Where is the evidence for evolution?

hey guys,i’m new here, but so far i’ve enjoyed the debate, up until schrafinator and john began questioning scientist credibility based on whether or not that scientist came from a creationist web sitethe truth is, evolution is backwards science based on scientist taking a theory (they were taught in their biased schools) and attempting to get notoriety by manipulating the evidence to support their theory.schrafinator
You talk about bias as if it is always a bad thing. Isn't being biased in favor of the evidence a good thing?couldn’t be further from the truththe only science that has been consistent throughout time is the science of mathematics and any scientist that should be taken serious are the scientist that take the probabilities of their theories being true into consideration before attempting to publish thembefore evolutionist can discuss any species evolving, they first have to consider the probability of a single functional ‘simple’ cell forming by natural causesaccording to sir fred hoyle (british mathematician and astronomer) the probabilities of a single functional ‘simple’ cell forming by natural cause is ‘less than’ 10 to the 57800 powergiven an eternity, every credible mathematician will tell you that is impossible.since you guys are so into credintials:"Sir Fred Hoyle, a world-renowned astronomer, is acknowledged to be one of the most creative scientists of the 20th century. He has held the position of Plumian Professor of Astronomy at Cambridge University, and was also the founder of the Institute of Astronomy at Cambridge. He is currently an Honorary Fellow of both Emmanuel College and St.John's College Cambridge and an Honorary Professor at Cardiff University of Wales. He is best known for his seminal contributions to the theory of the structure of stars and on the origin of the chemical elements in stars. He is a joint proponent of the Steady-State model of the Universe, and in collaboration with Chandra Wickramasinghe he has pioneered the modern theory of panspermia. Amongst the numerous awards and distinctions bestowed on him are the UN Kalinga Prize, 1968, the Royal Medal of the Royal Society and the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society. In 1997 he was awarded the highly prestigious Crafoord Prize by the the Swedish Academy in recognition of outstanding basic research in fields not covered by the Nobel prize. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society and a Foriegn Associate of the US National Academy of Sciences. He has published over 40 books, including technical science, popular science and science fiction" (evolution).this is what else fred had to say on the subject..."Once we see, however, that the probability of life originating at random is so utterly minuscule as to make it absurd, it becomes sensible to think that the favourable properties of physics on which life depends are in every respect deliberate.It is therefore almost inevitable that our own measure of intelligence must reflect higher intelligences even to the limit of God. such a theory is so obvious that one wonders why it is not widely accepted as being self-evident. The reasons are psychological rather than scientific."

compmage:
Care to back up that assertion? I'm not going to accept your say-so that there is a global conspiracy to promote evolution and that nobody has been able to uncover it before now.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
I never said there was a global conspiracy and I wouldn’t respect you if you did accept my say-so. I was simply trying to point out that evolution scientist are so biased and closed minded to the idea of intelligent design, that evolution should now be considered more of a treasure hunt than a search for truth. Evolutionists hold dear to any evidence they might be able to somehow fit into their bias and discard any alternative evidence as a failure.Consider these quotes from respected evolutionist:The Origin of Species, Darwin avowed, To suppose that the eye, with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree possible.Thus so far as concerns the major groups of animals, the creationists seem to have the better of the argument. Dr. Austin Clark, curator of paleontology at the Smithsonian InstitutionLife, even in bacteria, is too complex to have occurred by chance.
Professor Harry Rubin, Professor of Molecular Biology & Research
Virologist to the Virus Laboratory, University of California BerkeleyEvolution will be a lost cause as soon as people hear all the evidence and not just the noise made by its proponents. Evan Shute, M.D., Canadian medical specialistthe fall of Darwinism will be the big story of the early 21st century Phillip E. Johnson, law professor, University of California at Berkeleythe record of the rocks is decidedly against evolutionists. William Dawson, famous Canadian geologistToday everyone of these respected evolutionists (that is still living) continues to cling to what they admit is a battle against the evidence. I can only suspect they’re gambling on the evidence changing in the future, but that’s not how intelligent decisions are made. Intelligent decisions are made on the information we have available and the probability the alleged occurance actually happening. At this time, based on the evidence, the probabilities of a majority of evolution theories being fact are (as Darwin put it) absurd. I apologize for all the assertions, but I can't think of a better explanation for these scientist remaining evolutionist.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
compmage
Mathematics isn't a science.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Irrelevant, as long as you agree Math is exact
---------------------------------------------------------------------
compmage
Secondly, abiogenisis has absolutely NOTHING to do with evolution.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
That’s debatable, but I’m no apologist for abiogenisis and I can understand why you’d want to distance yourself from that theory.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
compmage
Life could have been zapped into existence, arrived through a dimentional rift, or came about via abiogenisis. Science doesn't care, as long as that life doesn't replicate perfectly evolution proceeds naturally.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Science or science fiction? and you object to mathematics as being called science?
---------------------------------------------------------------------
compmage
Thirdly, scientific theories are based on 'probabilities', though not the way you think. The more evidence supports a theory, the more probable it is that said theory is correct.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
The evidence only supports the theories, if no alternative theory is considered. After all, Math is exact, shouldn’t mathematical probabilities be the standard all theories are based on?
---------------------------------------------------------------------
compmage
No theory ever reaches 100% probability, however it can go from highly likely to falsified very quickly. All you need is evidence that the theory cannot explain. Have any?
----------------------------------------------------------------------
I’m not saying evolution can’t explain all of the evidence, I’m just saying it can’t give an explanation that is not mathematically impossible.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
compmage
You do know what panspermia means don't you?
---------------------------------------------------------------------
I’m a creationist, far from a believer in panspermia. I was only trying to find a scientist that wouldn’t instantly be discredited, because he was a creationist (I’m lying, my badbut that doesn’t mean his math is not credible).
---------------------------------------------------------------------
compmage
Nobody I know says that life originated randomly. It most likely started chemically, following the rules of chemistry. You do know that chemicals don't react together randomly don't you?
---------------------------------------------------------------------
I’ll admit I love math, but have never been a big fan of chemistry. However, here’s what math has to say about the probability hurdles Chemical Evolutionist have to face (maybe you can explain it to me):Scientific American published an article which claimed that any chemical event having a probability of less than one chance in 10 to the 67th power will never happen, and has never happened--anytime, anywhere in the universe, even in 20 billion years!Chemical Absurdities and the Jethro Factor
by Charles E. Brewster, Ph.D.
The odds against forming a fairly small protein chain of about 250 amino acids by chance. (Protein chains of up to 50,000 amino acids are found in nature.) The odds against assembling any protein chain consisting of only left-handed amino acids by chance is 2 to the n th power where n is the number of consecutive amino acids in the protein. This means that the odds against assembling a useable protein of only 250 left-handed amino acids from a racemized mixture is one chance in 2 to the 250th power. This is about 1 chance in 10 to the 74th power. (The odds against assembling a useable protein molecule of 50,000 amino acids would be less than one chance in 10 to the 15,000th power!) So could this small 250 amino acid protein ever form by chance in our hypothetical ocean? Never! It could never happen by chance!So if it is mathematically and physically impossible to for even a single protein chain of 250 amino acids to form by chance, what would it take for a fully functioning cell consisting of at least 100 useable proteins to assemble themselves at the same point in the universe at the same time? (This is even given that we had all the other cell mechanisms existing at that point in the universe, at that point in time, encircling them!) The answer is one chance in 10 to the 74 multiplied by itself 100 times! (10 to the 7400). And this only gets us 100 very small proteins!This is why scientists now believe that the odds against a fully functioning cell occurring by chance is one chance in 10 to the 100 billionth power! (1 followed by one hundred billion zeroes--think of it as a 100 gigabyte harddrive full of nothing but zeroes. Big number!)Chemical evolutionist are not being honest. For if they were, they would acknowledge that any chemical event that has a probability of less than one chance in 10 to the 67th power will never happen--and has never happened--anytime, anywhere in the universe, ever! This is science! Hard, mathematical science! And how much more impossible, an event with a probability of one chance in 10 to the 100,000,000,000th power!

First of all, let me apologize to everyone involved in this debate. I admit, I got a little lazy with my research and should have been more careful with my quote selection. I appreciate you guys keeping me honest, but understand I would in no way intentionally made false statements to support my argument.compmage
Scientists discarding evidence? You do have evidence of this, don't you?
You are right; scientists are biased. They are biased in favour of evidence. What is wrong with that?
----------------------------------------------------------------------
The web page is at the bottom. You may enjoy the article, but you would also have to admit, there is no way this guy would ever consider any evidence in favor of creation as valid regardless of the facts.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door." Richard Lewontin, 'Billions and billions of demons', The New York Review, January 9, 1997, p. 31. http://www.csus.edu/indiv/m/mayesgr/Lewontin1.htmCouldn’t find any evolutionist rebuttals, so you tell me, are these just false allegations or were they stretching the evidence to support their theory?Piltdown man - *Captain St. Barbe and *Major Marriott were two amateur paleontologists from Sussex, who later reported that, on separate occasions they had surprised Dawson in his office staining bones. Because of this, they suspicioned that his Piltdown bone finds were nothing more than fakes. Yet few would listen to them. http://www.pathlights.com/ce_encyclopedia/13anc08.htmThere was Nebraska Man found in 1922, a find based on the discovery of a single tooth. After much hoopla by evolutionists, the tooth turned out to be a pig’s! There was Java Man (pithecanthropus erectus), based on a 19th century smattering of bone fragments, which was later discounted as a pre-human in a 342-page investigative report by a team of evolutionists. The famed Peking Man turned out to be nothing more than a monkey. http://www.equip.org/free/DF803.htmLucy - (The knee bones were actually discovered about a year earlier than the rest of Lucy). Dr. Johanson answered (reluctantly) about 200 feet lower (!) and two to three kilometers away (about 1.5 miles!). Continuing, Holt asked, "Then why are you sure it belonged to Lucy?" Dr. Johanson: "Anatomical similarity." (Bears and dogs have anatomical similarities).

wj:
Many contemporary scientists were suspicious of Piltdown Man because it did not fit well with the patterns displayed by other primate fossils. It was finally proven as a fraud after WW2. And who proved that it was fraudulent? Creationists? No.-------------------------------------------------------------------
If a creationist would have proved it would you believe it?I'll reply to other post later...

lpetrich
I wonder how Sonnikke explains our anatomical, genetic, and behavioral resemblances to chimps.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Today, some scientists estimate about 14 million species in existence (other estimates range from 1.6 to 80 million). Some also estimate 40,000 species become extinct every year (granted, no scientist knows exactly how many species become extinct each year, so feel free to fill in the estimate you feel is appropriate). Assuming the amount of species that existed when God created us (I know many will object to my plug for the Big Guy, but so what!), why is it hard to believe there would be similarities among species. I can’t explain the similarities, but I also know there are far more differences. The distance between an ape who can not read or write and a descendant of Adam who can compose a musical masterpiece or send someone to the moon is the distance of infinity (H. Hanegraaff). I don’t believe just because we have anatomical, genetic, and behavioral resemblances I should automatically assume a chimpanzee is my cousin. Email me 50 of your best drawn original designs and I guarantee I will be able to classify them into different categories based on similarities. Then try 14 million.
----------------------------------------------------------------------compmage
This is not science. It is people who don't understand chemistry and probabilities misleading others.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
I think it’s a little arrogant to say someone with a PhD has no understanding of chemistry, especially since his article was merely a response to Dr. Robert Shapiro’s book ORIGINS: A Skeptics Guide to the Creation of Life on Earth (don’t let the title fool you Dr. Shapiro is an evolutionist). According to Dr. Charles E. Brewster’s article, Dr. Shapiro (Ph.D., Harvard University Postdoctoral training, Cambridge University whose research includes organic and bioorganic chemistry: effects of mutagens on the structure and function of nucleic acids) was not dismissing the probabilities, but using Jethro math to explain how extremely improbable occurrences are possible. http://www.arky.org/museum/science/life/chemabsu.htm
----------------------------------------------------------------------
I will concede you have a better understanding of chemistry than me and since I’m having a hard time keeping up with the different arguments, I’m going to have to ask we continue the abiogenesis debate after I’ve had time to do further research.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
compmage
What does any of this have to do with evolution?
----------------------------------------------------------------------
I thought this was a debate on creation vs. evolution. Whether you believe in creation or not, creation does give an explanation for our existence, while in order for evolution to present a valid explanation, abiogenesis would have first had to occur (can’t forget your other two theories: life being zapped into existence or arriving through a dimensional rift). However, I do believe a person can be a Christian and believe in creation through the means of evolution. Although, I strongly disagree with that position, if that is your stance compmage, God bless! I also feel that would be an in-house debate and should be handled in a Christian only forum.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
wj
Now, should be compare the very few frauds or misidentifications which you mention above with the number of sightings of Noah's Ark? Have any of them proven reliable?
----------------------------------------------------------------------
I would hardly consider sightings of Noah’s Ark comparable to the fraudulent acts committed in the Piltdown man scandal. I was merely trying to sight cases of scientist altering evidence to compmage, not accused every evolutionist of being deceitful.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
I'm going to need another day or two finding references for my Java man, Peking man, and Lucy argument (the name of the team of evolutionist that called Java man into question was "The Selenka Expedition" Quetzal, but so far the only web reference I've found for them was at CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Antiquity of the World - 9th paragraph down - and that was only a breif reference)