Who Owns the Standard Definition of Evolution

I have looked at "29+ Evidences for Macroevolution". It's a 41,000+ word document not including references, et al., (avg novel: 50-100K words) and it's not an easy read. So, no, I have not devoted the time and energy to comprehending the argument.I could tell you to go read the Bible to understand why Creation is true, but that would show a dearth of intellectual integrity, and an abundance of intellectual sloth.

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This lack of concurrence inarguably throws doubt into the idea that mankind evolved from something else a very long time ago.

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Obviously it does not. Doubts about the distant past do not cast any doubt about what we know about more recent times. Maybe you know your recent family tree. Does the fact that you don’t know who your ancestors were 4000 years ago cast any doubt on that family tree? How could it?

The one thing I am hoping you take away from what I wrote is that there are many, many Christians who accept evolution. Evolution is no more atheistic than the Germ Theory of Disease or the Theory of General Relativity. That's how science is done. We hypothesize about what we can't directly observe. Part of that hypothesis is to predict what we should should and shouldn't see in what we can directly observe. Again, you appear to be criticizing scientists for doing science. The whole point of doing science is to understand the processes we can't directly observe. This is why we have scientists and not observationalists. The solid proof is the exons/introns, transitions/transversions, nested hierarchies, and the rest of the evidence I have been discussing. This is the evidence that convinced the scientific community that evolution is true. Whether or not you attempt to understand this evidence is up to you, but if you want to understand why the scientific community is convinced then you will need to understand this evidence. If you want to just mock scientists and handwave the evidence away, that's your choice.

There's lots of words because there's lots of evidence. Handwaving it away because you don't think it is aimed at the layperson is just dismissive. I do agree that some of the topics can be difficult to understand, but this is the level of knowledge one would need in order to even begin to criticize the theory. What I hope you take away from this is that scientists aren't just assuming evolution is true. There are mountains and mountains of data that we are looking at, as well as subjects that you probably weren't familiar with before participating in this thread.One of the sections that may be aimed more at your interests is the section on transitional fossils:29+ Evidences for Macroevolution: Part 1Specifically, hominid transitional fossils:

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(A) Pan troglodytes, chimpanzee, modern
(B) Australopithecus africanus, STS 5, 2.6 My
(C) Australopithecus africanus, STS 71, 2.5 My
(D) Homo habilis, KNM-ER 1813, 1.9 My
(E) Homo habilis, OH24, 1.8 My
(F) Homo rudolfensis, KNM-ER 1470, 1.8 My
(G) Homo erectus, Dmanisi cranium D2700, 1.75 My
(H) Homo ergaster (early H. erectus), KNM-ER 3733, 1.75 My
(I) Homo heidelbergensis, "Rhodesia man," 300,000 - 125,000 y
(J) Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, La Ferrassie 1, 70,000 y
(K) Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, La Chappelle-aux-Saints, 60,000 y
(L) Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, Le Moustier, 45,000 y
(M) Homo sapiens sapiens, Cro-Magnon I, 30,000 y
(N) Homo sapiens sapiens, modern

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Yeah, here's what I said:

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We seldom spend lots of time worrying if the general public or school kids understand it or not, because we've begged the public to become knowledgeable about evolution but we seldom can get them to even finish the first paragraph.

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To expand on that, scientists are seldom the authors of science textbooks for K-12 schools in the U.S., rather they are written by the publishers of textbooks primarily following guideline from the Texas board of education, one of the largest collection of uneducated boobs in the country. Few, if any science teachers in primary schools are scientists or even trained in science education, so your expectations of good science education in K-12 in the U.S. are naïve. Many, many millions of years ago there were lots of different species of dinosaurs and some of them had feathers. Over millions of years they became more and more like birds until they finally were birds. We call these changes evolution and it has been and still is happening to all living things. Then answer their questions. By spending a year teaching a complete high school biology class and demonstrating the principals of evolution. Or briefly, "Animal populations change over time, for more information on how they change and what the change into, enroll in 10th grade biology." I would encourage them to read Evolution Third Edition by Carl T. Bergstrom and Lee Alan Dugatkin and to enroll in a biology course at a local community college. I would let my explanation stand for the 4th graders and offer references to published research results based on questions from the classes. Considering the number of definitions you have been presented with, the level of evolution definition you seek does not and could not exist.

Of course you haven't. Why would you? You're not interested in knowing are you? You're just trolling.
​ We've all read the bible. Some of us several times. Some here have actually studied it. It's a certainty that all the atheists here know more about the bible and its historicity than you do. We've often looked at it as believers and as disbelievers but also looked at the stuff that you can't - it's called evidence.

There have already been a number of replies to your message, one of them fairly detailed (Message 436), and another very detailed (Message 439). I won't duplicate what's already been said, just respond more generally.I'm not an atheist. Neither are most people who accept evolution. Less than 10% of Americans are atheists. I think your problem is not with atheism but with secularism.I hope your understanding of evolution has improved during your time here, that you now know that evolution doesn't think a cat can give birth to a dog. The better you understand evolution the more legitimate your rejection of it.You do seem to possess a deep unfamiliarity with the nature of science combined with a strong resistance to learning about it. For example, even after all the discussion you still found it reasonable to say that accepted scientific theory is a "curious designation." That is the term used across all science. And you again used the term "just scientific theory" when theory holds the position of highest honor within science.Commenting on your message generally, it was comprised of the same complaints you arrived with while dismissing all the attempts at answers and explanations as inadequate. If you're truly leaving and only posted that message to let us know that your time here didn't change your mind about anything, then mission accomplished.But if you intend to stay then your message should not be interpreted as resetting the discussion to where it began. All that has already been explained should not have to be reexplained, though naturally it is understood that some amount, even a great amount, of back and forth is often necessary before understanding or common ground is achieved. I think you may have moved on too early from too many topics.--Percy

Evolution is both fact and theory just as gravity is both fact and theory.

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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 do not go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's, but apples did not suspend themselves in mid-air, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from apelike ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other, yet to be discovered.

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Moreover, "fact" does not mean "absolute certainty." 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 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 assent." I suppose that apples might start to rise tomorrow, but the possibility does not merit equal time in physics classrooms.

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Evolutionists have been clear about this distinction between 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. He wrote in The Descent of Man: "I had two distinct objects in view; firstly, to show that species had not been separately created, and secondly, that natural selection had been the chief agent of change. . . . Hence if I have erred in . . . having exaggerated its [natural selection's] power . . . I have at least, as I hope, done good service in aiding to overthrow the dogma of separate creations."
--Stephen Jay Gould, "Evolution as Fact and Theory"
https://wise.fau.edu/...s/knowing/gould_fact-and-theory.html

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And you still haven't told us why students shouldn't be taught about a theory that is accepted by more than 99% of biologists. Almost nothing in biology makes sense outside the theory of evolution, as Dobzhansky once quipped, and it's true. Why does everything with three middle ear bones also have fur? Evolution explains it. Why does everything with feathers have just one middle ear bone? Evolution explains it. Why don't we see species that lactate and have flow through lungs? Evolution explains it. Creationism can't explain any of this. One of the important subjects that biology students are taught is the overall picture of taxonomy. The fact that species nest within genera, genera nest within families, families nest within orders, and orders nest within classes, classes nest within phyla, and phyla nest within kingdoms is only explained by evolution and common ancestry. There is absolutely no reason we should see this pattern if Creationism is true. I would start with natural selection. There are differences between individuals within a species, and those differences that give the individuals an advantage tend to have more offspring. This causes those advantages to become more and more common within the species. This is where I would introduce the nested hierarchy which is seen in both taxonomy and cladistics. This explains common ancestry and why we see the combination of features we see in these groups. Why do we see transitional fossils between reptiles and mammals but not between mamals and birds? Why are all mammals also vertebrates? What is the common ancestral group for mammals and fish?Almost all of the evidence for evolution is tied to understanding how nested hierarchies work, so that is the first concept that needs to be taught. I would present the evidence I have presented here, including the pattern of substitutions, patterns of sequence conservation, and once again the importance of the nested hierarchy. We could also include shared endogenous retroviruses, which is discussed here:
29+ Evidences for Macroevolution: Part 4and here:
https://www.evcforum.net/dm.php?control=msg&t=20370 The fit between the predictions made by the theory and the observations that are made is the demonstration.

The first ancestor is often called LUCA which stands for Last Universal Common Ancestor. This was at least a species with a larger population, but could have also been a whole group of species that passed different features between them. LUCA was definitely not the first life to appear on Earth.LUCA would have had, at a minimum, the shared metabolic pathways seen in all life and the shared genetic systems shared by all life. I spoke earlier about the relationship between protein translation and tRNA's. This is one of the evidences for a single common ancestor for life since the relationship between codon and amino acid is mostly arbitrary and could have been different for different groups if life had more than one origin or more than one ancestor.The theory of evolution itself makes no claims about how the first life came about. If God created the first simple replicators that evolved into the biodiversity we see today then not one word of the theory would need to be changed. Why? That's like saying we can't know what happened yesterday because we don't know every fine detail of what happened on this date 50,000 years ago. We have tons and tons of data demonstrating shared ancestry between humans and other primates.

If K.Rose is asking for the evidence I think he's asking for, namely observational evidence of thousands of generations from millions of years ago, then I think we've already given him the right answer: that kind of evidence doesn't exist.The question for K.Rose is why he thinks we need observational evidence that past life reproduced the same way as current life.--Percy

​Why don't you just look? It took me 2 minutes to find the UK's curriculum , read it and paste it here. You can find the teaching aids and class plans if you want to - but you don't want to do you? I'm not sure what you actually want. Is this nonsense some kind of step in your cult's missionary work?Anyway.The UK national curriculum for evolution covers the following topics:In key stage 1 (ages 5-7), pupils should be taught to identify and name a variety of common animals, including fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals, and describe and compare the structure of a variety of common animals.In key stage 2 (ages 7-11), pupils should be taught to recognise that living things have changed over time and that fossils provide information about living things that inhabited the Earth millions of years ago. They should also be taught to recognise that living things produce offspring of the same kind, but normally offspring vary and are not identical to their parents. They should be introduced to the idea of adaptation and how it leads to evolution.In key stage 3 (ages 11-14), pupils should be taught to understand how changes in the environment may leave individuals within a species, and some entire species, less well adapted to compete successfully and reproduce, which in turn may lead to extinction. They should also be taught to describe the process of natural selection leading to evolution; the evidence for evolution; developments in biology affecting classification; the importance of selective breeding of plants and animals; and the impact of genetic engineering on society and the environment.The UK national curriculum for evolution aims to ensure that all pupils develop scientific knowledge and conceptual understanding of the nature, processes and methods of science, and are equipped with the scientific knowledge required to understand the uses and implications of science, today and for the future.

Gee, this looks like fun. I know your message has already been answered a couple times, but I'd like to give this a try.

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Hi, class! How are you all doing today? Good? That's great. I'm Dr. Percy, and your teacher has asked me to explain evolution. Evolution is a great theory and it's pretty exciting. Wait'll you hear what I'm about to tell you.

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We all like bunnies, right? Yes, of course we do. Because bunnies are cute and soft and cuddly. How many of you kids have seen a brown bunny? Can I get a show of hands? A lot of you! That's great!

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But there are also white bunnies. How many of you kids have seen a white bunny? Can I get a show of hands? Again, a lot of you! That's great, too!

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Have you ever wondered why there are both brown and white bunnies? Well, the answer is evolution. Isn't that incredible? Evolution did it! Let me explain how.

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Once upon a time there were only brown bunnies, and they lived where it was usually nice and warm. But then some of the brown bunnies decided they wanted to live further north where it snows much of year, and so that's where they went. They moved north. And they found that they really liked the north because playing in the snow was a lot of fun. They liked their new home very much.

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But then they discovered that their new home had a danger: wolves. Wolves were not nice to the bunnies. The bunnies tried as hard as they could to hide from the wolves, and most of the time they made it to hiding places in time, but sometimes they didn't, and that was very sad.

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But some of the bunnies were a lighter brown than the other bunnies, and the wolves couldn't see them as well in the snow. The bunnies that were lighter brown spent less time hiding from wolves and more time making more bunnies so that as time went by more and more of the bunnies were a lighter and lighter shade of brown, until finally they were such a light shade of brown that they were white!

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And that's why there are white bunnies today!

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Hopefully the kind of liberties I took are okay for the fourth grade.--Percy

There are some good experiments 4th graders could partake in, one of which teaches students how natural selection works.https://www.dentonisd.org/...%20Evolution%20ActivityDATA.pdfIn this example, one of the students spreads out a bunch of differently colored toothpicks on a patch of grass. The other student is then asked to act like a predator and grab the first toothpicks they see. What the students will find is that they will prey upon the green toothpicks the least compared to the other colors. It would also be interesting to see results from colorblind students.

Thank you for the pictures, now maybe we're beginning to get somewhere. Which of those skulls represent creatures that could, if they were here, procreate with modern humans?And if we were to group the skulls according to "procreateability" among members of the group, what would the groupings look like?And, of course, how do we know that?

Love the toothpick approach!--Percy