TOE and the Reasons for Doubt

Except that he explicitly says that the fossil record is "inconsistent with an efficient designer". To pretend that he was trying to make any other point is dishonest. And that is certainly not what he said. how can we look at the evidence of evolution, then say its all a result of God poofing animals out of the air by magicthat makes no sense. Its contrary to the evidence that we see.---And incidentally, what's this "we"? The evidence that we see, says the person who thinks that hyraxes are "fox-like".You don't study biology. You study creationist quote-mines. Biologists study biology.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Hi Peg, Several others have responded to this point already, but I'd like to elaborate on the problem.In retrospect, evolution looks like a process going from simple organisms, to the more complex. It is actually often portrayed in this manner, but it is not the right way to look at evolution. When we look at nature we see organisms living in niches. Some climb trees, some burrow, some fly, and some cluster around hydrothermal vents. These animals fit almost perfectly into their niches. Birds have just the right shapes to fit their livestyles, and so do fish, insects and salmonella.Does that mean that these organisms are finished evolving? Was there ever a time when half-birds were half-formed for their lifestyle? No! An animal (or any organism) never evolves toward a future ideal. Tiktaalik (a fish whom many consider closely related to the earliest tetrapods) was not evolving fleshier fins so that its descendants could evolve legs and crawl up on land. It was not half-fitted to living a land-based life, rather its fins (or feet) were optimized for the niche in which it lived. Possibly for pushing its head out of the water to catch prey.A modern example, the Mudskipper. Now I don't know much about Mudskippers, but I know some basic details. Mudskippers are a small group of fish, peculiar in the regard that they can and do spend a lot of time out of water. They can breathe air (through their moist skin), crawl, jump and burrow. This fits nicely with the Mudskipper lifestyle. It lives (from Wikipedia) "in mangrove ecosystems and mudflats" and can't count on always staying submerged. Especially when withdrawing tides leave it trapped in diminishing pools. So the mudskippers have made a lifestyle out of hopping from pool to pool and burrowing in times of drought.Now are Mudskippers a "developing phase"? Are they incomplete tetrapods struggling to gain a foothold on land, but not quite there yet? No! Of course not! We live contemporaneously with them, and realize that it'd be absurd to say that they're incomplete. Mudskippers are great at being Mudskippers, the fact that they are not as good at being land animals doesn't mean they are incomplete.Now you can take any fossil. It will be a complete lifeform, fully developed, and fully fit for its niche. Archaeopteryx, despite having a long bony tail, teeth, and many other dinosaur traits, was not being bullied by its fellow lifeforms for being ugly and not fitting in. It was fully adapted to its lifestyle, that may have involved climbing trees as well as flying.Now in retrospect, we can say that Archaeopteryx may have been a representative of early bird life, or it may have merely been an outgroup. We can't say for certain. Evidence indicates that primitive feathers appeared much earlier, but obviously, like skin impressions, feather impressions are rare finds. Sinosauropteryx represents one of the earliest indications of feathers, on an animal that predates the first birds by millions of years.Sinosauropteryx - WikipediaI hope this suffices to show you that evolution never predicts an undeveloped species or a development "phase".-Meldinoor

50 years' worth of evolution. Of course. This is why we have new varieties of domesticated plants and animals. Of course. This is what the theory of evolution predicts, and the theory always turns out to be right. A creationist spouted creationist nonsense. So? It doesn't. Don't be silly.

Just as a matter of interest, do you recall ever hearing the phrase "natural selection"? Seems like that might have come up here on one or two occasions. It has a way of appearing in the same sentence as "mutation". That's "selection". As in "not random". As in favoring the survival of one kind of organism over another. The kind of thing that could give the illusion of conscious design if one didn't understand the principles involved.Ask yourself who designed the neat patterns in the rocks at a gravel beach. Design does not require a conscious being. That is what Sagan thought. You should read him some time.Capt.Edited by Capt Stormfield, : grammar

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Is it getting solipsistic in here, or is it just me?

Those here who are suggesting that Sagan supports creationism or intelligent design would do well to read his book, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark.

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

First of all, how do you know the wings were capable of flight??? Have you cloned your own Archaeopteryx la Peg's Jurassic Park? (If you have, I'd love to see it by the way) Archaeopteryx had a different skeletal structure from modern birds. It did not have a bony breastbone for instance, which is where flight muscles attach in modern birds. Nobody knows whether Archaeopteryx was a skilled flier, or a glider, and if anyone claims certainty on this issue, given the limited evidence that we have, you should take their claim with a bucket of salt.Given that Archaeopteryx shares so many traits with dinosaurs (it is a dinosaur depending on who you ask) and lacks many of the traits of (modern) birds, I don't see why it doesn't qualify as a transitional fossil. We have. Archaeopteryx and Tiktaalik are just two examples. But you've got to remember something. A transitional species is only transitional because it has gone extinct, and doesn't fit neatly into any of the animal groups we have defined today. This can be problematic. Take birds for instance, since we've already been talking about them anyway. Birdkind is a "class". A class is a structure that is very high up in the hierarchy of life. The next structure up is the Superclass that also includes crocodiles. So we can see that Birdkind is a very inclusive group.Now, when we come across an extinct animal, like Archaeopteryx, we really want to fit it into a familiar group. Bird or Dinosaur. (Although, if birds are included among the dinosaurs, the problem disappears) Had Archaeopteryx survived and evolved until this day, we may have had to define it its own group, neither bird, nor therapod.And here's the problem. Since creationists will not accept that birds and dinosaurs are related, or that birds ARE dinosaurs, they have to fit it into one of the two definitions. As soon as they declare it a bird, it is no longer transitional. It's already a bird. If they declare it a dinosaur, it is no longer transitional, it's still just a dinosaur. So their own view on taxonomy prohibits them from defining it as "part of a group of animals closely related to both birds and non-avian theropods", effectively making it impossible to define a transitional species. Yes. But they are a different species. They can no longer breed with certain other members of their "kind". This is called speciation, and it is what drives evolution. Once two species have separated, there's nothing stopping them from further separation. At least not as far as I know. By what other means could the salamander populations change than by mutation? Show me how Darwin's finches have been used as an example of speciation. As far as I know, they never have. They have been used as an example of adaptation through natural selection. Peg. I take it, from reading many of your posts, that you are not a young-earth creationist. I imagine you believe that star's and planets formed through natural processes. Processes set in motion by God. Would you then say that stars and planets are not a part of God's creation? Did God create the sun and the moon? Unless he did so in the twinkling of an instant, you have to agree that God creating us, and us being produced by natural processes, are not mutually exclusive.-MeldinoorEdited by Meldinoor, : Corrected grammar

I don't know. What have 500 million years of fossils shown us? What have phylogenetic trees shown us?I'm sorry, but I don't see why comparing 50 years of study to 100 000 000 years of natural selection speaks in your favour. Since you've agreed that new species can develop at observable rates (at least in the case of the Ensatina salamanders), and that life has been around for millions of years, why can't speciations that we observe carry on to produce even more diversity in that time. Breeding isn't anything that started recently. We have been breeding animals for thousands of years, selecting for desired traits, and yet our domestic animals are not dying in droves, and are certainly not inferior to the wild varieties. (Except for in their ability to survive in the wild). *Blink* Wait... Didn't we just go over this? The theory does not suggest that the finches must speciate!!! It would be very strange indeed if populations speciated everytime the weather changed. Natural selection works within a species as well.The only way you could use the poor finches to argue against evolution would be if you built a time machine, went back 10 million years, and bred a modern finch with an ancient finch. If you could do that, you'd have a case. You seem to have a strong faith in this belief.-Meldinoor

Really? And the study which shows this to be the case can be found where? Evolution is genetics (well, sort of). Of course they are still salamanders. This is exactly what the theory of evolution says they will be. Yes, exactly as the theory of evolution predicts. When I look at the universe, I see a lot of disorder. He did. Using evolution (not my personal belief, but a way in which he could've done it). It's both. God guided/manipulated evolution, so that we would be the end result.

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I hunt for the truthI am the one Orgasmatron, the outstretched grasping hand
My image is of agony, my servants rape the land
Obsequious and arrogant, clandestine and vain
Two thousand years of misery, of torture in my name
Hypocrisy made paramount, paranoia the law
My name is called religion, sadistic, sacred whore.
-Lyrics by Lemmy Kilmister of Motorhead

And that salamanders are fish.

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I hunt for the truthI am the one Orgasmatron, the outstretched grasping hand
My image is of agony, my servants rape the land
Obsequious and arrogant, clandestine and vain
Two thousand years of misery, of torture in my name
Hypocrisy made paramount, paranoia the law
My name is called religion, sadistic, sacred whore.
-Lyrics by Lemmy Kilmister of Motorhead

Aside from the fact that this doesn't make sense. How do you reconcile an old-earth belief with this belief that animals narrow down their genes? If an animal's DNA degenerated within an observable time period, how come there are still functional animals left today, after millions of years?Sounds like your mixing YEC ideas with OEC ideas, making a pretty confusing soup.

Peg, you're just proving my point and reinforcing my opinion.If a lot of people spent a lot of time, effort and money to force mutations hoping to get a better breed and wasted all three resources then more fool them.I don't think the quote means what you think it means (and I think it's a quote mine) - they were talking about forcing mutation, and you reported the effort as failed.Without even checking up on the work itself I can tell you that I'd say exactly the same thing and it wouldn't change my opinion of evolution one jot.That you don't understand this just proves my point.If Darwin's finches, to you, are just microevolution "within a kind" then don't bring it up as a problem for evolution - that you don't understand evolution doesn't change the fact that the theory is not negated but reinforced by observations regarding them.That you don't understand this just proves my point.and regarding the bible being literal, forgive me but I have either crossed you with somebody else who didn't have an issue with Genesis not requiring strict 24 hour days, or you have misunderstood what I mean.

I wasnt trying to pretend anything. He is clearly saying that he sees 'design' in nature. Isnt that what ID proponents say too? There is design in nature and therefore there must be a designer??and why does he say that? It is likely because he is biased towards evolution rather then design...even though he acknowleges 'design' in living things. I can see that he is trying to say that the evidence for evolution does not imply a designed species, but thats exactly what the ToE is...its about slow undirected change as opposed to purposful design. He's using evolution to say that life shows something that has come from trial and error because he is interpreting things with evolution as the basis.

I think this has been explained to you before, but here we go again.Evolution is not undirected, it is directed by natural selection.

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I hunt for the truthI am the one Orgasmatron, the outstretched grasping hand
My image is of agony, my servants rape the land
Obsequious and arrogant, clandestine and vain
Two thousand years of misery, of torture in my name
Hypocrisy made paramount, paranoia the law
My name is called religion, sadistic, sacred whore.
-Lyrics by Lemmy Kilmister of Motorhead

No. So stop pretending that that's what he said. He doesn't. You're pretending that he says he sees design in all things ... and complaining that he's biased against design? STOP MAKING STUFF UP. That paragraph could have made a whole lot more sense if it had different words in it.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Hi Peg,This IS getting off topic - so please only one good answer to it and I'll let it lie, but you say this: What is your evidence that your "theory" about genes is true?If you take genetic samples of two sets of salamanders that can't interbreed (I presume this is your theory), then you should expect to see what exactly?I mean to say you could do the same with horses, donkeys and zebras.I'd like to see some evidence there, perhaps, that a donkey, a horse and a zebra are "narrowed down" in some way since they can obviously interbreed (although really, really badly) and yet breed true to their "kind" perfectly adequately.Horses, for example, are an ever-improving breed. We race them and they seem to get only faster.I certainly don't see zebras dying out because of lion predation, so their genes aren't bad.Donkeys are everywhere, but there's no consistent breeding program as there has been with dogs, so they might not be so "noble" but they certainly aren't dying out, so their genes appear fine too.Yet they can't interbreed all that well.so, are they the same "kind"? If they are, why can't they interbreed well?If they aren't, why are they apparently faring perfectly well as independant "kinds", and why CAN they interbreed?Finally, where in all this is the "degeneration" and "narrowing down" of the genetic code that you talk about?You must have some proof?Some peer-reviewed work?Something?