Where is the evidence for evolution?

Here are some good links about evolution and science which will get you started:http://www.geocities.com/...ion/evolution-for-beginners.html
Frequently Asked Questions About Creationism and Evolution"
science - The Skeptic's Dictionary - Skepdic.com
creationism and creation science - The Skeptic's Dictionary - Skepdic.comEnjoy!

I notice that sonnike urges you to read religious websites instead of science websites to learn about science.This should tell you something right away.It actually tells you two things.1) It tells you that sonnike thinks that religious websites are somehow more informed on science than science sites, which doesn't make sense at all.2) It also tells you that sonnike doesn't want you to look at science websites at all. Note the use of the word "instead".This is not surprising. Many religious fanatics over the years have understood the danger and threat of science and rational scrutiny to their dogma.I would encourage you to look at all kinds of sites and to judge for yourself which ones have the most sound research and logic and verifiability behind them.[This message has been edited by schrafinator, 01-27-2003]

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Nice try schraf. My websites are no more religious/non-science than yours are.

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Um, if the sites you listed aren't religious, then why the constant references to God, Bible quotations, and in the case of at least one site, the descriptor "ministry" used to describe itself?

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Your religion is just different ie. evo-dogma.

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The ToE is not dogma, because Biology, like all science, is tentative in nature. It changes in light of new evidence.There is also no appeal to a deity or any supernatural entity in science, and no unchanging doctrine that must be adhered to no matter what, unlike religion.

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Calling a "car" a "bicycle", doesn't make it a bicycle. Don't try to pretend that evo-dogma is un-biased science.

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Of course it is biased science.All good science is biased in favor of the observed evidence found in nature.You talk about bias as if it is always a bad thing. Isn't being biased in favor of the evidence a good thing?Being biased in favor of a particular part of a particular interpretation of a particular version of a particular religion's sacred text regardless of the observed evidence found in nature would be bad bias.

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The problem is not WHETHER dr. Borger can educate you fine people, but rather if you are WILLING to clear your minds of your pre-conceived views, and learn something new.

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LOLOLOLOL!!!Oh, my (wiping tears from eyes), that was funny!A while back, Peter Borger listed as support for his idea that ID whas scientific support a paper on the deep digital flexor muscle in horses.I happen to be a relative expert on horses as I have a BS degree in Equestrian Studies and have studied horse anatomy.To make a log story short, what I think he did was did a search in a database of scientific papers on the word "design" and a bunch of papers popped up. He didn't read them, or didn't understand them if he did read them.I asked for the link to this psper, and I read it and understood it, and the authors were NOT claiming anything at all about intelligent design of the horse leg. They used the words "apparent design" to make the distinction between what used to be understood about why this particular muscle was so large and what this new research has uncovered, which was that the muscle was so large because it absorbed a lot of vibration during the gallop, not because it needed to be so large to move the limb.I of course confronted Peter about this misrepresentation of the article, and can guess what he did?Do you think he admitted his mistake? Do you think he retracted his claim that the article supported his claim and actually wasn't refuting the ToE at all? Do you think he backed down a single inch even though he was utterly trounced?No, of course not. He just said something like "we'll see what future research holds" and ran away.Now, what are we supposed to take away from an exchange like that, and all the other similar exchanges others have had with him?He is a crackpot, that's what I take away.

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You said it though Schraf,... "apparant design" that is just the evolutionary blindfold that prevents you from recognizing ACTUAL design. For years this horse fallacy has been "preached" as evolutionary proof of horse evolution, until they realized the function. Now it is called "apparant" design. If you would simply accept your Maker, you could appreciate such wonderful actual design.

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So, you are faulting scientific inquiry because because we do not have all possible knowledge in an instant, and therefore we have to correct ourselves at times when new and better information cones forward because of better investigative methods or better technology.By your logic, science should be faulted for making advances in knowledge. By your logic, correction of error and making new discoveries is actually a weakness of science!Did it ever occur to you that there isn't a great deal of research money being allocated to study such things in Equines, and that is why we didn't discover this interesting fact until now?Do you see how silly this viewpoint is?It is simple to imagine an evolutionary pathway for why a muscle would get larger due to it's vibration-absorbing ability. Those individual horses which had larger DDF tended to have fewer injuries to the bone in the limb, so were less likely to fall behind the herd and get eaten by predators, therefore they would reproduce in greater numbers.The point is, Peter Borger, misrepresented the article. He made a big error. He was caught. He refused to admit it. That's why he is a crackpot.

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If I tried to convince you or anyone else that the Eiffel tower was not designed and that it came together by time, chance and natural selection...I would be laughed off the face of this earth...yet the dogma of anti-God evolutionary thinking is literally FORCED upon the un-questioning public.

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Um, yes, you would be laughed off the face of the Earth, because the Eiffel tower and other inanimate manmade objects DON'T REPRODUCE. Only things that are ALIVE and REPRODUCE are subject to evolutionary forces.Man, if you are going to criticize the ToE at least make a token attempt at understanding what it is. You speak with utter conviction that theToE is false, but you have no clue whatsoever about the ToE at all. That is a shameful thing, Sonnikke, to denounce something you have no understanding of; willful ignorance of the highest order.

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p.s. I do have one other thing in common with you...I looove food!

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Want to talk about pesticide resistence?

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S: So that's why we have science teachers saying things like: "We have fossil evidence for evolution. It's a fact. And I'll dare to say it. It's a fact," said Frisby, who teaches at Shawnee Mission Northwest High School, outside Kansas City. "What else will the state board do? Will they take out verbs from English for some political or religious reason?"

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Uh, sonnikke, they say evolution is a fact because it is a fact, just like gravity is a fact. We observe evolution both in the field and in the lab. It is both a fact and a theory. Read this. You might learn something:Evolution is a Fact and a Theory"In the American vernacular, "theory" often means "imperfect fact"--part of a hierarchy of confidence running downhill from fact to theory to hypothesis to guess. Thus the power of the creationist argument: evolution is "only" a theory and intense debate now rages about many aspects of the theory. If evolution is worse than a fact, and scientists can't even make up their minds about the theory, then what confidence can we have in it? Indeed, President Reagan echoed this argument before an evangelical group in Dallas when he said (in what I devoutly hope was campaign rhetoric): "Well, it is a theory. It is a scientific theory only, and it has in recent years been challenged in the world of science--that is, not believed in the scientific community to be as infallible as it once was."Well evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape-like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered.Moreover, "fact" doesn't mean "absolute certainty"; there ain't no such animal in an exciting and complex world. The final proofs of logic and mathematics flow deductively from stated premises and achieve certainty only because they are not about the empirical world. Evolutionists make no claim for perpetual truth, though creationists often do (and then attack us falsely for a style of argument that they themselves favor). In science "fact" can only mean "confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional consent." I suppose that apples might start to rise tomorrow, but the possibility does not merit equal time in physics classrooms.Evolutionists have been very clear about this distinction of fact and theory from the very beginning, if only because we have always acknowledged how far we are from completely understanding the mechanisms (theory) by which evolution (fact) occurred. Darwin continually emphasized the difference between his two great and separate accomplishments: establishing the fact of evolution, and proposing a theory--natural selection--to explain the mechanism of evolution.- Stephen J. Gould, " Evolution as Fact and Theory"; Discover, May 1981"In fact, you should read all of the following if you want to understand evolution. I do not think you understand it at all, even though you rail against it constantly. Try a bit of knowledge and understanding. Works wonders:Frequently Asked Questions About Creationism and Evolution"

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Yes I know you people are hooked on that fact

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Exactly. As percy said, it is a FACT that inanimate objects do not reproduce themselves, so are therfore not subject to evolutionary forces.It is a FACT that things that are alive are subject to evolutionary forces. We observe those forces at work on those alive, reproducing things both in the lab and in the field.

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and I suppose that that is the blindfold which prevents you from recognizing and appreciating the DESIGNED world you live in.

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I am not blind if there is nothing before me!Look, all we ask for is evidence. You spout this nonsense about "inanimate objects are designed, so living things must be, too!", but it just doesn't follow logically, and you have no evidence of this designer of living things. At least, not that you have brought forth.We have evidence of the designer of the Eiffel tower. We know his name, we know where he lived, we have a great deal of pictoral documentation about the construction of the tower. We even have his very precise blueprints.Where is your analogous documentation of your living-thing designer?

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Well, maybe some day....there's always hope.

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The only hope you have is to provide evidence.

It is my understanding that the most common result due to mutations is nothing. No effect.However, I personally have a mutation which prevented my lower wisdom teeth from ever developing. They do not exist, in other words.Now, was this a beneficial mutation? Since I was born in an age of good dental hygene and dentistry and orthodontics, yes, it most certainly was a beneficial mutation. Because we eat softer food and prevent most tooth loss compared to even a few hundred years ago, I still had all of my adult teeth when my upper wisdom teeth came in, minus the two in my upper jaw which had been extracted to make room for other teeth to be moved orthodontically.So, I had no impaction or pain or infection often associated with the advent of wisdom teeth for a great many people these days.However, if I had been born a long time ago when wisdom teeth were needed because some of my teeth would have fallen out or been worn down, then it would not have been a beneficial mutation at all. I would have not had the benefit of brand new, strong grinding surfaces to eat with, and those upper wisdom teeth would not have had room, because those extractions and orthodontic shifts in location would not have happened.So, this is a good illustration of how you can't determine if a mutation is beneficial to an organism without taking the environment into account. It is the environment which determines what mutations are of benefit to the individual.

Zephan writes:

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Where is the line of demarcation between abiogenesis and evolution?

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A good way to think about this is to ask a similar question:Where is the line of demarcation between someone speaking an archaeic form of a language and a modern version?In other words..."Who spoke French for the first time?" is a silly question, because it is obvious that languages change over time as a result of many people using the words of that language differently. Some words are dropped, some are changed, and others are completely new, novel words.Biological evolution happens in a very similar way.

The long list of Creationist scientists is completely irrelevant because they are all dead.They have had no opportunity to examine current evidence, which may have influenced their continued belief in Creationism, so we have no way of knowing if they might have stopped being Creationists.

Well, the sad thig is that most of it IS crap.Certainly, if one is discussing science, one should discuss that which is scientific, and most Creationist writing is not anything close to scholarly nor scientific.If evidence isn't from a legitimate, peer-reviewed scientific journal, why should anyone take it seriously?

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Most creationist are bible believing christians, as such they hold to a higher calling, upholding truth at all cost.

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Then why is it that there are dozens of different versions of "the Truth", and Creationists can't agree on anything?It is because Creation 'science' is based upon revelation rather than physical evidence. If your interpretation of the Bible is different than mine, how can we ever decide which one of us is correct?In science, by contrast, we can test our ideas and determine which one s are closest to the reality of nature.

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Evolutionists on the other hand are not accountable to a Higher Being,

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There are many religious scientists who do consider themselves accountable to a Higher Being. They just do not think that the Bible is a science book.

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and thus whether lies or truths come out of their mouths, is irrelevant to them because there is no specified benchmark.

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How arrogant and insulting! To state that people who do not believe exactly as you do are automatically likely to be liars and uninterested in the truth is a terrible thing to say, and completely untrue to boot.Morality is a human social construct.

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Also, morals are a product of mindless evolution according to them.

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So what if they are? They still exist regardless of one's belief in the supernatural, correct?

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Now how is it that I'm supposed to believe an evolved microbe, over a designed human who serves his God?

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Because there is no evidence for design and there is evidence for evolution.

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I am not claiming that christians don't lie, we are not perfect, no one is. But to say what you did, is simply propaganda, no offence.

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It is not propaganda.It is demonstrable.The following website lists some prominent creationists and their "credentials":http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/credentials.htmlThe following is a site which talks about Gish and a ICR pamplet which had/s erroneous information that they knew was wrong for years but was not corrected until public embarrasment made it necessary.http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/gish-exposed.htmlThe following site explains yet another intentional misquote by a creationist of a scientist, which has continued to be propagated unchecked in Creationist writings:Creationist Arguments: The Monkey QuoteThis is a straight-up list of lies told by creationists:http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/icr-whoppers.htmlThe following is an expose on Duane Gish and his copious "lies for Jesus":Telnet Communications - High Speed Internet & Home Phone SolutionsFinally, a page about creationists and how they handle their errors. I include a bit from that article:Scientific Creationism and Error"Science is wedded, at least in principle, to the evidence. Creationism is unabashedly wedded to doctrine, as evidenced by the statements of belief required by various creationist organizations and the professions of faith made by individual creationists. Because creationism is first and foremost a matter of Biblical faith, evidence from the natural world can only be of secondary importance. Authoritarian systems like creationism tend to instill in their adherents a peculiar view of truth.Many prominent creationists apparently have the same view of truth as political radicals: whatever advances the cause is true, whatever damages the cause is false. From this viewpoint, errors should be covered up where possible and only acknowledged when failure to do so threatens greater damage to the cause. If colleagues spread errors, it is better not to criticize them publicly. Better to have followers deceived than to have them question the legitimacy of their leaders. In science, fame accrues to those who overturn errors. In dogmatic systems, one who unnecessarily exposes an error to the public is a traitor or an apostate."

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Schraf, the problem I see is that you either reference a massively evo-biased/anti-creationist website ie. talkorigins,

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I would say that Talkorigins is biased in favor of science and the evidence, not biased in favor of evolutionism, per se.Do you have anything to say about the actual content of the information I submitted? Do you have any actual evidence that any or all of it is wrong, or do you just dismiss it out of hand because it is from Talkorigins? Did you even read or go to any of the evidence I posted to decide for yourself the quality of the evidence, or did you reject all of it simply because it is put forth by the "other camp", and must be rejected, regardless of it's quality?I have read a great deal from Creationist sites and I own and have read many Creationist books by Gish, Morris and others.Why don't you pick one or two items from any of the links I listed which you feel are factually wrong or misleading and show me your evidence which backs up your opinion that they are wrong?See, it is ineffectual in the debate for you to simply say "It's all biased and wrong" without showing a single bit of evidence that the sources actually are biased and wrong. If arguments were won by opinion alone, I could say, "You are wrong and I am right" and that would be that.

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or you reference an ad hominem smear campaign.

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For the articles to be ad hominem, the arguments would have to be personal or about character rather than attacking the ideas or facts stated by one's opponent.Please show me where any of the links I provided engaged in attacking any Creationist personally rather than attacking the ideas and facts the Creationist was putting forth.

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The whole thing is a nice smoke screen so you can avoid dealing with the flaws of evolutionism.

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I think that this post of yours is a nice smokescreen so you can avoid addressing the copious evidence I put forth.Remember, you claimed that it was all "propaganda" that Creationists lie and distort the truth "for the cause".I provided lots of evidence that countered your claim.You job now is to examine the evidence to see if it is valid and come back with specifics.So, I am ready for your specific examples of where any of my links are untrue or engage in ad hominem attacks in lieu of real argument.

Margulis' ideas of symbiosis being the driving force behind evolution is fascinating, and it will be interesting to see how much evidence there is to support the idea.You do understand, however, that she is only arguing that the mechanism of how speciation occurs is wrong, not that it doesn't occur, don't you?If her and others' work eventually reshape our idea of where new species come from, then science will change. It's the evidence that will convince, and it will be exciting if it happens.