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

Hello Integral, welcome to EvC! Did you look at the actual evidence, or did you get your info from creationist websites? If the case is the latter, please forget everything you read, and start anew, this time with the actual evidence. First of all, we didn't evolve from just genetic mutations, we also evolved because of natural selection, the driving force behind the change. Second, it DID take a very long time. No, fins to legs for example, we have a very complete picture of how this happened with gradual changes over a long period of time.

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I hunt for the truth

How can a series of small changes stacking up over millions of years NOT lead to profound difference between the ancestor species and the descendant species. Well, crocodiles are born with a two chambered heart, but it turns into a four chambered heart as they grow larger, now if this tansition can occur in a single species living today, what makes you think it couldn't arise in different species? Good, we're here to help. As long as you keep an open mind, I'm sure you'll learn a lot here. And you're wrong, there are literally mountains of evidence that support evolutionary theory. And there is. I don't know which issue of National geographic you got that from, nor the article, since it is basically a quote mine. A quote mine is a logical fallacy. It is further an argument from authority, as you place NG up on a pedestal, and saying that because they say it, it must be true. This is also a logical fallacy. If you check for the real evidence, you will find there is an overwhelming amount that supports evolution.

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I hunt for the truth

Hmm, yes, need to work up on this sort of thing.However, the quote as given to me (as I did not know the original text) is a misrepresentation of the evidnece for evolution. While I agree that the fossil record is missing a great deal, evolution as a whole does not depend on just the fossil record for evidence. That is why i said what I did.

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I hunt for the truth

Actually, if one follows the evidence, a pretty clear picture appears. No. There are MANY examples where we can show the evolution of a species quite well. Wrong, they have done so. MANY times in fact.

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I hunt for the truth

The reason scientist say no to this is not because it is theoretically impossible, it is because by the time you get one that big, it would no longer be considered a cocker spaniel as we consider it today. There will be many more changes also happening to the animal, and it will most likely turn out VERY different from what we consider a cocker spaniel today.I have a question for you. What do you consider macro evolution? And if you say: "one kind changing into another", please define kind VERY precisely, so we can easily determine when something did or did not "change into another kind".

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I hunt for the truth

Just when you think you've heard it all.... New genes form all the time. As Ned pointed out just one post above you, no it isn't Why do you keep posting this? I've seen this several times in all your posts, and it just doesn't make any sense to put them there. Kent "I'm in jail" Hovind doesn't even understand what he's talking about. Wrong. By this, he means that it has absolutely NO basis in reality. Uh oh, he just mixed up ID, which claims it's NOT a religion, with creationism, which has been established is nothing BUT religion. To make matters worse, his statement is false. And mixed them up again....oh my. Oh, and science most certainly doesn't agree with creationists, since they don't even do science. Wrong. Uterly utterly wrong.

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I hunt for the truth

I didn't say give one thing that defines a kind, I asked for a detailed description. There may not be one thing that separates a species from a genus, but there are very strict rules about this. If you can't define a kind, you can't claim the animal in discussion belongs to that kind without a doubt. There will always be arguments to refute that, unless you define it very precisely. Until then, I'll say macro evolution happened, and one kind turned into another.

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I hunt for the truth

So, if they can't breed they're of a different kind? Glad you cleared that up.So, as we have here a very precise definition of kind, macroevolution without any doubt happened.

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I hunt for the truth

I speak 3, now worship me! Anyway, I can't give you a number, I can give you the right answer though. The number of transitionals that it took to get from the first single celled organism is equal to all the offspring it had, that then had offspring, that then had offspring, and so forth, until we arrive at you and me today.But why would you want to know the exact number?

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I hunt for the truth

very well, let me see if I can dig up a list that shows the gradual rise.It will be incomplete, simply because I don't know everything there is to know about this subject. I will also start at a multicellular organism, I hope other people can fill in the steps between single cell and multi cell.First, invertebrate to vertebrate:
1) Pikaia
2) Yunannozoon
3) Haikouella
4) Conodonts
5) Placoderms (these had jaws)Right, in the fish department now:
6) Cheirolepis
7) Osteolepis (early lobe finned fish, and showing an amfidian like skull)
8) Eusthenopteron (Amfibian skull, and bane and muscle attachments of fins similar as those found in early tetrapod limbs)
9) Panderichthys (very tetrapod like. Has flattened body as well as foot like fins)
10) Acanthostega (fin to foot transition almost complete)Early tetrapod time!:
11) Tiktaalik (Fins posses wrist and finger bones, and has a neck and both lungs and gills)
12) Ichthyostega (Shoulder and pelvis very tetrapod like and has a very similar rib cage to tetrapods)Early land amphibians:
13) Pteroplax (skull bone patterns similar to Ichthyostega and remnants of gills can be found at the neck)
14) Proterogyrinus (Has amphibian like skull, but limbs and spine have reptilian characteristics)
15) Solenodonsaurus (No more lateral line on the head)
16) Hylonomus &
17) Paleothyris (both small lizard like creatures that still have an amphibian like skull)Argh! It's the reptilians!:
18) Pelycosaurs (synapsids with differentiated teeth)
19) Therapsids (mamal like reptiles with complex jaws and teeth. Legs vertically attached under their bodies)
20) Proto mamals (whole bunch of 'em, in these we see further development of the skull)Right, mamal department!:
21) Early placentals (small, rodent like organisms)
22) Phenacolemur Jepseni &
23) Teilhardina Asiatica (Both early primates, whose skulls don't really look like primates, but the teeth are getting there)
24) Amphipitecus &
25) Pondaungia Cotteri (from these fossils we can see the brain size increasing, while the nose was getting shorter)Ape country!:
26) Propliopithecus Haeckell (teeth became a defining characteristic of apes)
27) Aegyptopithicus Zeuxis (Has larger and "rounder" brain)
28) Proconsul (characteristics of both apes and monkeys, also, sexual dimorphism pops up)
29) Kenyapithecus (descendant from Proconsul, and ancestor to both man and the great apes)
30) Australopithecus Afarensis (ape like, but bipedal)
31) Australopithecus Africanus (larger brain, teeth similar to those found in the "homo" genus)Which is the next stage (and the final one) Humans!:
32) Homo Habilis (sits on the Australopitecine-Homo boundary. Has larger brain, and used tools)
33) Homo Erectus (Larger brain again, an used fire)
34) Homo Sapiens (Brain between Homo Erectus and Homo Sapiens Sapiens, also much finer teeth then predecessor)
35) Homo Sapiens SapiensI hope this helped.

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I hunt for the truth

I'm sure you'd like to think that. It is both an ancestor and a contemporary. First, it's Habilis. Second, they're far from chimpanzees. Since chimps diverged offf of the human species five to eight million years ago, and Habilis only originated 2.5 million years ago, they can't be the same, now can they? But if this is the way you're going to debate (by saying things that aren't true, without backing them up with evidence), then I'm not going to waste as much time as I did when I made that list. So, you are going to debate like that. Ok, you're wrong in everything you believe about this stuff, and there's not a single piece of evidence you can produce that shows you are correct. I'll just tell you you're wrong from now on, since trying to help you apparently leads to you saying "nuh-uh" and ignoring all that's been said, too bad really. And you'll be just as wrong about them, probably. But try to amaze me, ok? For every claim you make, provide evidence to back it up, else I'm just going to say you're wrong.

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I hunt for the truth

You're welcome. Wrong. Wrong, there are mountains of observable evidence. Wrong. There are many experiments that show evolution happening. Ok, but please provide evidence for your claims. I have a feeling that's not going to matter much. For the second time, it Habilis, with an I not a U. I don;t know how many are found, but I'm sure someone else here can answer that question.

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I hunt for the truth

I can't, in fact no one can. Do you have a film of you being born? The act I mean? No? Well then, how am I supposed to accept you are alive today? It wasn't an amazing organism. Even the single celled life forms we have today are a thousand times more complex then it was. I'm claiming there's enormous evidence for evolution. And there is. I did not say everything about evolution can be shown to you. Now, if you want some evidence, ask and I'll see what I can come up with. But I will in turn ask you to provide evidence for what you claim. Our ancestor looked absolutely nothing like yeast. As has been pointed out to you before. A bit slow on picking things up, are we? Why, thank you.Now, to sum it up:Not everything evolution claims can be shown directly. I hope my analogy to your birth is helpful.There ARE mountains of evidence for evolution. In fact, you are evidence of evolution yourself. You have mutations in your DNA that are not present in your parents DNA.If there's something that's not clear to you, ask away, but please refrain from making baseless claims.I can't answer ALL your questions. Does that mean if I can't answer a hundred you ask me, yet there are ten thousand I can answer, that evolution didn't happen? I'd say no, but I'll await your reply on this.I hoped this helped.

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I hunt for the truth

If you are referring to evolution, it's both. You do know what a scientific theory is, don't you? It began with the Urey-Miller experiment. There have been other experiments after that. Though I only know the basics for these.

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I hunt for the truth

Ok. It isn't based upon that "fact". It's based upon the fact the alelle frequency in a population changes with time. They have observed mutations. but not ones that produve new life-forms, unless you want to call every new born life-form a new one, since it has mutations in it that the parents don't have. They have witnessed the spontaneous generation of the building blocks of life. This is still an ongoing study. Not to my knowledge. Though this doesn't change the fact of evolution.

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I hunt for the truth