Evolution for Dummies and Christians

How many days are there in a lunar month? I'd swing a wild guess that a lunar month was divided into 4 weeks of 7 days each.

Speciation events are well documented. The horses you speak of are undoubtedly seperate species, but look around. There is really little or no meaning to a creature that is "in-between species". Thermodynamics has been covered a lot here, so look around. Let me rephrase your 'law of entropy' to the little less equivocal: 'Energy will tend towards a more diffuse state from a concentrated state'. We see this happening. To give a quick answer: The sun...very concentrated source of energy, is becoming more diffuse throughout the universe every second. The natural state of water in high entropy is solid ice. The sun actually makes the ice turn to liquid and fly about in the sky (clouds). This is as much against the 2nd law as evolution.To show evolution is against the 2nd law you need to show that the following process:
Living to a reproductive age.
Reproduction/DNA replication with copying errors
Competing against other organismsResults in a net decrease of entropy in the universe. It has never been done before, I suspect because it doesn't result in such a decrease.AbE: Some of the greatest scientific minds of the 19th and 20th Centuries have written about this, for example: So yeah - the very act of staying alive increases entropy...taking workable energy and gradually turning it into non-workable energy. Reproduction (and the inevitable mutations) is also included. This is called equivocation, not your fault I assume. You have to wonder why creationist websites like to use the word 'order'...its because it has different meanings/usages. An interesting read for youThe amount of matter and energy is the same, its use is being changed. Abiogenesis is an ongoing investigation. The 'origin of everything' is unknown and beyond the scope of this forum (biological evolution). But not every component is needed for it to work differently. It is perfectly feasable. Now, was that creator, sentient or not? Love is complicated but its use in protecting genes is quite clear.This message has been edited by Modulous, Wed, 28-September-2005 01:39 PM

You'll need to define diversity We *are* all subsets. We are all subsets of prokaryotic, subsets of eukarya, subsets of animalia, subsets of vertebrata, subsets of mammalia, subsets of primates in a subset of hominidae called 'Homo Sapiens Sapiens'. This is diversification. As the number of members in each set increases its diversity, a new level of subsets is required This message has been edited by Modulous, Fri, 30-September-2005 08:57 PM

I think that was my point

The human/ape common ancestor didn't just appear. The theory was designed to explain how life changed on earth over time. One of the consequences of the theory is that we share common ancestry with other species. The theory of evolution deals with biological populations. The first living thing, by definition, did not come from a biological population. The human/ape common ancestor? The people who use ToE to produce a natural history have charted hominid history beyond that ancestral population. That incaluclable number would be about 1,000,000 and they would not have to occur in one offspring, indeed evolution discusses how these mutations build up and are directed over many generations of a population. The theory was not formulated to predict the morphology of organisms, and would be unable to do so given the random nature of the mutations. There is a massive wealth of evidence to support its existance, however no proof can ever exist. You should try reading some of the 'hardly scientific' papers about population genetics. Who calls evolution a fact? It is almost certain that life has changed over time, and the theory that explains this is well supported. The theory is incomplete, and new ideas and discoveries are being made all the time. That's science for you. If it is perverse in your mind to note that human beings share all the characteristics of an animal, a vertebrate, a mammal and a primate then so be it.

This statement seems contradictory, but I understand what you are saying. Theories, however, are by definition based on facts. The theory of evolution is a framework used to explain facts. A fact could exist that falsifies the theory, forcing a new idea to be adopted. I fear only because the biblical account is vague and makes no predictions one what we should see, when and how. The facts also support evolution, and evolution has also made succesful specific predictions, passed falsification tests and so on, which makes it a stronger and more useful theory than biblical creation.Evolution doesn't require miracles to explain certain facts such as radio dating, light from the stars, the fossil record and so on. Certainly not in our science classes, for good reason. That's a thread for another forum. Well, of course! Its in the definition (assuming we ignore genetic modification). A different issue from the one above. If you want to go into detail about this, though, I would be more than happy to. Unfortunately your sentence is ambiguous so if you'd like to, I'd like to see you expand on this a little.

I'm perfectly aware of that ParsI was using the word fact, as Carico was using, implying 100% known truth. I was hoping you'd pick up on this with the next sentence which you neglected to quote.

quote:

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Who calls evolution a fact? It is almost certain that life has changed over time, and the theory that explains this is well supported.

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Of course! Please, accept my apologies for not even considering that, it was quite disrespectful of me.

The common ancestor did not acquire the traits of a human, its descendants did. Through various means, famously including genetic mutation, but other 'mechanisms' are in play. Nothing. All organisms have had more babies than survive to reproduce. The ones that don't make it have been selected out of the gene pool. The ones that survive, pass on their mutations, increasing their frequency throughout the population. Off topic. Try this forum, an interesting thread can be found here. The genes that led to talking obviously occurred in one of our ancestors. Not at all. If one mutation happens in one offspring. A descendant of that offspring develops the next mutation. Now both mutations are being passed on and spread throughout the population. Over a looong period of time these mutations accumulate to where we are today. If the figure of 1,000,000 mutations is about right and our common ancestor with apes was 5,000,000 years ago then we are looking at only 0.2 relevant inherited mutations per year (that is, one mutation every five years). Given that each of our offspring has about 50-100 mutations, and the number of offspring conceived per year (which must be pretty huge)...I don't think it much of a stretch. If you want to demonstrate that as true, then by all means back it up with something more substantial than rhetoric. Science is not about proving things, its about disproving things. Every test devised so far has given the same result as if we share a common ancestor with apes. Its not proof anymore than any murderer is proved to have committed his crime, but its an abundance of evidence which puts it way beyond reasonable doubt. Depends on your definition. Nothing is a 100% known truth. However, we can be sure of many things. We can be sure that life has changed on earth over a long time with massive confidence, and the theory that describes that change is very robust. 1.) Creationism requires miracles to make certain data sets fit.
2.) Creationism doesn't make succesful predictions about what we should find in living beings
3.) Creationism doesn't make succesful predictions about what we should find in the fossil record.
4.) The world has existed for a long time before recorded history.That's just a few reasons that spring to mind. If you want to discuss it further try this threadIf creationism is a God-made theory and God does not lie, then creationism is more factual. However, it could be that creationisms is a pre-science theory invented by a tribe of nomads who adapted other creation stories for their own God.Neither creationism nor ToE can be proved.They can be tested, and ToE has been rigorously tested and stands unfalsified. Creationism is falsified unless miracles are invoked to save it. Any theory that requires a miracle to work is not science and so should not be taught in science. Is it bestiality to reproduce with your own species? That is what the ToE suggests insists happened....the species just changed over time.If you think evolution suggests a human appearing and having sex with an ape to produce lots of little humans, then you misunderstand evolution. Evolution is about how populations genetic makeup shifts over time, leading to a general shift in morphology (the appearance of the organism).

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What evolution actually is

Read Message 84, that will give you the start of the principles of evolution.This message has been edited by Modulous, Fri, 09-December-2005 07:49 AM