|
Register | Sign In |
|
QuickSearch
Thread ▼ Details |
|
|
Author | Topic: Creationists: Why is Evolution Bad Science? | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Jzyehoshua Member (Idle past 761 days) Posts: 153 Joined: |
What is more, this is 1 of only 2 falsifiable tests I know listed in the book for determining which of these 2 competing theories, a single parent species or multiple ones, is the correct theory; the other being a lack of transitional forms. Therefore, its emphasis is crucial.
And if so, genetics would actually prove, according to Darwin's own words, the competing theory of multiple parent species as opposed to one common one for all species. Edited by Jzyehoshua, : No reason given.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Taq Member Posts: 9973 Joined: Member Rating: 5.7 |
I know that they share in common a great percentage of their DNA (though I believe Neanderthal Man was even closer). It's around 95 or even 98%, correct? It is both. Of the DNA we share from common ancestry the sequence is 98% homologous. When you include DNA that has been deleted or inserted since common ancestry there is 95% homology across the entire genome. The 98% measures point mutations and the 95% measures indels (i.e. insertions and deletions).
And yet, genetics has now proven the existence of a 'mitochondrial eve', a direct human ancestor to all humans. There is a different "Eve" for every gene in the human genome. If the human race goes through a sever population bottleneck in the next 10 years the next Eve may very well be living today. Not all human lineages survive to this day so it is expected that all but one lineage for a given gene will remain. A good analogy is a small isolated village where just a few surnames can be found. When the village first started there may have been many families with many different surnames, but over time one surname tends to dominate.
Isn't this the exact same thing he spoke of? Showing all human species descended singularly rather than via mass evolution? And that it would show parent species, not a single common ancestor for all species? And if not, then what evidence was he saying would be needed? If all human species descended from a single parent species then we would expect to see modern humans in sediment which dates to 5 million before present. We don't. Instead, we see the gradual appearance of human features over that 5 million years period, from australopithecines up through H. ergaster and H. erectus. Without DNA it is impossible to tell if any of these fossils are in our direct lineage, but from the fossils we can know which modern human features evolved first, and in what order.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 285 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
However, I didn't see Dr. Adequate bring up this point. All I was hearing was, "unless you prove you're a scientist you have no room to say anything on this forum" ... It's funny that you should have "heard" that, since it was not remotely like anything I said. Still, given how grotesquely you've managed to misunderstand Darwin, I suppose it's not that surprising.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Percy Member Posts: 22394 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.2 |
Jzyehoshua writes: However, I didn't see Dr. Adequate bring up this point. All I was hearing was, "unless you prove you're a scientist you have no room to say anything on this forum", a requirement I'd been unaware of. Naturally this appeared belittling, condescending, arrogant, spurious, and a direct assault on the American ideal of freedom of speech. Like I said before, pay no attention to Dr Adequate. He gets on everyone's nerves. He gets suspended a lot, too. He apparently enjoys brinksmanship and occasionally the brink gets him. Perhaps it would have been more accurate if I had said, "What I think Dr Adequate is reacting to..."
Jzyehoshua writes: My point is that while we keep hearing about the ability of animals to make drastic evolutionary leaps between species, we have yet to see any evidence of it. I don't think anyone sees evidence of "evolutionary leaps between species." An organism cannot differ genetically from its parent (or parents) by more than the few mutations it might happen to receive as part of the reproductive process. Evolution proceeds in very tiny, incremental steps. Evidence for "leaps between species" would be evidence against evolution.
As the Brothers Winn point out, we've been watching bacteria since the invention of the microscope, and while they have adapted as bacteria, they've never become a new, higher form of life. Imagine if evolution could actually express desires. Bacterial evolution a billion years ago before there was any multicellular life at all might have thought to itself, "Gee, if I could just team up with other bacteria to form a single multi-celled organism then I could get more food and grow even faster because there's no competition at that size." Bacterial evolution today might say, "Gee, if I teamed up with other bacteria to form a single multi-celled organism then there's tons of very advanced competition that has had nearly a billion years to evolve great skill competing at that level. Better to remain a little bacteria." Of course, evolution cannot express desires, and in fact evolution is directionless and just reponds to current environmental factors, but I'm just making the point that the ecological niches for multi-celled organisms are very crowded today, so bacteria gaining a foothold at that level would now be very unlikely. Still, some bacteria do cooperate and so have what could be considered very primitive multi-cellular capability. But bacteria *do* evolve. The reason they're so often the subjects of studies is because they evolve quickly due to very short generation times. For example, some species of E. coli reproduce every 20 minutes.
Same with canaries. They may adapt within an apparent parent species, but do not become an entirely new line. Canaries evolve too. All life evolves. Reproduction requires the copying of DNA, and the copying process is imperfect. The average human (and probably the average canary, too) has about 100 mutations, meaning portions of their DNA that they did not inherit from either parent but that came about through copying errors. Bacterial evolution can be easily studied because in short periods of time, like a month, you can get a couple thousand generations and literally billions and billions of reproductive events. Evolution in longer lived species is much more difficult to study in the lab. In a month you would be luck to get one new generation from Canaries. In a year maybe you could have three generations and maybe a couple hundred reproductive events at most, since usually the parents won't breed again until the current brood leaves the nest. Given that each offspring differs genetically only minutely from its parents, canaries aren't going to evolve much in such a small number of generations. I'm not aware of any evolutionary studies of canaries, but studies of the finches of the Galpagos Islands have been widely publicized, and those finches do change in minor ways in response to environmental changes.
Were we still actively considering parent species as an alternative, which Darwin himself stated as the opposing view, then the evidence would appear telling that this is the case, and an objective examination lead to more thorough analysis of the competing possibility. The genetic evidence pretty conclusively excludes the possibility of multiple unique evolutionary origins for extant species. I wonder if we could figure out a way to go over that evidence in an on-line discussion. There's a couple biologists here. WK?
However, this has also resulted in certain infamous fossil finds which were falsified (Java Man, Piltdown Man, Nebraska Man). It has also resulted in several surprising mistakes recently, such as the discovery the newly christened 'rat squirrel' was in fact the already existing Laotian Rock Rat, or that Homo Floresiensis, aka hobbit man and labeled a missing link, had in fact lived up until modern times and thus could not be an ancestor, or that Habilis and Erectus lived at the same time and would have to be knocked off the lineage, or that Ardipithecus Ramidus, older than Lucy, looked nothing like an ape and walked upright. The news has had major press received that the human family tree is now instead a 'bush' with dead ends everywhere. Classification can be difficult. Let me explain why disagreements about and changes in classification have no bearing on the theory of evolution using the analogy of a tree. Imagine you and a friend are beneath a tree, and you look up at a clump of leaves in the canopy. You both look at one particular leaf and find if difficult to tell which branch of the tree the leaf belongs to. You and your friend argue about it. You finally climb up into the canopy and discover that the leaf actually belongs to a third reaching branch that neither of you had noticed. But at no time during this resolution of a difference of opinion did either of you ever doubt the branching nature of trees. Leaves connect to twigs connect to branches connect to bigger and bigger branches and finally to the trunk. In other words, differences of opinion about which branch a species belongs in does not call into question the nested hierarchy of life. And just as with the tree leaf where you were able to resolve the difference of opinion by climbing into the canopy and conducting a closer examination, we can remove all ambiguity about classification of life by closer examination through sequencing of the DNA. Of course, with fossils DNA sequencing isn't possible, and so scientists are like you and your friend when you were both on the ground staring up at the leaf. Without the additional information of DNA sequencing there will always be room for disagreement.
Again, not only is there a complete lack of proof for this interspeciary change, but discoveries are beginning to knock out one after another of the missing links that already exist, or else alleged new ones are found wrong. I think you're probably referring to disagreements over and changes to classification, which I just explained, but if not can you be more specific? --Percy
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Wounded King Member Posts: 4149 From: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA Joined: |
The genetic evidence pretty conclusively excludes the possibility of multiple unique evolutionary origins for extant species. I wonder if we could figure out a way to go over that evidence in an on-line discussion. There's a couple biologists here. WK? I seem to remember a couple of threads on sequence analysis from a while back, I don't know if either of those would be suitable or if we would need a whole new topic. We could also touch on Doug Theobald's recent work which tried to assess the likelihood of multiple vs. singular origins of life (Theobald, 2010). TTFN, WK
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
RAZD Member (Idle past 1405 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined:
|
Hi Jzyehoshua, just a small point or two:
However, this has also resulted in certain infamous fossil finds which were falsified (Java Man ... Leaving aside the issue of what was falsified (that "Piltdown Man" was really a hoax, that "Nebraska Man" was really never accepted as hominid in spite of the media hype) ... ... and by who (hint: it wasn't by any creationists), we have the issue of false information being spread by creationists. Your listing of Java Man shows this. Java Man - Wikipedia
quote: Far from being falsified (whatever you mean by that), this specimen is the "type specimen" for Homo erectus quote: Type (biology) - Wikipedia
quote: Fossil Hominids: Type Specimens
quote: Java Man was the first fossil found of Homo erectus, so it defines this species. There is nothing false about this fossil. From this it should be obvious that any source that tells you that Java Man is a falsified fossil hominid on the order of the Piltdown hoax or the media made up Nebraska Man, is either lying to you (in which case you cannot take any of their claims as valid) or grossly ignorant of the truth (in which case you cannot take any of their claims as valid) or deluded about reality (in which case you cannot take any of their claims as valid) , or too stupid to understand the truth (in which case you cannot take any of their claims as valid).
... that Homo Floresiensis, aka hobbit man and labeled a missing link, ... Likewise, this too is false information: Homo floresiensis was never considered a "missing link" (a media term not a scientific one btw) as it was a dead end species that went extinct. There is nothing for it to "link" to.
... or that Ardipithecus Ramidus, older than Lucy, looked nothing like an ape and walked upright. ... Again, this statement is misleading, if not false and misrepresentative. Ardi was fully capable of upright walking - from your source:
Oldest Skeleton of Human Ancestor Foundquote: Gosh, that's shocking all right: it's a transitional species (the scientific term for "missing link" btw) that shows intermediate traits between an ancestral population and a modern population, as would be expected from an ancestor, and would NOT be expected to be similar to a modern ape (human, chimp or gorilla). Now lets look at your main claim here:
This is why Creationists always differ between microevolution and macroevolution. We can observe natural selection and adaptation right now. However it is faith by which one relies upon interspeciary evolution, which appears more a philosophy of Darwin's that all had a common ancestor, than one of his more solidly supported facts. ... Again, not only is there a complete lack of proof for this interspeciary change, ... Curiously, "interspeciary change" is not macroevolution, microevolution or any kind of evolution. Again, whoever told you that macroevolution was "interspeciary change" was either lying about, ignorant of, deluded about, or too stupid to understand, (pick one) what evolution says. There is no such thing as "interspeciary change" in all of biology. What you have is (another) creationist misrepresentation of real evolution. I find it curious that gullible believers will tout anything they find from a creationist source, believing that the information is valid, when just a little bit of study would show you how vacuous it really is.
Any encyclopedia would tell you the truth about Java Man. Likewise studying any (real) biology textbook would tell you that "interspeciary change" is not how evolution works. Here's a good on line reference:
Evolution 101 from Berkeley University. You can also read about what parent populations are, the roll they have in speciation and the formation of nested hierarchies of descent, and how this fits in with the theory of common ancestry. It must be disturbing for an honest person looking for answers to bolster their faith, that so much of the creationist information is rife with lies, misinformation, falsehoods, deceit and incredible ignorance. If the creationist position is valid, then why is this information such a mess? Perhaps you like to post your source so we can add it to the list of Scientific vs Creationist Frauds and Hoaxes as another creationist hoax site. Enjoy. we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand Rebel American Zen Deist ... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share. • • • Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click) • • •
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Percy Member Posts: 22394 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.2 |
Okay - if Jzyehoshua expresses an interest we could figure out which approach is best and give it a try.
--Percy
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
simple  Inactive Member |
What makes "evolution" bad is that it is usually thought of as starting off before creation. Now, it you want to ask me to prove creation, fine...prove the pond.
Edited by simple1, : No reason given.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Huntard Member (Idle past 2296 days) Posts: 2870 From: Limburg, The Netherlands Joined: |
simple1 writes:
I don't know anyone that thinks evolution happened before there was life.
What makes "evolution" bad is that it is usually thought of as starting off before creation. Now, it you want to ask me to prove creation, fine...prove the pond.
*Points to a pond*. Ok, show me what you got.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Peepul Member (Idle past 5018 days) Posts: 206 Joined: |
quote: There are a couple of strands here - common ancestry and evolution across species boundaries. It's not essential that all organisms have a common ancestor for evolution to be true. In fact, as WK says, work is being done to investigate whether this really is true for all life on earth. Some biologists wonder whether there is, or has been in the past, a 'shadow biosphere' containing life of a different kind. This is not a threat to evolution. However, it is clear that evolution has crossed the boundaries between groups that baraminologists need to keep separate. There is a lot of evidence for this. Some examples :- We see fossils in the record that are transitional between major groupings When we construct trees of descent using different methods and characters we get consistent results - very good evidence that life falls in a nested hierarchy that crosses baramin boundaries. This is a 'risky prediction' for evolution - if this were not true, large-scale evolution would be falsified. It is not expected to be true if a special creation model is true. As it happens, it is true. We see a reasonably good correlation between the amount of genetic difference we see between organisms and the amount we should expect based on the time they have been diverging based on the fossil record. In fact, palaeontologists now sometimes use genetic measures of divergence times to drive what fossils to look for, as in the case of the origin of modern birds. Embyological patterns of development in mammals, for example, show phases that resemble the embryos of fish, amphibians and reptiles - in that order! There's a lot more, but that's a start. Why are we wrong to draw the natural conclusion from this? There is no evidence that the Christian origin story / flood story is true - and huge amounts of evidence that it is false. That's why science pays it no attention.
quote: No, that's not true. The evidence tells us that evolution has occurred across baramin boundaries. That's all there is to it. Give up ideas of 'atheist conspiracies'. This is just how things are.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
RAZD Member (Idle past 1405 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
Hi again simple1,
What makes "evolution" bad is that it is usually thought of as starting off before creation. Which makes all creationist arguments that conflate abiogenesis with evolution false. Of course scientist understand that abiogenesis and evolution are different concepts, with abiogenesis being the study of how life may develop, and evolution is about the change in frequency and character of hereditary traits in breeding populations from generation to generation. Rather obviously, you can't have evolution without breeding populations of living organisms.
Now, it you want to ask me to prove creation, fine...prove the pond. Presumably you mean abiogensis. Curiously, in science, nothing is proven. As such I don't expect you to "prove creation" ... but if you want to provide evidence for creation feel free. But the topic here is "why is evolution bad science?" - and you have not provided any details about that. Enjoy.
... as you are new here, some posting tips: type [qs]quotes are easy[/qs] and it becomes:
quotes are easy or type [quote]quotes are easy[/quote] and it becomes:
quote: also check out (help) links on any formatting questions when in the reply window. For other formatting tips see Posting Tips by our ability to understand R ebel A merican Z en D eist ... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share. • • • Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click) • • •
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Peepul Member (Idle past 5018 days) Posts: 206 Joined: |
quote: H floriensis has always known been to be recent.
quote: That's not news. That's what evolutionary patterns generally look like. I'm not sure what you mean about A. ramidus - it is an ape. H habilis and erectus living at the same time - why do you see that as a problem?
quote: On the contrary, there is plenty of evidence and more and more transitional fossils are being found. That's all there is to it. No religious belief is involved. There is no evidence of 'parent species' in nature. The concept of 'parent species' is derived entirely from the OT myth of a global flood. We can be absolutely certain that a global flood did not occur in the way the bible says - unless God deliberately wanted it to be undetectable and supernaturally hid all the evidence.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
RAZD Member (Idle past 1405 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
Hi Peeple,
H floriensis has always known been to be recent. That's not news. - why do you see that as a problem? That's what happens when you get your information from creationists sites that have bogus information delivered for the gullibles. Interestingly there are a couple of sites that show the modern thinking on hominid evolution:
Fossil Skull Tree Human Ancestor Tree Interactive Timeline of Hominid evolution That last one has just been updated to a new format, so check it out. And there is this video Enjoy by our ability to understand R ebel A merican Z en D eist ... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share. • • • Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click) • • •
|
|
|
Do Nothing Button
Copyright 2001-2023 by EvC Forum, All Rights Reserved
Version 4.2
Innovative software from Qwixotic © 2024