1 piece of evidence to disprove evolution..

Hi, I'm merely curious as to how one would actually disprove evolution ( as opposed to creationism ).Simply put, I dont have the neccesary knowlege to disprove anything really as
1. I dont have a degree in Geology forinstance, or in microbiology etc.
2. I really dont have the time to get a degree just so I can have a discussionHowever I'm merely curious as to what it would take to change an evolutionists mind ? Personally I find the avian evolution theory very suspect, however I'm wondering what would be the consequences if someone could provide one foolproof piece of evidence to disprove evolution, would that mean everyone would disbelieve evolution, or would there be some theory on the anomaly, would it inspire a new theory (similar to evolution) or would everyone actually just abandon their beliefs ?I've heard explanations for the Big bang and many other explantions, however unless one can reproduce those events, I dont see how it can be proved ? I mean, surely its all hypothetical in any case ?Anyway, hope to hear some opinions.[This message has been edited by Zealot, 08-14-2003]{Note from Adminnemooseus - A simular topic (now closed) can be found at "Potential falsifications of the theory of evolution"}[This message has been edited by Adminnemooseus, 08-15-2003]

Hi, firstly my stance.Currently I'm not sure about what I believe RE Evolution vs Creation.
I am a Christian, however I've pretty much grown up with the belief (TV, biology etc) that evolution is a part of life etc. I merely assumed that Time was nor relative to God, IE: 14 Billion Year is virtually equal to 3 seconds when the common denominator is infinity.More specifically I dont understand, and haven't been able to find creditable information on Avian Evolution.Basically my opinion of Evolution (leymans terms) is that an organism experiences a mutation of some sort, which enables it to receive some sort of benefit for survival and producing offspring AND giving those offspring an improved chance at survival.Avian evolution I just dont grasp. Essentially this would have been a specie that experienced a mutation that would not have enabled it to fly, more likely that not hampered its development ? Simply put the very first organism to have a mutation would have had to received some sort of benefit to survive no ? Surely this mutation would have been so miniscule that it couldn't have been an advantage, more likely it would have been a disadvantage ? I have heard the theories of gliding monkeys and squirrels, however that surely would have implied that all monkeys should be able to fly (same for squirrels) as they would have had a better change of survival than other monkeys/squirrels ?Considering the extreme complexity of a bird's wings, I cant see the progression from a squirrel / bird creature with essentialy useless limbs for wings ...PS, should this be moved to a seperate topic ?thanks

My sincerest appologies. As for me not knowing what I'm talking about, quite possibly. It's pretty much why I entered the site. I realise alot of people on this site prefer to use as complicated vernacular as possibly. Perhaps it makes them sound more educated and me stupid. Either way, hope my 'leymanicity' doesn't annoy you too much I've pretty much read these theories, however recall reading that there is a distinct difference between insulating and flight feathers, so the two couldn't really be compared. I havent seen that fossil , but I'll check it out, thanks. This is where I have difficulty in understanding. The wing would prove pretty much useless unless it aided as a means of flight or temportal flight. I dont particularly see a feathered creature without any of these abilities, have any advantage over any other feathered creatures, infact I see any feathered animal with 2 less limbs at a distinct disadvantage. It would be fine if you assumed that a mutation would result in a massive advantage to the organism ( as in gliding abilities ), however if you've ever looked at complexity of a wing, its incredibly sophisticated. Any malformation would result in the bird unable to fly. I just dont see a small mutation increasing the feathered animal's ability to glide/fly. I see what you're saying, and I am trying to picture it from a 'flying squirrels' perspective, however any mutation would have to be significant enough for the animal to actually have an advantage right ? Also you didn't answer my question about why flying squirrels didn't replace normal squirrels ?Forinstance take a rat, Small animal. I imagine a rat jumping from tree to tree however I just cant conceptualise a small mutation that would allow this rat even to glide. It would actually have to be a rather large mutation surely ? I mean literally something that would give this animal instant gliding ? Well no I realise that, and I've read about both the up-down and the down-up theories, however I really fail to be able to conceptualise it (hehe, especially the down-up theory). From what I've read it seems pretty much like a 'unknown' area of evolution. For instance it still leaves me to wonder about the dragon fly, butter fly etc. Surely those creatures had no need to glide ?In any case. thanks for your input. I think there is a new theory on this, which is suppose to be an improvement, so I'll give that a read.cheers

Hi, my original post was infact as I wanted to know if evolution could be proved false, well in the sense that all life originated 3.5 billions yeard ago form a single celled amoeba forinstance I realise most Creationists accept micro evolution, however not macro evolution.From my experience about discussing theories they can only be considered viable if not proved false. Hence I wanted to know why avian evolution wasn't more of a problem amoungst the 'evolutionists' than it currently is. Not planning to. One of my discussions is about natural selection (which I fully believe in), which I'm trying to find out if it is responsible for visible changes in species.I dont know about the fruitflies ? I mean I fully understand natural selection, however apparently (from what I read here), there have been no 'evolution' (as in 'beneficial mutation') in the labs. I mean cancer is a mutation of cells, but it doesn't imply evolution. Well, essentially my question would thus if 'Evolutionists' could 100 % believe evolution being responsible for all the diverse life forms we have, when taking into account some pretty drastic transitions, such as avian evolution ? Could Creation views not be valid ? I have no idea about that, however it would be pretty neccesary for me to use a dictionary to actually understand the explanations provided (well most of the time). I suppose the Religious equivalent would be asking a priest a question, to which the reply would be a sentance about the 'diathecise' or some other word one would not understand. cheers[This message has been edited by Zealot, 08-15-2003]

Well, from what I've heard and general consensus from Evolutionists is that Avian evolution is pretty much still a big question mark. So much so that the up-down and down-up theories have been constantly challenged and new theories proposed. I would rather prefer someone to say 'We just dont know yet' that... most likely that must have been the case.Same goes for the eye. A tremendously complex organ that I honestly cant see how it could have evolved by random mutation. Yes I'm sure 100% that there will be a theory to it , but how plausable ? I mean I can even probably tell you that its some kind of light receptor cell that enabled an organism (sorry I forget the correct word) to detect light. Pff and I dont even know the first thing about evolution! That is entirely my point and why I mentioned Avian Evolution. If there seems as if there can be no evolutionary 'leap' from 1 species to the next, what would it imply to evolutionists ?Would it just be one missing piece of the jigsaw or would it actually question all current theories ? I mean usually for a theory to be proved false, you only need to prove one part of the equasion as false. While I realise it to be extremely difficult for evolutionists to prove all questions, in light of difficulty of finding proof, basically I want to find out what would have to be proved to debunk the ToE.My appologies for offending anyone. I'm actually finding these talks pretty interesting and mean no offense to anyone's belief, however I'm sure when you throw creationists and evolutionists in the same room, you're bound to stir a few feathers, so I'm sure you guys should be use to these questions.Have a good weekend all!
Phew.. sunny in London... time to hit the ... park PS.. is there any way to change your password ?

Hi Quetzal, thanks for your reply.The thing to me is that the theory of avian evolution really is a case of speculation (which apparently you guys agree with). I by no means insinuate that there is no 'findings' that suggest it could be true, merely that the findings seem to be pretty incomplete, which is fair and I agree not sufficient to 'disprove' evolution as such (or the theory of avian evolution forinstance). However when many questions arise, which cant be answered, would the ToE hold less ground ?I think Darwin stated something along the lines that the ToE could be proved false 'IF' it could be proved impossible for evolution from one species to another (well something to that effect) however this is impossible. It could be highly unlikely (as IMO Avian Evolution), however impossible to disprove in precisely the same way God cannot be proved not to exist. So in essense the ToE would be , in Darwin's opinion, virtually impossible to disprove ?I mean, removing all forms of geological ageing etc, would it not be possible to assume a God created all animals with natural selection (and possibly mutation) in mind ?I mean, my (utterly simplistic) view is as follows. I have 4000 lego pieces and I can use any amount of them to create 10 000 objects. When I build a spaceship, I use the 'wings', and when I build cars, I use 'wheels' together with other 'common' building pieces. Houses and Offices have windows. Yes, sometimes I can add a room to a house or add another engine to a plane. In the end I have 1 000 objects and I can pretty much organise them into 'most complex' and 'least complex' and buildings and vehicles ect.I've built each of these objects seperately, however I have used similar building blocks for similar objects. None of these however have actually evolved from one another, but when arranged chronologically , they might have seemed to 'grown' from the smallest ?Anything you want to prove you can do exactly the same with. You have something like what 100 000 (way more I'm sure) species that you can arrange (say the eye) from most simple to most complex and draw up a conclusion from that. Not saying that doesn't make sense, just that for any 'Darwin' evolutionary gap question that can be used, thus its pretty much impossible to prove incorrect surely or at that unfeasible.The way that Darwin didn't didn't seemed concerned with explaining where the 'primordial pool' came from, also confuses me.Same goes for the formation and complexity of DNA , which apparently Darwin didn't know about in his time, also things such as instinct and simbiotic relationships.I know all these questions have been answered already, because of this constant debate between Evolutionists and Creationists, but are there any theories (other than avian evol) that any of you guys have difficultly with ? I know Christian's have difficulty answering questions sometimes, but just because you dont know the answer, doesn't mean it doesn't exists. Same ofcourse can be said about evolution.thanks for your time.EDIT.. fixed my putrid spelling..[This message has been edited by Zealot, 08-16-2003]

Hehe, I watched NFL, but lost interest after Barry Saunders retired. I see what you are saying and dont disagree, but in evolution there really is no way to do this is there ? For instance ever if there only existed 1 Bird today , there wouldn't even have to be any trace of any bird fossils as they just "haven't been found.", which in itself would be a fair comment I'm sure.My football analogy would be if you told me the Bills beat the Cowboys 400 - 3 in the superbowl. While by no means impossible (especially when you consider how old the Earth is and that they have been playing football for a 1000 years), my gut reaction would be to one of scepticism.Usually facts are essentially suppose to be just things of 'extremely high probability', and the only way to disprove a fact would be to look at its weakest point. This however would get particularly more difficult if the 'fact' was able to "evolve" with new findings.Lets just put it this way. If the Bible could 'evolve' in its content, there wouldn't even be arguments with Evolutionists. Dont know if that made any sense ?cheers.

Hi Percy. Hope you had a good weekend. CNN.com - Page not found' WASHINGTON (AP) -- Some may like it hot, but nothing likes it hotter than a weird microbe known as Strain 121. The one-celled organism, captured from a magma vent at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, can survive 266 degrees Fahrenheit (130 degrees Celsius), a temperature no other known life form can tolerate. 'Came across this just now while doing my weekend CNN browse. This would pretty much be an anomoly surely, but again I dont see it even making a dent in the ToE. It would just be another example of 'something resisting more and more heat etc... ' Well this is kinda what I've been thinking about RE fossils. If you take the fossil record and compare the skeletons of even a human from birth to adulthood, essentially you could say that 'tall men' evolved from 'short- round headed' creatures.Same can be said for Dogs. Labradors and Jack Russels are all the same species, but should only the labrador continue to survive, then 10 000 years from now their fossils are found and assumptions would be made that Labradors evolved from Jack Russels ?

Good question. And by the way, I dont particularly disbelieve in evolution. I was pretty much a believer to a certain degree until about 3 years ago. I dont deny that a God that created all life on Earth would have catered for it to be able to sustain itself without interference, so from that respect I understand evolution, however my problem in believing that we all resulted from some primordial pool is where I get unstuck. Yes Darwins theory is supported by certain scientific fields, well dependant on them more like it. (IE: They have all been based on the ToE to a certain extent.)There are however alot of mathematicians and scientists from various areas (Einstein forinstance) that could not believe in the 'chaos thoery' (well essentailly that there wasn't a 'creator' to start off with.) Nope, not at all. Like I said, not everything can be proved. Lets put it this way. I'm a developer by profession and essentially when I test code, we do 'unit testing'. Simply put it just means every function we write is tested in isolation from the entire program. If one of these functions fails, odds are the entire system will fail, however if you ask any programmer when the system goes live, there definitely are no bugs Through the development life cycle however we chop and change functions, adapt some code to work with new functions ect, until eventually after alot of time, we have what we like to consider a working system.The confusing metaphor I'm trying to draw up here is one where a theory IMO should be tested on its own, devoid and not based on another theory. The system on a whole might seem to work, but sooner of later if there is one flaw in the systsm, the entire thing could come crashing down. Not saying Evolution IS like that, merely that the premised of a 'primordial pool' could be complete wrong, which would change a lot of other theories. Hehe, I actually had someone explain avian evolution to me in 2 sentances before. He said 'Something has feathers, then flaps their wings' and slowly learns to fly Off topic I know, but funny none the less.Well the thing is there just seems too much of a lack of fossils to convince me, but again I know it doesn't prove it didn't happen. Which is pretty much my point. In my prior reply, there is an microbe capable of surviving in 250 degrees fahrenheid, but again this will be easy to explain and just because there aren't any intermediate microbes, doesn't mean they dont exist.. This I dont get, yes all organisms share the same DNA code, but all houses are made of bricks. As far as I knew only 90% of all genes in the human body have been mapped, however how much is known about other species ? Again I point to my stupid lego example. A flat and a house will be completely different objects in no way dependant on one another however they will share 97% of the same common components. Surely it makes sense that creatures that share the most similar collection of genes would end up looking like one another ? Well this is where I find it interesting. Virtually every creature (well, most significant ones) has 2 eyes. This would give me the impression that 2 eyes are the optimum number of eyes for survival correct ? I mean we have dinosaurs to lizards to snakes to grasshoppers, octipi ect all have 2 eyes, however a spider has 10 eyes (or something like that). For spiders it just happens to be the 'optimum amount of eyes to have'. Ants however (even if they were to mutate eyes) it just seems it would not be beneficial for them to have eyes, which is unusual considering they actually do spend alot of time above ground. Well I pretty much 100% accept Natural Selection as true and I know mutations occur. I suppose for evolution (ignoring the Big Bang theory) to be fact, I would have to see either life on another planet, or evolution from 'essentialy nothing'. Eg: the Moon, mars etc. And that would have to be able to be reproduced. PS.. anyone have any idea why the moon revolves around the earth ?It's basically this. We live on a planet, which seems to be in perfect harmony mathematically with the Sun, Moon and other planets in the solar system. We can choose to believe it all just happened from a Big Bang, or that there is some sort of order to it all. I think this is what Einstein also had a problem with.Another one of my examples AI is in essence a program/code that is able to teach itself and thus become smarter. An example would be a recursive function for a Chess program. This just means that everytime a piece of code is called, it actually creates another instance of itself , which contains all the information from the previous function. In theory, one day we could be able to produce a smart 'program' which is capable of teaching itself and learning more. I read a couple of Asimov books as a youth, so I fully believe this will be accomplished in not too long a period of time. If one day this program becomes self aware, it will be able to trace its 'evolution' back , however someone had to be there to start it all off, which is where I have a problem with the whole evolution theory from 'Primordial Soup'.For me to look at the world around me and see how alone we actually are in this universe, I find it very difficult to believe its all just a matter of chance. Even the fact that the Earth is supposedly 17.5 Billion years old and we are the first ones (17.5 Billion divided by 150 (years since ToE) ) that have come to understand the 'truth', is so miniscule, I cant help but think 'either Im just insanely lucky be be here... now, or there is more to life.gnight.. I really need to sleep!PS. Sorry this post is longer than I intended, so feel free to reply to just the relevant sections.

Proven myself incapable ? Is that actual proof or just assumption based on your observations ?You get upset when I have difficulty in understanding but you say'It would certainly be difficult for us to assert that one species evolved from a previous one if every species had its own genetic code, but this is not the case. All organisms share the DNA code. The mountain of molecular data that we currently have is well explained by the idea of common descent: that modern forms all share common ancestors.'and then I read up in CNN ..'Living organisms are divided in three domains, based on their genetic makeup and cell structure. People, plants and animals are in the Eukaryotic domain, and most germs are in the Eubacteria domain. The third domain, Archaea, are microorganisms that generally live in extreme conditions of heat, cold, pressures or acidity and have a DNA structure unlike the other two. 'So.. again.. my appologies for getting confused. Well, I suppose these forums are thus meant only for the scientific educated ? My appologies if my scientific knowledge extends only to A level biology, so perhaps we should all go back, get a decent working knowlege of DNA and mutation before we ask 'stupid' questions such as why do spiders have 8 eyes or how did the moon come to rotate around the earth.Either way, please feel free to ignore my posts.[This message has been edited by Zealot, 08-18-2003]

Well, I just assumed that for organisms to evolve from one another, they would at the bare minimum have the same DNA structure, or am I again mistaken ? I think you insulted me in there somewhere, but due to the fact that half those words I didn't understand, I will have to just accept your answer BTW, Biology was one of 6 subjects of mine and I did it around 10 years ago, so forgive me if its a bit rusty.

Sorry, its the easiest way I can explain my confusion. Yes I was referring to significant creatures. Of these I would have assumed that there would have existed some 'optimum' number of eyes for all creatures, however spiders differ. Another example is the way in which not all spiders are poinonous. Yes I know, they dont all NEED to be poisonous, however surely poisonous spiders would have been better suited to survival ? I mean thats what the 'survival of the fittest' is all about surely ? We look at black men in africa, believed to be 'survival fo the fittest' that people with darker pigment will be more suited to survive in warm sunny climates, thus eventually the only people that remain are dark skinned. Its not as if people with light skin cant survive the sun, merely that they are not as suited. Surely this argument would pass for any new species ? If its mutation is beneficial, not only will it be better suited than what its mutated from, but will eventually replace the other species ? Sorry yes I know they have 'eyes' however from my understanding they were virtually useless."Burchelli ants stage colossal raids in search of invertebrate prey. During these raids, up to 200,000 near-blind ants stream out of their nest and form multiple freeway-like trails that are up to 20 meters (65 feet) wide and 100 meters (330 feet) long. In a raid the ants can attack and kill as many as 30,000 prey items. "from http://news.nationalgeographic.com/...030224_anttraffic.htmlHaving looked up on the net, I see that there are infact ants with functional eyes, however again I dont see why these ants haven't replaced those that dont have functional eyes.cheerscheers

Just what I was thinking!I remember reading/hearing that the only 2 species capable of destroying their environment are Elephants and Humans. Elephants as they have no natural predators (except man!) and clearly man for the same reason. Elephants in turn are able to destroy their environment, by for instance destroying the very trees they depend on for food.For all purpose the T-Rex could have been this super species , eventually multiplied beyond containment, causing general extinction of many other species. Basically this just remind me of a movie 'Reign of Fire'. Eventually though this super species would probably die out due to lack of prey I assume though (due to over- population), but nevertheless it would happen surely.Imagine this. Super Species reigns over all, kills many species. Only very swift 'prey' survive, thus eventually the 'super species' becomes extinct and so it all starts over again. Prey continues its survival, due to low numbers, there is inbreeding, leading to move diverse organisms, eventually becoming a new super species.This however we will dismiss because of the fossil record correct ? That would imply that there would seem to be a cyclical record in the fossil table. But why is that ? If we take the example of cancer in the human body, it ends up killing the host and itself in the process. Surely this is just an example of an organism becoming too strong, which could exist in nature ?cheers[This message has been edited by Zealot, 08-18-2003]

Well, from what I have gathered the fossil table is basically arranged from most simple to most complex organism ?from CrashFrog Well, in my naivity I assumed it had no natural predators [This message has been edited by Zealot, 08-18-2003]

Well, wouldn't this be a creationist argument then ? Well, how can you say that a dove's wing is not the perfect wing for the dove ? I mean surely if 1 dove develops a mutation to produce a better wing (faster/longer flight), this would assume that the 'fitter' dove would have a greater chance of surviving to reproduce ? Thus after x years of mutation, the dove would have a perfect wing (for its body) ?Lets take a hypothetical example of a lion. Should 1 lion develop an ability to secrete poison from its bite, this would mean that that specific lion would only have to scratch or get a small bite out of its prey before the prey collapses and dies. This would surely be a substantial advantage over all the other lions. Thus this lion would in a very quick span replace lions without poisonous fangs. Also a lion today (after 100 000 years of evolution) would surely by default have the 'perfect' claw (for a lion) ? Any Lion that develops a stronger claw would mean his genes would most likely be passed on to the next generation (well most likely that is) ?Any spider forinstance that develops poisonous fangs will be at an advantage to any spider that doesn't have poisonous fangs, the species, will change and eventually a perfect species will be the end result ? Sorry , bad comparison. Just take a virus forinstance or some parasite that kills its host and thus itself in the process. Sorry cant remember the name or term of that. Either way, surely this would be a feasible analogy when comparing man and a nuclear holocaust to the Environment ?Cheers.