion of DNA with simple tools. But, the important thing is that you could verify this for yourself if you need to.

 

There is a simpler way, that deals mostly with Mendelian genetics, which you may have learned about in high school. Since it seems that you adhere to a literal interpretation of Genesis, you can from there make a prediction for every single animal supposed to be on the Ark. We are diploid creatures, which means that we have two alleles and get one allele from each parent. From the number of each species on the ark, you can set a maximum of alleles that should be in that species gene pool as twice the number of animals of that species that went on the ark. Then you can predict how many alleles there should be now, given that and ~4,000 years of evolution.

 

Does the above seem reasonable to you?

[blood_pardon]

It is laudable that you recognize areas where you lack knowledge in. However' date=' you should keep in mind that the theory of evolution since its start 150 years has been constantly refined and has stood up to the test of time. There is vast amount of information of every conceivable aspects of it. People devote their whole careers in investigating some phenomena of it. Given the body of evidence and literature out there, it is necessary to recognize that if you find something glaringly obvious to be wrong, there is a good chance that you may got something wrong. A discussion forum is only partially useful to clear up such misinformation. Rather, if there is true interest there are very good books out there (for both, informed students as well as laymen) that you may wan to read. Obviously, given the way this topic has been politicized it is sometimes daunting to differentiate between actual scientific sound literature and pure propaganda.

The important bit to keep in mind is to backtrack and think what part of the theory you want to address, what does it predict and is there really a contradiction? If you think there is, then thing again whether you understood the basics correctly. This is where most people get wrong. On the first look Darwin's original theory (there are a number of changes in the current iteration, btw.) seem so intuitive often misleading people to wrong extrapolations (most notably social darwinism). But again, the literature has increased dramatically since then.[/quote']

 

I appreciate the discovery darwin made it has helped us to understand our world better. Although this idea has been refined and stood the test within our modern society for 150 years, humanities idea about the God of the bible has been around for thousands of years. Billions of our ancestors, and people alive today have devoted not only there careers but there lives for this Cause. This doesnt make my ideas much more credible in your eyes Im sure but I hope you see my point.

 

Well the nice thing about DNA is that it is a string composed of only four pieces' date=' so it is directly analogous to binary (you need 2 bits per DNA base). You can easily compare them like you would any information on computers, looking for replacements, deletions, or insertions. It is actually fairly simple to copy DNA and to read it -- I have done it myself. They sell kits that allow you to do so. While you can do this, it is quite a bit of effort if you wish to read a significant portion of DNA with simple tools. But, the important thing is that you could verify this for yourself if you need to.

 

There is a simpler way, that deals mostly with Mendelian genetics, which you may have learned about in high school. Since it seems that you adhere to a literal interpretation of Genesis, you can from there make a prediction for every single animal supposed to be on the Ark. We are diploid creatures, which means that we have two alleles and get one allele from each parent. From the number of each species on the ark, you can set a maximum of alleles that should be in that species gene pool as twice the number of animals of that species that went on the ark. Then you can predict how many alleles there should be now, given that and ~4,000 years of evolution.

 

Does the above seem reasonable to you?[/quote']

 

What does the allele count read off of a lets say modern gorilla? Am I on the right track here? Can we take a sample from any modern animal, count the allele and throw in an equation to find out how many generations there have been since that creatue first became existant?

[insane_alien]

I appreciate the discovery darwin made it has helped us to understand our world better. Although this idea has been refined and stood the test within our modern society for 150 years, humanities idea about the God of the bible has been around for thousands of years. Billions of our ancestors, and people alive today have devoted not only there careers but there lives for this Cause. This doesnt make my ideas much more credible in your eyes Im sure but I hope you see my point.

 

appeal to tradition fallacy. just because one method has been used for longer doesn't mean its right. bloodletting was used in medicinemuch longer than modern medicines have been available.

 

if you had cancer would you want some leeches or chemo?

 

science advances, religion is static.

 

What does the allele count read off of a lets say modern gorilla? Am I on the right track here? Can we take a sample from any modern animal, count the allele and throw in an equation to find out how many generations there have been since that creatue first became existant?

 

its a little more complicated than that, you need to be comparing two species and it will give you an estimate of how long it has been since there was a common ancestor. its not completely accurate as there is a random element to evolution but it is usually set against the fossil record as well.

[Mr Skeptic]

What does the allele count read off of a lets say modern gorilla? Am I on the right track here? Can we take a sample from any modern animal, count the allele and throw in an equation to find out how many generations there have been since that creatue first became existant?

 

Well, remember that each animal may have only two alleles of each gene, since they are diploid (some things aren't diploid but I don't think they were supposed to be on the ark either). So then we take samples from various animals of a species and count how many different alleles there are. Alleles, of course, are different "versions" of a gene.

 

From the Genesis account, it predicts a maximum of two alleles per animal that went on the ark, making it 4 per unclean species, 14 per clean species or birds, and 10 for humans. From the genealogies in the narrative, we can say this occurred about 4,000 years ago. So to that estimate we add the number of alleles that should have evolved from the previous ones in 4,000 years. Presumably that should be small, and the new ones would have small differences. Animals that did not have to go on the ark could have as many alleles as before.

 

In addition, mitochondrial DNA is passed on by the females only, so there would be 1 per female of the species that went on the ark. Likewise, genes on the Y chromosome would only have 1 allele per male.

 

Allele counts less then this would be consistent with the Genesis account, allele counts showing 3.5 times much more variability in the clean animals and birds than the unclean ones would be actual evidence for the account. Anything past that would be very strong evidence against the account. Counts showing more variability in unclean animals but below the max would be weak evidence against the Genesis account.

 

Remember also that these predictions are for each type of allele, and since we have thousands of alleles this makes for thousands of predictions.

Edited January 23, 2010 by Mr Skeptic

[blood_pardon]

Well' date=' remember that each animal may have only two alleles of each gene, since they are diploid (some things aren't diploid but I don't think they were supposed to be on the ark either). So then we take samples from various animals of a species and count how many different alleles there are. Alleles, of course, are different "versions" of a gene.

 

From the Genesis account, it predicts a maximum of two alleles per animal that went on the ark, making it 4 per unclean species, 14 per clean species or birds, and 10 for humans. From the genealogies in the narrative, we can say this occurred about 4,000 years ago. So to that estimate we add the number of alleles that should have evolved from the previous ones in 4,000 years. Presumably that should be small, and the new ones would have small differences. Animals that did not have to go on the ark could have as many alleles as before.

 

In addition, mitochondrial DNA is passed on by the females only, so there would be 1 per female of the species that went on the ark. Likewise, genes on the Y chromosome would only have 1 allele per male.

 

Allele counts less then this would be consistent with the Genesis account, allele counts showing 3.5 times much more variability in the clean animals and birds than the unclean ones would be actual evidence for the account. Anything past that would be very strong evidence against the account. Counts showing more variability in unclean animals but below the max would be weak evidence against the Genesis account.

 

Remember also that these predictions are for each type of allele, and since we have thousands of alleles this makes for thousands of predictions.[/quote']

 

Has there been experiments on this and what are the results?

Edited January 23, 2010 by blood_pardon
To brief

[insane_alien]

its not so much experimentation but simply recording alleles of various species. there are far far far more than there could be if they had been constrained so much 4000 years ago.

 

not to mention the complications arising from inbreeding that would have undoubtedly occured.

[Mr Skeptic]

Has there been experiments on this and what are the results?

 

Feel free to count for yourself. I know that when I was in your position I certainly would not have taken anyone's word for it. Let me just say that were this true, I know certain websites that should be shouting it from the rooftops ... and they are not.

 

To count for yourself, I suggest you go with a mouse or rat Y chromosome. As unclean species, there should have been one pair only, and only one of these would have been male, so there would only be one of each allele from the Y chromosome. You can use someone else's numbers from the scientific literature, but with just knowledge of Mendelian genetics you could also check by breeding them yourself. In that case, look for traits that are passed on by males only and only to other males.

[ydoaPs]

blood_pardon, I'm going to be in the middle of the ocean for a while, so it will take some time for me to get back to you, but I'm going to leave you with a question.

 

If evolution is wrong, what do you make of the telomeres in the middle of the human chromosome #2?