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Author Topic:   Creationists: Why is Evolution Bad Science?
crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1466 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 16 of 283 (112938)
06-05-2004 6:25 PM
Reply to: Message 14 by princesskatie
06-05-2004 5:58 PM


Which I believe that the first stage of evolution is pond scum so that would therefore mean that our DNA and every other creatures DNA that we evolved from would have to have a similarity.
As it turns out, there's considerable similarity. Morever, there's more similarity between species believed to be closer relatives - for instance, there's a greater genetic similarity between humans and chimpanzees then there is between humans and other mammals, like dogs.
If we do evolve we haven't we changed yet? If it takes millions of years for one thing to evolve wouldn't it die before it could evolve. So therefore the process of evolution has infact died out.
You and your peers are quite mistaken. Evolution, in the biological sense, is not a process that happens to individuals. It's a process that happens to populations.
Organisms are born with mutations that make them different from their parents. Sometimes those mutations confer abilities that aid survival. What we mean by "survival" is that an organism prospers, outcompetes its conspecifics, and has more surviving offspring than anybody else.
When that happens, the genetic mutation responsible for those new abilities, features, or behaviors spreads throughout the gene pool, because the decendants of that organism comprise an increasing fraction of the population. Eventually, all of the members of the population might be the distant decendant of that organism - they all possess the trait in question.
Much like how all humans are the decendant of a woman who lived 80,000 years ago - something in her genes let her decendants outcompete the other humans.
Why haven't we changed yet? We do change. You're not exactly like either of your parents, now are you? Those differences represent slight evolutionary changes.
Natural selection and random mutation are processes that apply to individuals. But the result of them - evolution - is a process that only happens to populations, not to individuals.

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crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1466 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 17 of 283 (112939)
06-05-2004 6:27 PM
Reply to: Message 15 by NosyNed
06-05-2004 6:25 PM


Thread Suggestions for the Evolutionists in Forum Welcome, Visitors!
That's hardly an appropriate topic to steer a newcomer too, particularly one so obviously a minor, don't you think?
Maybe there's a moral there, but I'd at least consider Bawdlerizing the thread before you sent schoolkids there, you know?
AbE: Ah, I see that you have already. Cool.
This message has been edited by crashfrog, 06-05-2004 05:37 PM

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Trixie
Member (Idle past 3705 days)
Posts: 1011
From: Edinburgh
Joined: 01-03-2004


Message 18 of 283 (112940)
06-05-2004 6:31 PM
Reply to: Message 14 by princesskatie
06-05-2004 5:58 PM


Very briefly.....
.....there are similarities between humans and other life forms, the similarities being greater the more closely we are related to them. If you want to have a look at some of this info, I suggest you look at the human genome sequence and the chimp genome sequence, both of which are available on-line and you can do your own comparisons. If you run into difficulties trying to do this, I'll try to help out.
The second thing is that yes, it takes millions of years for "something" to evolve into "something" else, but we're not talking about an individual here. We're talking about a population. Offspring have a slight difference from their parents, then their offspring have another slight difference. Add all the slight differences together over the number of generations that there would be in millions of years and the changes seem vast. No need for any one individual to exist for millions of years.
Oh yeah, and the argument put forward in your class has absolutely nothing to do with how evolution is thought to occur, no matter what your peer thought.
Edited for spelling (sigh)
This message has been edited by Trixie, 06-05-2004 05:32 PM

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arachnophilia
Member (Idle past 1343 days)
Posts: 9069
From: god's waiting room
Joined: 05-21-2004


Message 19 of 283 (112955)
06-05-2004 8:00 PM
Reply to: Message 14 by princesskatie
06-05-2004 5:58 PM


3) If we do evolve we haven't we changed yet? If it takes millions of years for one thing to evolve wouldn't it die before it could evolve. So therefore the process of evolution has infact died out.
So all evolutionists answer me. Please
did you know that in the last 100 years, the average human height has increased several inches? in the last 1000 it's increased about a foot.
2) We had to debate the subject in class and one of my peers brought up that we evolve when we learn. So basicly she was telling me that if I brought in a monkey out of the jungle taught it to read and wright and sign so good that we could have full colnversations after many years it would evolve into something higher which is supposledly believed to be a human. So that means all the chimps we have broughten in and taught over many years should in all technicallity be a human.
evolution is the change in a SPECIES from one GENERATION to the NEXT. humans are not higher on the evolutionary tree than chimpanzees. "height" is determined by date, and we're both around today. we also share common ancestry, one would likely not evolve into the other, although the end result may be similar.

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jar
Member (Idle past 393 days)
Posts: 34026
From: Texas!!
Joined: 04-20-2004


Message 20 of 283 (112963)
06-05-2004 8:18 PM
Reply to: Message 14 by princesskatie
06-05-2004 5:58 PM


The others have done a great job of addressing your points. But I'd like to add a couple points.
Evolution is not a road with one population dying out and the next population taking over. Instead, it is far more like branches of a tree. When a new species evolves, it quite often lives alongside other related species and even along side the parent species. It's not a relay race with the older handing the baton to the newer.
Let me take one example that is near and dear to all of us, modern humans. If we look around we find that Homo Sapiens and Neanderthal, two closely related species descended from a common ancestor, lived concurrently for most of history. In fact, the two overlapped for at least 40,000 years. But they are only part of the story. There are other close relatives, chimps and bonobos, that are also living right along side us today. All of us can trace our heritage back to the same common ancestor but we are all separate species, and three of the four are still living today.

Aslan is not a Tame Lion

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Chiroptera
Inactive Member


Message 21 of 283 (112969)
06-05-2004 8:53 PM
Reply to: Message 14 by princesskatie
06-05-2004 5:58 PM


quote:
Which I believe that the first stage of evolution is pond scum so that would therefore mean that our DNA and every other creatures DNA that we evolved from would have to have a similarity.
Actually, pond scum isn't the first stage. Rather, humans and pond scum share a common ancestor, although that ancestor lived several billion years ago. Both pond scum and humans are separate tips of branches off of a single tree trunk.

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jar
Member (Idle past 393 days)
Posts: 34026
From: Texas!!
Joined: 04-20-2004


Message 22 of 283 (112970)
06-05-2004 8:56 PM
Reply to: Message 14 by princesskatie
06-05-2004 5:58 PM


I wanted to add one more thing.
You said...
3) If we do evolve we haven't we changed yet? If it takes millions of years for one thing to evolve wouldn't it die before it could evolve.
In fact, at least once, homo sapiens almost did die out. It was a very, very close thing. Sometime, about 70-75,000 years ago, there was a nearly world-wide catastrophy. Right now, the best evidence points to a major volcanic eruption, most likely Mount Toba, in Indonesia. It was one of the largest eruptions in history and led to a 1000 years of Ice Age and worse conditions. During that time, things changed so quickly that almost all mankind died out.
It is very possible for things to change more rapidly than a population can evolve. This happens all the time. When that happens, that population does die off. They become extinct. And that is as true for humans as for every other species out there.
For some more information on the bottleneck and Mout Toba check out...
Volcanic Winter from the Bradshaw Foundation and Mout Toba Volcano.

Aslan is not a Tame Lion

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sfs
Member (Idle past 2533 days)
Posts: 464
From: Cambridge, MA USA
Joined: 08-27-2003


Message 23 of 283 (113291)
06-07-2004 11:34 AM
Reply to: Message 16 by crashfrog
06-05-2004 6:25 PM


Much like how all humans are the decendant of a woman who lived 80,000 years ago - something in her genes let her decendants outcompete the other humans.
There's no reason to think that there was any natural selection involved in this process. If you look at any part of the genome, it is inevitable that everyone will share a common ancestor at that locus -- no selection needed. All humans are descended from any number of women who lived 80,000 years ago -- which one just depends on what part of the genome you look at. (Also, 80,000 years is a very low estimate for the ancestor in question, assuming you're talking about Mitochondrial Eve.)

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sfs
Member (Idle past 2533 days)
Posts: 464
From: Cambridge, MA USA
Joined: 08-27-2003


Message 24 of 283 (113293)
06-07-2004 11:37 AM
Reply to: Message 19 by arachnophilia
06-05-2004 8:00 PM


did you know that in the last 100 years, the average human height has increased several inches? in the last 1000 it's increased about a foot.
The original poster is deeply confused about evolution, but this reply doesn't help much: the increase in height is the result of improved nutrition, not evolution.

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sfs
Member (Idle past 2533 days)
Posts: 464
From: Cambridge, MA USA
Joined: 08-27-2003


Message 25 of 283 (113295)
06-07-2004 11:40 AM
Reply to: Message 22 by jar
06-05-2004 8:56 PM


Re: I wanted to add one more thing.
In fact, at least once, homo sapiens almost did die out. It was a very, very close thing. Sometime, about 70-75,000 years ago, there was a nearly world-wide catastrophy. Right now, the best evidence points to a major volcanic eruption, most likely Mount Toba, in Indonesia. It was one of the largest eruptions in history and led to a 1000 years of Ice Age and worse conditions. During that time, things changed so quickly that almost all mankind died out.
The genetic evidence is quite strong that humans were not reduced to a very small population any time within the last few hundred thousand years. Tight bottlenecks in population size leave clear signatures in genetic variation, and those signatures are missing for humans as a whole. (They are present, to a modest degree, in non-African populations, which is usually taken as a sign that there were population bottlenecks in the Out of Africa migration.)

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Dr Jack
Member
Posts: 3514
From: Immigrant in the land of Deutsch
Joined: 07-14-2003
Member Rating: 8.7


Message 26 of 283 (113296)
06-07-2004 11:40 AM
Reply to: Message 19 by arachnophilia
06-05-2004 8:00 PM


in the last 1000 it's increased about a foot.
Source please. I was under the impression medieval plater armour implied an average height for knights of over six foot (although of course one would expect knights to be bigger, tougher and better fed than the average citizen).
Also a one foot different would drop the average height of men down to 4'11" and women to 4'6" - that's pretty damn tiny.

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arachnophilia
Member (Idle past 1343 days)
Posts: 9069
From: god's waiting room
Joined: 05-21-2004


Message 27 of 283 (113304)
06-07-2004 11:56 AM
Reply to: Message 26 by Dr Jack
06-07-2004 11:40 AM


apparently i was duly corrected before.
although i'm not sure it has EVERYTHING to do with nutrition, because women often cite height as a quality they select for.

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jar
Member (Idle past 393 days)
Posts: 34026
From: Texas!!
Joined: 04-20-2004


Message 28 of 283 (113311)
06-07-2004 12:29 PM
Reply to: Message 25 by sfs
06-07-2004 11:40 AM


Re: I wanted to add one more thing.
Absolutely correct. The evidence seems to be quite clear that there was a bottleneck and that the African populations were not as greatly reduced. In addition, this is also supported by the DNA studies from other primates in Africa.

Aslan is not a Tame Lion

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sfs
Member (Idle past 2533 days)
Posts: 464
From: Cambridge, MA USA
Joined: 08-27-2003


Message 29 of 283 (113443)
06-07-2004 11:16 PM
Reply to: Message 28 by jar
06-07-2004 12:29 PM


Re: I wanted to add one more thing.
Absolutely correct. The evidence seems to be quite clear that there was a bottleneck and that the African populations were not as greatly reduced.
The evidence is quite clear (to me, at least -- it's still been controversial until the past year or so) that there was a bottleneck in non-African populations. The evidence is far from clear that there was a bottleneck in Africa. Some studies have suggested that there was, some that there wasn't. The only study I can think of offhand that found evidence for population expansion in Africa (presumably the result of some kind of bottleneck) and that also attempted to date it (a study by David Reich and David Goldstein) produced most probable dates that were a good deal earlier than you propose. But other studies (e.g. one by Frisse et al -- I can find references if you're interested) show that the best-fitting model is one with a constant-sized population. There is nothing resembling consensus in the literature that there was a recent bottleneck within African populations; if anything, the reverse is the case.
In addition, this is also supported by the DNA studies from other primates in Africa.
Which studies do you mean? There have been very few large-scale surveys of primate genetic diversity, which is what you would need to draw this kind of conclusion. And what I've seen suggests the opposite. A study came out earlier this year by Molly Przeworski and company, showing that central chimps (but not western chimps) have more genetic diversity than humans and show no evidence of population expansion or bottlenecking.

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jar
Member (Idle past 393 days)
Posts: 34026
From: Texas!!
Joined: 04-20-2004


Message 30 of 283 (113459)
06-07-2004 11:45 PM
Reply to: Message 29 by sfs
06-07-2004 11:16 PM


Re: I wanted to add one more thing.
I'm agreeing with you.
Yes, the studies of both human and primate DNA from African samples do not show the recent bottle neck.

Aslan is not a Tame Lion

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