Where is the evidence for evolution?

blanko writes:

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hey guys,

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i’m new here, but so far i’ve enjoyed the debate, up until schrafinator and john began questioning scientist credibility based on whether or not that scientist came from a creationist web sitethe truth is, evolution is backwards science based on scientist taking a theory (they were taught in their biased schools) and attempting to get notoriety by manipulating the evidence to support their theory.

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Care to back up that assertion? I'm not going to accept your say-so that there is a global conspiracy to promote evolution and that nobody has been able to uncover it before now.

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couldn’t be further from the truththe only science that has been consistent throughout time is the science of mathematics

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Mathematics isn't a science.

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and any scientist that should be taken serious are the scientist that take the probabilities of their theories being true into consideration before attempting to publish thembefore evolutionist can discuss any species evolving, they first have to consider the probability of a single functional ‘simple’ cell forming by natural causesaccording to sir fred hoyle (british mathematician and astronomer) the probabilities of a single functional ‘simple’ cell forming by natural cause is ‘less than’ 10 to the 57800 powergiven an eternity, every credible mathematician will tell you that is impossible.

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Firstly, live most probably DID NOT start with a cell.
Secondly, abiogenisis has absolutely NOTHING to do with evolution. Live could have been zapped into existence, arrived through a dimentional rift, or came about via abiogenisis. Evolution doesn't care, as long as that life doesn't replicate perfectly evolution proceeds naturally.
Thirdly, scientific theories are based on 'probabilities', though not the way you think. The more evidence supports a theory, the more probable it is that said theory is correct. No theory ever reaches 100% probability, however it can go from highly likely to to falsified very quickly. All you need is evidence that the theory cannot explain. Have any?

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since you guys are so into credintials:

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"Sir Fred Hoyle, a world-renowned astronomer, is acknowledged to be one of the most creative scientists of the 20th century. He has held the position of Plumian Professor of Astronomy at Cambridge University, and was also the founder of the Institute of Astronomy at Cambridge. He is currently an Honorary Fellow of both Emmanuel College and St.John's College Cambridge and an Honorary Professor at Cardiff University of Wales. He is best known for his seminal contributions to the theory of the structure of stars and on the origin of the chemical elements in stars. He is a joint proponent of the Steady-State model of the Universe, and in collaboration with Chandra Wickramasinghe he has pioneered the modern theory of panspermia. Amongst the numerous awards and distinctions bestowed on him are the UN Kalinga Prize, 1968, the Royal Medal of the Royal Society and the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society. In 1997 he was awarded the highly prestigious Crafoord Prize by the the Swedish Academy in recognition of outstanding basic research in fields not covered by the Nobel prize. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society and a Foriegn Associate of the US National Academy of Sciences. He has published over 40 books, including technical science, popular science and science fiction" (evolution).

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this is what else fred had to say on the subject...

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"Once we see, however, that the probability of life originating at random is so utterly minuscule as to make it absurd, it becomes sensible to think that the favourable properties of physics on which life depends are in every respect deliberate.It is therefore almost inevitable that our own measure of intelligence must reflect higher intelligences even to the limit of God. such a theory is so obvious that one wonders why it is not widely accepted as being self-evident. The reasons are psychological rather than scientific."

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You do know what panspermia means don't you?
Where did you get this quote anyway?
It matters little. Fred Hoyle is wrong. Nobody I know says that life originated randomly. It most likely started chemically, following the rules of chemistry. You do know that chemicals don't react together randomly don't you?------------------
compmage

sonnikke writes:

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ROFLMAO....tell that to Albert Einstein.

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Why would I want to do that?Just because scientists make use of Math in their theories and law use equations to express certain relationships does not make mathematics science.Math has proofs.
Science has evidence.
Math is exact.
Science is tentative.

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That is the biggest COPOUT in evolutionism....your whole ToE idea is based on life being in existence,

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Do you doubt that life exists?

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one would think HOW life got there in the first place should also be explained by ToE.

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Why? If life exists and doesn't reproduct perfectly then evolution happens. How it got here doesn't matter.

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Why has the Miller-Urey (failed) experiment been propagated for so many years in biology textbooks under evolution, if it has NOTHING to do with it.

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Since when did their experiment fail?

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Is it perhaps because it is too embarassing for you guys to talk about?

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No. It is because they are different theories. Period.------------------
compmage

Zephan writes:

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Wrong.

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Er, peer reviewed reference please or shut your illogical piehole.

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How exactly should I provide peer reviewed references for something that doesn't happen?Besides, you are shifting the burden of proof. Blanko claimed that evolution and abiogenisis are part of the same theory, therefore he has the burden of proof.

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However, I did enjoy your fairy tale on the origin of life. Care to back up (another ) unfounded assertion with legitimate peer reviewed literature or are we to assume you are citing yourself on this one?

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What fairy tale?------------------
compmage

blanko writes:

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I never said there was a global conspiracy and I wouldn’t respect you if you did accept my say-so. I was simply trying to point out that evolution scientist are so biased and closed minded to the idea of intelligent design, that evolution should now be considered more of a treasure hunt than a search for truth. Evolutionists hold dear to any evidence they might be able to somehow fit into their bias and discard any alternative evidence as a failure.

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Scientists discarding evidence? You do have evidence of this, don't you?You are right; scientists are biased. They are biased in favour of evidence. What is wrong with that?

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Consider these quotes from respected evolutionist:

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I have a feeling these are going to be out of context.

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The Origin of Species, Darwin avowed, To suppose that the eye, with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree possible.

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I knew it. Did you bother reading the next paragraph? Here it is:Yet reason tells me, that if numerous gradations from a perfect and complex eye to one very imperfect and simple, each grade being useful to its possessor, can be shown to exist; if further, the eye does vary ever so slightly, and the variations be inherited, which is certainly the case; and if any variation or modification in the organ be ever useful to an animal under changing conditions of life, then the difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection, though insuperable by our imagination, can hardly be considered real. How a nerve comes to be sensitive to light, hardly concerns us more than how life itself first originated; but I may remark that several facts make me suspect that any sensitive nerve may be rendered sensitive to light, and likewise to those coarser vibrations of the air which produce sound."- Origin of Species by Charles Darwin (Chapter 6)If you had actually read this you would know that Charles Darwin did not consider evolution 'absurd'.

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Thus so far as concerns the major groups of animals, the creationists seem to have the better of the argument. Dr. Austin Clark, curator of paleontology at the Smithsonian Institution

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I have never seen this before, but given that the previous quote was out of contect I'm going to ask you to provide a reference for this.

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Life, even in bacteria, is too complex to have occurred by chance.
Professor Harry Rubin, Professor of Molecular Biology & Research
Virologist to the Virus Laboratory, University of California Berkeley

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Never heard of this before either, but since no one is suggesting the life accurred by chance it doesn't matter. Besides, what does abiogenisis have to do with evolution?
Some quote expressing personal opinion...

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Today everyone of these respected evolutionists (that is still living) continues to cling to what they admit is a battle against the evidence.

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Respected evolutinists?
Darwin who you quoted out of context.
Dr. Clark, who's quote is unreference.
Prof. Rubin, who's quote is also unreferenced and who (if that quote is accurate) doesn't understand abiogenisis or evolution.
A doctor and a lawyer?

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I can only suspect they’re gambling on the evidence changing in the future, but that’s not how intelligent decisions are made. Intelligent decisions are made on the information we have available and the probability the alleged occurance actually happening. At this time, based on the evidence, the probabilities of a majority of evolution theories being fact are (as Darwin put it) absurd. I apologize for all the assertions, but I can't think of a better explanation for these scientist remaining evolutionist.

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I can. You are being mislead. Evolution is the best explanation we have for the diversity of life given the current evidence.

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Irrelevant, as long as you agree Math is exact.

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I have a feeling we mean different things by "exact" here, but I'll see where it goes.

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That’s debatable, but I’m no apologist for abiogenisis and I can understand why you’d want to distance yourself from that theory.

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It is not debatable.
The Theory of Evolution.
The Theory of Abiogenisis.Two different theories. End of story.

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Science or science fiction? and you object to mathematics as being called science?

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Interesting you should say that. One of those options was creation.
However you missed the point. It doesn't matter how life got here, as long as it doesn't reproduce perfectly evolution will occur.

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The evidence only supports the theories, if no alternative theory is considered. After all, Math is exact, shouldn’t mathematical probabilities be the standard all theories are based on?

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No. It is possible to have many theories, none of which are supported by evidence.A theory is valid if it explains all the evidence and makes predictions that can be tested.

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I’m not saying evolution can’t explain all of the evidence, I’m just saying it can’t give an explanation that is not mathematically impossible.

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How exactly is evolution mathematically impossible?
And if it is impossible, why do we see it happening before our eyes?

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I’m a creationist, far from a believer in panspermia. I was only trying to find a scientist that wouldn’t instantly be discredited, because he was a creationist (I’m lying, my badbut that doesn’t mean his math is not credible).

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Hoyle was not a good choice.

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I’ll admit I love math, but have never been a big fan of chemistry. However, here’s what math has to say about the probability hurdles Chemical Evolutionist have to face (maybe you can explain it to me):

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Scientific American published an article which claimed that any chemical event having a probability of less than one chance in 10 to the 67th power will never happen, and has never happened--anytime, anywhere in the universe, even in 20 billion years!

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Reference?

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Chemical Absurdities and the Jethro Factor
by Charles E. Brewster, Ph.D.
The odds against forming a fairly small protein chain of about 250 amino acids by chance. (Protein chains of up to 50,000 amino acids are found in nature.) The odds against assembling any protein chain consisting of only left-handed amino acids by chance is 2 to the n th power where n is the number of consecutive amino acids in the protein. This means that the odds against assembling a useable protein of only 250 left-handed amino acids from a racemized mixture is one chance in 2 to the 250th power. This is about 1 chance in 10 to the 74th power. (The odds against assembling a useable protein molecule of 50,000 amino acids would be less than one chance in 10 to the 15,000th power!) So could this small 250 amino acid protein ever form by chance in our hypothetical ocean? Never! It could never happen by chance!

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This is all good a well...except that chemicals don't react randomly.If I have 1 mole of hydrogen and 1 mole of oxygen at 1 atmosphere and I spark them, I get water. Every time. How is that random?

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So if it is mathematically and physically impossible to for even a single protein chain of 250 amino acids to form by chance, what would it take for a fully functioning cell consisting of at least 100 useable proteins to assemble themselves at the same point in the universe at the same time? (This is even given that we had all the other cell mechanisms existing at that point in the universe, at that point in time, encircling them!) The answer is one chance in 10 to the 74 multiplied by itself 100 times! (10 to the 7400). And this only gets us 100 very small proteins!

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Except that chemical reactions don't happen randomly.

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This is why scientists now believe that the odds against a fully functioning cell occurring by chance is one chance in 10 to the 100 billionth power! (1 followed by one hundred billion zeroes--think of it as a 100 gigabyte harddrive full of nothing but zeroes. Big number!)

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See above. The calculations are worthless since they don't address what abiogenisis says happened.

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Chemical evolutionist are not being honest. For if they were, they would acknowledge that any chemical event that has a probability of less than one chance in 10 to the 67th power will never happen--and has never happened--anytime, anywhere in the universe, ever! This is science! Hard, mathematical science! And how much more impossible, an event with a probability of one chance in 10 to the 100,000,000,000th power!

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This is not science. It is people who don't understand chemistry and probabilities misleading others.1) Chemisty isn't random.
2) We don't know exactly what the conditions where when life came into existence.
3) We don't know how many of the possible combinations would have lead to life.Therefore it isn't possible to calculate the probabilities of life occuring randomly.What does any of this have to do with evolution?*** Edited to fix quote tage------------------
compmage[This message has been edited by compmage, 02-07-2003]

blanko writes:

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If a creationist would have proved it would you believe it?

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If he had 'proven' it instead of just asserting, then yes.------------------
Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun. Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-eight million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue-green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea.
- Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

blanko writes;

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Today, some scientists estimate about 14 million species in existence (other estimates range from 1.6 to 80 million). Some also estimate 40,000 species become extinct every year (granted, no scientist knows exactly how many species become extinct each year, so feel free to fill in the estimate you feel is appropriate). Assuming the amount of species that existed when God created us (I know many will object to my plug for the Big Guy, but so what!), why is it hard to believe there would be similarities among species. I can’t explain the similarities, but I also know there are far more differences. The distance between an ape who can not read or write and a descendant of Adam who can compose a musical masterpiece or send someone to the moon is the distance of infinity (H. Hanegraaff). I don’t believe just because we have anatomical, genetic, and behavioral resemblances I should automatically assume a chimpanzee is my cousin. Email me 50 of your best drawn original designs and I guarantee I will be able to classify them into different categories based on similarities. Then try 14 million.

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Primordial Egg already dealt with this.

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I think it’s a little arrogant to say someone with a PhD has no understanding of chemistry, especially since his article was merely a response to Dr. Robert Shapiro’s book ORIGINS: A Skeptics Guide to the Creation of Life on Earth (don’t let the title fool you Dr. Shapiro is an evolutionist). According to Dr. Charles E. Brewster’s article, Dr. Shapiro (Ph.D., Harvard University Postdoctoral training, Cambridge University whose research includes organic and bioorganic chemistry: effects of mutagens on the structure and function of nucleic acids) was not dismissing the probabilities, but using Jethro math to explain how extremely improbable occurrences are possible. The ARK Foundation Home Page museum/science/life/chemabsu.htm

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I will concede you have a better understanding of chemistry than me and since I’m having a hard time keeping up with the different arguments, I’m going to have to ask we continue the abiogenesis debate after I’ve had time to do further research.

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Do all the research you need.As far as my being 'arrogant'. It is nothing of the sort. Chemical reactions are not random, therefore any calculations based on pure chance with regards to chemisty are invalid. That is simply not how chemistry works.

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I thought this was a debate on creation vs. evolution. Whether you believe in creation or not, creation does give an explanation for our existence, while in order for evolution to present a valid explanation, abiogenesis would have first had to occur (can’t forget your other two theories: life being zapped into existence or arriving through a dimensional rift). However, I do believe a person can be a Christian and believe in creation through the means of evolution. Although, I strongly disagree with that position, if that is your stance compmage, God bless! I also feel that would be an in-house debate and should be handled in a Christian only forum.

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I am not a Chistian.You still have yet to explain why evolution requires abiogenisis. Care to answer this question?

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I would hardly consider sightings of Noah’s Ark comparable to the fraudulent acts committed in the Piltdown man scandal. I was merely trying to sight cases of scientist altering evidence to compmage, not accused every evolutionist of being deceitful.

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Scientists are human. However, your claim made it sound as if evolutiionary biologists as a rule almost, discard or falsify evidence.------------------
Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun. Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-eight million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue-green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea.
- Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Not that lasy. I don't know if I would even bother trying to write an essay, but maybe it also has to do with no having read enough to be able to write one. Become a creationist. It is far simpler to assert than to argue. That's my off topic post for the day.A suggestion. Perhaps off topic post, like this one, should be marked as such. That way people who don't want to read them, can just skip them? Then again it might encourage these sort of posts.------------------
He hoped and prayed that there wasn't an afterlife. Then he realized there was a contradiction involved here and merely hoped that there wasn't an afterlife.
- Douglas Adams, The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy