What i can't understand about evolution....

To moderators,Except for the brief interlude involving SeekingFirstTheKingdom that wasted a lot of messages, this thread has been productive, temperate and on-topic. We're past 300 messages now, but I suggest keeping this thread open for another 100 messages or so and then taking another status check.--Percy

I don't know who this "Pery" is, but he sounds like a pretty astute guy! Repeating what I suggested in Message 301, SeekingFirstTheKingdom wasted a lot of message space, so while the message count is now above 300, that's not indicative of how much opportunity there has been for productive discussion.Despite the rather broad thread title we've settled in on just a few related themes and are making good progress, but the line of discussion with Peg and Wardog25 feels fragile and I'd rather not risk losing it because of a thread restart. I think the participants would be grateful if we could keep the thread open for a while longer, taking another status check around 400 messages or so.--Percy

You keep referring to evolutionary progression and advancing up the evolutionary scale, but there's no such thing. Evolution is not a progression from less advanced to more advanced. It's a progression from less adapted to better adapted, and the requirements of adaptation do not include becoming more advanced, which is an ambiguous and highly relative term best avoided in discussions about evolution.Creatures successfully adapted to their environment are not more advanced than creatures poorly adapted to that same environment. Drop a man naked into the water around Antarctica and see how well he competes with the penguins. Does his quick demise mean he is less advanced than the penguins? No, of course not, and it doesn't even make sense to ask the question. It merely means he is less well adapted to that environment.It's perfectly reasonably to ask questions about creatures like which is faster, which is stronger, which has sharper teeth, which is more intelligent, and so forth, but being faster or stronger or smarter doesn't mean more advanced. All that counts is how well adapted creatures are to their environment. As others have told you, humans are apes, but the question you're asking is still pretty clear. Here's a table from Wikipedia's article on human evolution. The acronym mya stands for millions of years ago. Homo sapiens sapiens is 3rd from the bottom.

Comparative table of Homo species

Species	Lived when (mya)	Lived where	Adult height	Adult mass	Brain volume (cm)	Fossil record	Discovery / publication of name
H. habilis	2.2 - 1.6	Africa	1.0-1.5 m (3.3-4.9 ft)	33-55 kg (73-120 lb)	660	many	1960/1964
H. erectus	2 - 0.03	Africa, Eurasia (Java, China, Caucasus)	1.8 m (5.9 ft)	60 kg (130 lb)	850 (early) - 1100 (late)	many	1891/1892
H. rudolfensis	1.9	Kenya				1 skull	1972/1986
H. georgicus	1.8	Republic of Georgia			600	few	1999/2002
H. ergaster	1.9 - 1.4	E. and S. Africa	1.9 m (6.2 ft)		700-850	many	1975
H. antecessor	1.2 - 0.8	Spain	1.75 m (5.7 ft)	90 kg (200 lb)	1000	2 sites	1997
H. cepranensis	0.9 - 0.8?	Italy			1000	1 skull cap	1994/2003
H. heidelbergensis	0.6 - 0.25	Europe, Africa, China	1.8 m (5.9 ft)	60 kg (130 lb)	1100-1400	many	1908
H. neanderthalensis	0.35 - 0.03	Europe, W. Asia	1.6 m (5.2 ft)	55-70 kg (120-150 lb) (heavily built)	1200-1700	many	(1829)/1864
H. rhodesiensis	0.3 - 0.12	Zambia			1300	very few	1921
H. sapiens sapiens	0.2 - present	worldwide	1.4-1.9 m (4.6-6.2 ft)	50-100 kg (110-220 lb)	1000-1850	still living	”/1758
H. sapiens idaltu	0.16 - 0.15	Ethiopia			1450	3 craniums	1997/2003
H. floresiensis	0.10 - 0.012	Indonesia	1.0 m (3.3 ft)	25 kg (55 lb)	400	7 individuals	2003/2004

An actual evolutionary tree would be harder to produce since there are many disagreements about the order and structure of descent.--Percy

Only some evolutionists are atheists. Many evolutionists are like me and believe in God.If your problems with evolution stem from a belief that it somehow rules out God then you're mistaken. Evolution itself doesn't address the issue of God at all.However, evolution does make it pretty clear that a literal interpretation of the Biblical accounts in Genesis 1 and 2 as telling us that all life was created just 6000 years ago, and that there was a flood that wiped most life 4500 years ago, is not supported by any evidence, and is contradicted by most evidence.If for you belief in God also requires belief in a literal interpretation of Genesis 1 and 2, then obviously you'll have problems with a lot of science, not just evolution. True, but we cannot rule out aliens or magic, either. In science it is never a case of, "That which we cannot rule out must be true."Science is about finding evidence for your hypotheses. Unfortunately for intelligent design, it has no scientific evidence.--Percy

I disagree with Huntard's answer. The think it very likely that gorillas and orangutans (Wikipedia says there are two species of each) most certainly did evolve. For example, gorillas and humans diverged from a common ancestor around 5 to 10 million years ago, and our genes differ by about 1.6% today. After the passage of so much time, both gorillas and humans have evolved a great deal from the common ancestor. There's no way to know at this time whether gorillas or humans evolved more. I know we'd like to assume that humans evolved more, but we don't have evidence for that assumption.Like a fancy automobile autopilot of the future that keeps you driving down the middle of the road, evolution serves like an autopilot that keeps a species in or near the sweet spot of adaptation to its environment. When the road curves your car's autopilot will make adjustments that keep you going along the new road direction. In the same way, when environments change, evolution will make genetic adjustments (through mutation, allele remixing and natural selection) that keep a species adapted to the environment.Just as an autopilot would make very few adjustments on a straight road, evolution would make very few adaptations in a stable environment.But on a very curvy road your autopilot would have to make many adjustments, and in the same way, in a continuously changing environment evolution would have to create many new adaptations, else the organism would go extinct, analogous to your car going off the road.In other words, it is changing environments that cause significant evolutionary change. What Huntard was saying was that if gorillas and orangutans haven't evolved much, then it would be because their environments were stable. However, I don't think the African environment has been that stable when considered over the past 5 to 10 million years, and I think it likely that both gorillas and orangutans have experienced significant evolution over that period.--Percy

Scientists refusing to accept something for which there is no evidence! Oh, horror!You know why theologians cannot explain why a beneficent Christian God lets bad things happen to good people? Because they refuse to accept that the Flying Spaghetti monster is actually the one true God.Makes just as much sense, Peg.--Percy

Scientists have come up with tons of these evolutionary trees over the years, continually refining and improving them as evidence accumulates, and I see that DevilsAdvocate has provided a few. The problem with them, and the reason I didn't provide one, is that the evidence is not yet sufficient to create a final version for the human portion of ape evolution. We only know enough to create plausible evolutionary trees, which means that different evolutionary trees can be composed to fit the available evidence.--Percy

This is more accurate than what Huntard posted when he implied some creatures haven't evolved, but saying that these creatures haven't changed significantly leaves it unclear about how much these creatures have actually evolved. None of the living species of crocodiles, sharks and coelacanths are the same as the fossil species from millions of years ago. These are family- and order-level classifications, and while I haven't researched this I doubt if any of the species or genera from millions of years ago have survived until today.--Percy

You used just this sort of thing to drive Modulous over the edge, so let me reply in kind, pardon me if I use capitalization and punctuation.You don't think it's possible that conservative Christians, who are trying desperately to hold onto the illusion that their religious beliefs are not contradicted by all evidence, could be ignoring and misrepresenting the data to fit their Biblically based ideas about creation, including falsely maligning scientists and their work?If you want to believe in a world-wide mass delusion then go ahead, but the rest of us live in reality and would like to focus on the evidence. Tell you what, why don't you propose a thread to enumerate frauds, misrepresentations and significant mistakes for evolution versus those for creation, and we'll keep a count of each. In fact, if someone proposes such a thread I'll promote it as quickly as I can, I think it would be illuminating.--Percy

Trust me, this thread is not about Jesus. Kapyong has barely posted to this thread, and only very recently. Respond to members who have been consistent on-topic participants.--Percy

What do mean by 'proved'? Do you mean "confirmed by evidence obtained from the experiments", which is the type of terminology Kapyong was using? If that's the case, then yes, evolution has been confirmed through experimentation, just as Kapyong told you. Hey, Peg, do you maybe remember something from someone at some point saying something that maybe suggested that evolution and abiogenesis are not the same thing? About 20 times?So did it maybe strike your noggin at some point while reading Kapyong's post that since he never mentioned abiogenesis or the origin of life, and since he only mentioned evolution, that maybe his post was about evolution and not about abiogenesis?Sheesh!--Percy

Evolution and abiogenesis are related, but they are not the same thing.Let's say that in some way it is demonstrated that the first life arose by a miracle and not by abiogenesis, so we become very certain that abiogenesis never happened. How would that invalidate the evolution that you have already acknowledged takes place within what you call "kinds"? It doesn't invalidate it, right? Now can you see how independent evolution and abiogenesis are?--Percy

In the same post Peg also claimed you said that evolution is random. You might want to address that point as well.--Percy

You already accept that evolution takes place within kinds. Ask yourself why you accept this. Whatever your answer is, that's the evidence you're using to accept evolution.Also, you probably want to avoid using any variation of the word "prove". It only leads to confusion in these kinds of discussions. Obviously they don't, because you already accept evolution.You don't seem to be aware of the many contradictions in your own thinking, even while composing contradictions in consecutive clauses of the same sentence.If you're going to reject evolution because you believe there's insufficient evidence for abiogenesis, then you have to reject the evolution you already accept between kinds. The question you actually meant to ask is, "What sort of experiments are supportive of the possibility of abiogenesis?" That's a very interesting question, but this thread is about evolution, not abiogenesis.Peg, if you want to spend some time here developing a better understanding of why evolution is not dependent upon abiogenesis then that would be fine, but ignoring the issue isn't going to make it go away.--Percy

Exactly. And it doesn't matter to evolution at all whether the first life arose through abiogenesis or through an act of God.Let's assume the first life was created by God. Then since the reproductive mechanisms he put in place are imperfect and almost always generate the genetic errors (mutations) that are one of the driving forces behind evolution (the others being allele remixing and natural selection), evolution was inevitable.You see, evolution doesn't need abiogenesis. That's why Darwin's book was titled Origin of Species, not Origin of the Very First Species and not Origin of Life.--Percy