Quiz and Evolutionary Biology

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I have now read what you copied for me. I am sorry I was impatient and didn't give the statement it's deserved attention. If fact is just accumulation of evidence (in science) then maybe I am wrong in persuing this argument as what I am talking about is 'absolute certainty'. I accept there seems to be evidence for evolution. I will never myself call it fact, but if you want, I must concede the point because I am talking about absolutes. Is it true there are no absolutes in science?

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FANTASTIC, MIKE!!You are getting it.There is no such thing as "absolute certainty" in science. That is because we realize that we are imperfect, and therefore cannot ever have thought of everything. We can be very very very convinced, however, of a theory's explanitory power because it is very well-supported by evidence and has withstood many tests and predictions using the theory have been borne out.Something could come up that puts the theory of evolution into doubt, but until it does, we will use our current knowledge and understanding because it works, and is the best we have at this moment.

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'What you are doing is completely rejecting what we do know because we don't know everything.'

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Maybe I am guilty. One thing is for sure , I am no scientist and am aware of my lack of success towards science. But don't count me out yet, as my ears are open, and as I have always said, the FACT is I am probably wrong.

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Mike, by saying the above statement, if you really mean it, shows that you are actually begining to think scientifically.To think scientifically is to have an inquiring mind and desire to understand things, but it is also to have a very stringent standard for evidence. Scientists are wrong about things very frequently, but that is how we learn things, too.Good show.

Good show!
I second that!!It is hard for any of us to learn things. It is especially hard when a very important part of our world view has been tied up with things. The FALSE tying of specific religious beliefs to scientific facts and concepts make any learning very, very difficult in a way that I would find hard to grasp.So there are two challenges:
1) One is the same one we all face. The enormous complexity of what we now know about our world. Some things are just plain, literally mind boggling too. Feynman said (I think) "No one understands quantum mechanics". Or perhaps it was something like "If you think you do you don't".
2)The extra difficulty of understanding the the religious view and it's tenants do NOT have to be tangled up with knowledge of the natural world. I know this is clear to most believers but any time you have been inculcated from a young age that they are tangled up it is a major step to make.

Ok Zhimbo and whoever else it may concern,I have found the problem with the fossil record, the problem is well known among the world today. The problem with the fossil record and partly why evolution is not factual is because the fossil record is missing the intermediate life forms(i.e. If I understand it correctly, the life forms which have both characteristics of the species before and after the current species time.) So if you look at a record and see a smooth transition such as Rei suggested you should be able to find a life form which has both lizard and bird like charateristics such is not the case, because you dont find species with partially formed wings and partially formed tails and partialy formed feet or eyes which match the before species and the after species on the fossil record you only see natural selection which I dont agree with. (For example: when you build a house it has a begining, partial medium, medium, partial medium, medium, partial medium, medium, partial medium, and end. We dont see this in the fossil record at all at any point. What we do see is a begining, medium, end, medium,end, medium,end much different.)QuizP.S. Darwin even spoke of this problem:The number of intermediate varieties, which have formerly existed on the earth, (must) be truly enormous. Why then is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chain; and this, perhaps, is the most obvious and gravest objection which can be urged against my theory.

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Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species
and anotherThe problem is worse than Darwin thought:

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The record of evolution is still surprisingly jerky and, ironically, we have even fewer examples of evolutionary transition than we had in Darwin's time. By this I mean that the classic cases of darwinian change in the fossil record, such as the evolution of the horse in North America, have had to be modified or discarded as a result of more detailed information. What appeared to be a nice simple progression when relatively few data were available now appears to be much more complex and less gradualistic. (Raup)
and anotherContrary to the impression given by evolutionary books and magazines, evidence of transition is rare and limited to variation within kinds. Sensationalistic claims of ‘evolutionary ancestors’ make it into the newspapers; retractions and more sober evaluations of new fossils do not. As Dr. Colin Patterson, a senior paleontologist at the British Museum of Natural History, put it:

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I fully agree with your comments on the lack of direct illustration of evolutionary transitions in my book. If I knew of any, fossil or living, I would certainly have included them. You suggest that an artist should be used to visualise such transformations, but where would he get the information from? I could not, honestly, provide it Gradualism is a concept I believe in, not just because of Darwin's authority, but because my understanding of genetics seems to demand it. Yet Gould and the American Museum people are hard to contradict when they say there are no transitional fossils It is easy enough to make up stories of how one form gave rise to another, and to find reasons why the stages should be favoured by natural selection. But such stories are not part of science, for there is no way of putting them to the test. (correspondence w. Sunderland)

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Described recently as "the most important evolutionary event during the entire history of the Metazoa," the Cambrian explosion established virtually all the major animal body forms -- Bauplane or phyla -- that would exist thereafter, including many that were 'weeded out' and became extinct. Compared with the 30 or so extant phyla, some people estimate that the Cambrian explosion may have generated as many as 100. The evolutionary innovation of the Precambrian/Cambrian boundary had clearly been extremely broad: "unprecedented and unsurpassed," as James Valentine of the University of California, Santa Barbara, recently put it. (Lewin)

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The gaps in the fossil record are real, however. The absence of a record of any important branching is quite phenomenal. Species are usually static, or nearly so, for long periods, species seldom and genera never show evolution into new species or genera but replacement of one by another, and change is more or less abrupt. (Wesson)
[This message has been edited by Quiz, 11-04-2003]

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Species are usually static, or nearly so, for long periods, species seldom and genera never show evolution into new species or genera but replacement of one by another, and change is more or less abrupt. (Wesson)

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So how do you explain this in your world view?Perhaps some divine being has been eradicating species and
replacing them?Gaps in the fossil record are known, and if we ONLY had the
fossil record to go by we would doubtless not be having
this discussion. We do not only have the fossil record.The fossil record is consistent with the theory of evolution,
it does not, nor does anyone suggest, that it prooves
evolution.Unless you wish to try to convolute geology and hydrodynamics,
the fossil record does cast doubt on literal biblical creation
though.In this situation, trying to decide between two explanations
one looks to the available evidence and see which seems more
likely based upon it -- if the weight of evidence from different
lines of enquiry points towards the same explanation perhaps
that's because the explanation is more-or-less right.

I am still not sure but if I understand the information correctly. The fossil record seems to reflect the nature of creation in my opinion, because it appears all life forms have not evolved but were merely created and many have become extinct, and thus this process created fossils which would help people come up with a evolution theory. I really am not sure if I support evolution or not but I would say the thought of evolution is very disrupting to the idea of creation.Quiz

Birds are not descended from lizards. However a "part bird - part reptile" fossil has been known for over 100 years - archaeopteryx.And there are many more intermediate forms in the fossil record
(form acanthostega to the "archaic homo sapiens" which link our species to homo erectus).

Ok Paulk,I have read about the "archaeopteryx" and it does not actually support evolution. The features of archaeopteryx are actually complete rather then incomplete. For the fossil of the archaeopteryx to support evolution the bird for lack of a better word would need to have part bird half-evolved and part reptile half-evolved, (i.e. incomplete limbs) but this birds limbs are completeQuizp.s I am still checking into the evolution of man theory. I have found some good information supporting it and against it I am reading about it still...[This message has been edited by Quiz, 11-04-2003]

Of course archaeopteryx is complete - that is what evolutionary theory predicts.Only a theory that assumed an underlying purpose externally controlling the course of evolution would propose "incomplete" creatures in the sense you suggest.

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Of course archaeopteryx is complete - that is what evolutionary theory predicts.

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We agree for once, but evolution suggest intermediate transformation species not just a smooth transition.

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Only a theory that assumed an underlying purpose externally controlling the course of evolution would propose "incomplete" creatures in the sense you suggest.

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Are you suggesting natural selection or divine creation?Quizp.s. I would think that if evolution occured that it would be like building a house, having all stages from nothing to a pile of wood up to a house. not just nothing, then pile of wood then house.[This message has been edited by Quiz, 11-04-2003][This message has been edited by Quiz, 11-04-2003]

According to the literal creation account in genesis
all creatures were created within the same period of time.This being the case we would expect to see a 'random' representation
of lifeforms within the fossil record -- anything could
die at any time, and if all co-existed at creation then
ANY lifeform cold be fossilised in any stratum.What we actually see is that life becomes increasingly different
to modern life as one goes deeper into the rocks.We also have a high degree of consistency around the globe
as to which sort of depth we expect to find certain types
of fossil.Evolution is only disruptive of the literal creation account
in the bible. It takes nothing from the belief in a god-creator
that started things off and watches over it.The fossil record shows that the constituents of the living
population of the earth has changed radically over time.We are left with two possibilities:1) God made mistakes which s/he then rectified by destruction
and replacement.2) The life on earth changed and diversified by natural mechanisms.There is, and can be, no evidence for 1 (doesn't mean it didn't
happen that way, but there is no evidecne for it).There is a wealth of evidence that supports the possibility
that 2 is correct -- not just fossils. The evidence can be
found on this site, around the web, or in those strange papery
thingies called ... er ... what was it ... oh, yes -- books.
(assuming you don't have access to the relevant journals
that is).

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The features of archaeopteryx are actually complete rather then incomplete. For the fossil of the archaeopteryx to support evolution the bird for lack of a better word would need to have part bird half-evolved and part reptile half-evolved

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Not quite sure where you got that idea, but it's wrong.
Incomplete structures would hardly make a viable organism --
and are not required for evolution to proceed.Archeaopteryx has feathers that are not exactly like modern
birds, but getting there. It has a bird-like structure, but
retains a dino-like tail and has teeth.

I would think that certain species are different then others and thus is why you would find different species in deeper places according to there life type/cycle. we must also note that the biblical creation soon had a biblical flood which allows things to age quicker and perhaps be burried deeper for 2 reasons the flood and the original life type/cycle.Quiz

Like I said evolution should be like building a house. I would expect every second of detail. If you could split the building of a house into 5 billion steps you would need each step to evolve a entire house. I would expect the same from every form of life. all steps must be included for evolution to have occured. I have seen many websights with people trying to say this is not importent and many websights saying this is. It is not just me, it is a community effort.Quiz[This message has been edited by Quiz, 11-04-2003]

Your misconception is that we have fossils of every species that ever existed in every stage of its development. We don't, nor do we need to.My kids like when I draw those flip-movies on note pads: the guy pole vaulting, the Spy vs. Spy guys playing volleyball with the bomb, etc. I usually think of these crude movies as an analogy to the fossil record: you don't have to have seamless transitions to be able to establish continuity.So in the billion-page flip-movie of the fossil record, something like the development of wings happens so quickly you don't even see it. The pages devoted to such an evolutionary transition are few compared to the long periods where species are stable populations not really experiencing much change. When a subpopulation becomes a separate species, all you see is a new character pop up in the movie, and maybe he replaces the original character so quickly that we don't initially realize a change has taken place.All I'm trying to do is give you a better way of visualizing what the fossil record is telling us. If you study up on the fossil lineage of sea mammals (Carl Zimmer's At the Water's Edge is a fascinating book on the subject) you'll see the process and methodology involved in reconstructing the evolutionary movie.------------------
The bear thought his son could talk in space about the time matter has to rotate but twisted heaven instead.
-Brad McFall

Are you suggesting Natural selection. I can say that Darwin new of the problem I am speaking about. there are many quotes from Darwin presenting the issue.Quiz