What i can't understand about evolution....

So you actually read this in National Geographic and, since you're using a quote box, are actually quoting from it? Hmmm...While this is in essence what National Geographic said, your quote is more than sufficiently inaccurate to reveal that you are quoting from some other source and more than likely never read this issue of National Geographic (November, 2004).You know, I read in the Bible that "Thou shalt not lie." Whoops, that isn't in the Bible? Oh, well, something for confession, eh?The correct full sentence: So where did your quote really come from?--Percy

Quoting from Wikipedia, "Quote mining is the practice of purposely compiling frequently misleading quotes from large volumes of literature or speech."Integral's lone misquote is analogous to picking up the odd rock here and there, rather than being analogous to mining. The original quote is from the November, 2004, Was Darwin Wrong? article in National Geographic, and it accurately reflects the meaning if not the actual phrasing.I suppose it could be considered an appeal to authority, but that would be sort of beside the point since few paleontologists would contend that this paints a false picture of the fossil record.--Percy

This is consistent with the definition of species for sexual organisms (different species definitions are necessary for the various types of asexual organisms like bacteria). And yet Wardog25 tells us in Message 44 that kind most closely aligns with family: This lack of any consensus among creationists on a definition of kind is why the term is not useful, and it allows creationists to use it to mean whatever they need it to mean at the time. That's why evolutionists dismiss use of the term. You can define it, Wardog25 can define it, other creationists can define it, but never in the same way. Until there's some consistency you can't use the term.--Percy

No one is claiming that "kind" is the issue. It was only pointed out that arguments involving the term "kind" cannot be considered because it has no formal definition, and that therefore it cannot be argued that large-scale evolution evolution isn't possible because evolution beyond the "kind" level isn't possible. No one has ever demonstrated that evolution beyond the "kind" level cannot happen, because no one has ever bothered to give the term a formal definition.Here's an example. I claim lesnerizing is impossible but I'm not going to define it. What kind of sense would it make to even discuss this if I won't define it?This is the point that is being made concerning arguments involving the term "kind". It makes no sense to discuss them if the term is not defined. Claims involving undefined terms are nothing more than inarticulate propositions, because without definitions it can't even be known what is being claimed.There are no possible negative repercussions if you choose to reject the possibility of large-scale evolution. You could also reject that erosion and weathering reduce mountain ranges to plains with no fear of any ill effects. After all, they're both things that take place on scales far longer than human lifetimes. Neither is something we can actually watch happen as we live and breath. Knowledge of very slow but persistent processes like these is gained by gathering evidence of what has happened in the pastBut the important requirement for scientific theories is that they provide accurate models of real world evidence that make it comprehensible by putting it in an interpretational framework, and that permits predictions to be made of what future evidence might be discovered. The theory of evolution, like all other accepted scientific theories, satisfies these requirements, in spades. Rejection of the theory of evolution is in fact just rejection of scientific approaches to gaining knowledge of the natural world, as is made clear by creationist rejection of much of modern science.This is why your posts are full of excuses for why we couldn't possibly know things, such as claiming that we can only know what we see happen before our very eyes. But most of what we can directly see and sense has already been studied by science, leaving most of what we don't know today outside the realm of direct detection by our senses. If you want to reject what we can't directly sense then you'll have to start ignoring things like thermometers, odometers and all the rest of modern scientific sensing devices. And you'll have to reject forensics, too, just like the OJ jury (the 1st one, not the 2nd).Almost all reproductive events are imperfect. Mutations accumulate from one generation to the next, and there is no known mechanism limiting these accumulations. The only known constraint is the environment which provides the selective pressures that determine the degree to which each offspring contributes to the next generation.So we see mountains eroding a few centimeters per year and we know that mountains eventually erode to nubs. We know that rivers erode their beds a little every year and eventually produce deep canyons. We know that the sun burns a little more hydrogen every year and will eventually use up the supply and go nova. And we know that imperfect reproduction causes every generation to be different from the previous and eventually causes significant evolutionary changes. And that none of these macro-level events will ever be witnessed over the course of a single human lifetime does not affect their reality.--Percy

Hi Wardog25,Fossil evidence found in geological layers is biological evidence, just as chemical and mineral signatures of meteorite impacts in geological layers is astronomical evidence.What you're actually doing, in a roundabout sort of way, is posing a hypothetical. For example, one could ask, "If the earth were constantly shrouded in clouds and there was no such thing as optical astronomy, could we still prove Big Bang theory?" and people could look at the problem and try to figure out if it were possible. In a similar way, you're asking if evolution could be proven if we had no fossil evidence.It's an interesting topic for discussion, but excluding fossil evidence is an artificial constraint. The fact is, we do have fossil evidence and it makes the conclusion of change over time inescapable. And our modern knowledge of heredity makes the conclusion of evolutionary processes as the mechanism inescapable, too.--Percy

Biology is the study of life. That means all life, including past life that is the focus of paleontology. Paleontology is not exactly a branch of biology, but it is not an independent area of study, either. Would that this were true. You've perhaps heard it said, "I ain't related to no monkey?" Perhaps saying this draws objections because it isn't true that the evidence is minimal. It isn't as much as when combined with all the other evidence, but it is still a great deal of evidence.We can probably all agree that subsets of evidence are less convincing than all evidence, but so what, that's true of every theory. What people believe you're really doing is seeking subsets of evidence small enough to be inconclusive so that you can argue the total evidence is also inconclusive.--Percy

For asexual species, the mechanism of change can only be mutation. There's no other way.For sexual species, changes from one generation to the next are mainly due to allele remixing (alleles are gene variants, like for blue eyes versus brown eyes), while species change over longer time periods is caused by mutations.That genomes were initially preloaded with the genes necessary for descendant species could at one time have been considered a possibility, but not today given the evidence we have in hand. Our genome mapping exercises provide no indication of stores of genes for future descendant species.--Percy

Wardog's preferred scenario even requires mutation. Each unclean "kind" would be represented by two individuals, so each gene could be represented by at most 4 alleles. Since many unclean "kinds" have many more than 4 alleles for many genes, those in excess of 4 could only have arisen by mutation.--Percy

EvC Forum insists that arguments be backed by evidence. It's in the Forum Guidelines, and the moderators take special pains to enforce this requirement. Regardless of point of view, those who cannot support their positions with evidence don't usually last here very long.But there's nothing in the Forum Guidelines about time requirements. Well-researched quality posted once in a while will be far more effective than frequent superficiality.--Percy

Actually, given that you think "transitional" means partially formed, it's probably the most important point for you to grasp.Because almost all reproduction is imperfect, offspring are different from their parents (or parent in the case of asexual reproduction). For example, your parents are the transitional forms between their parents (your grandparents) and you. Every organism on the planet is transitional. You're transitional between your great great great grandfather and your great great great granddaughter in the future.You mentioned expecting to see partially formed limbs in an earlier message, but that's not how evolution works. Your implicit point is that creatures with partially formed limbs are extremely unlikely to survive, and that evolution must be wrong if it predicts such a thing.But evolution predicts no such thing. In fact, it predicts the exact opposite. Any mutation that somehow leaves a creature with partially formed limbs will likely be very quickly removed from the gene pool because the creature won't survive to reproduce. Evolution says no to partially formed limbs. All species are always both transitional *and* fully formed.Did you get that, because it's an important point about transitionals and being fully formed. All species are transitional. All species lie between the predecessor species that they descended from and the successor species that they're evolving into. For the sake of this discussion we can consider reproductive boundaries as the separator between species, and once a species has evolved to the point where it has a low reproductive success rate with the original species then it would be considered a new species.And all species are always fully formed. There can not ever be any such such thing as a partially formed species. Whatever a species characteristics are (internally and externally), those are its fully formed characteristics. You won't find a partially formed species alive today, and you won't find one in the fossil record. There's no such thing.Once you're able to accept that all species are both transitional and fully formed it will be easier to grasp the significance that it is gradual change over time that is the driving force behind evolution. All reproduction is imperfect, so change is inevitable, and an individual's genes are an indelible record of the current state of the process of genetic change that has passed through all his ancestors. Since the number of mutations is generally very small, the differences between parent and offspring are also very small.But they accumulate - these changes, these mutations, never go away. There's no limit to how many can accumulate through the generations. Any mutations you inherited from your parents will be passed to your children, and any mutations associated with the process of sperm and egg prodcution as well as the combination of sperm and egg to create your children will be part of your descendant's genes for ever and ever. Or until another mutation alters or deletes them.Because these changes happen in very tiny increments, no creature ever gives birth to another creature with partially formed limbs (ignoring birth defects and major genetic accidents). A creature might have offspring with very slightly longer limbs, or very slightly shorter limbs, or very slightly stockier limbs, or very slightly more slender limbs, but it will never give birth to offspring significantly different from itself.Natural selection operates on these tiny changes. For example, slightly longer limbs might provide a survival advantage by allowing the creature to reach higher into trees and bushes for nuts and berries, and so creatures with slightly longer limbs would be more likely to survive to produce offspring that share this characteristic for lightly longer limbs, and gradually the trait would spread throughout the population.Or natural selection could work in the opposite direction. Slightly longer limbs might make it more difficult for the slightly larger creature to hide from predators, and so it would be less likely to survive to produce offspring, and the gene for slightly longer limbs would tend not to propagate throughout the population. This is puzzling for you to say. We know about genetic relationships through evidence, research, notes, etc. Do you mean you wish to see the raw research data yourself?By the way, about proof, I think we're probably as tired of saying this as you are of hearing it: there's no such thing as proof in science. Theories become accepted, not proven, as a growing and persuasive body of evidence forms. Theories are tentative and can always change in light of new evidence or improved insight. You couldn't change a theory that's been proven, now, could you.--Percy

Hi Peg,If evolution is wrong then it can only be wrong about things it actually says, and you don't seem to know anything much about what evolution actually says. Replies to you usually take the form of correcting one misimpression after another. For example: This has been explained at least several times now, but trying once again, common descent is not a premise of evolution. It's an implication of the evidence. That new species evolve from existing species is a basic premise of evolution, but that life on this planet descended from a common ancestor is a conclusion based upon fossil and genetic evidence. A conclusion is the opposite of a premise. You have things completely backwards in your mind.This fossil and genetic evidence could have told us something different. They might have told us that there were multiple lines of descent, that there were multiple origins of life. We might have discovered that fish have no relationship to land animals, or that bacteria have no relationship to the cells of our own bodies.And if that was what we had actually discovered, evolution would be just as valid. Evolution would still hold that new species evolve from existing species. Your objections to evolution on the basis of common descent are without any foundation.For clarity, let me go on to say that of course multiple lines of descent is not what the fossil and genetic evidence told us. Looking at the fossil record we see that fish are very closely related to land animals. Genetic studies tell us that all cellular life, including bacteria and the cells in our own body, uses DNA and an RNA protein production factory. All evidence points to a common ancestor for all life. And it's a conclusion, not a premise.I've already written five paragraphs and have only addressed the first sentence of your post. Are you finding the long replies helpful, or are they just too much? Please let us know, maybe we should handle this in smaller chunks. For now in this message I'll just keep going. This, too, has been explained several times. I share the concern expressed by Annafan that you may be on the verge of exhausting people's patience. It's fine if you don't accept what we're telling you and want to argue about it, but you're just ignoring it while repeating the same errors.I think I'll sign off now and just start my workday. I can see you have strong convictions about what evolution says, and I can only hope that you gradually come to realize that almost none of it is so.--Percy

Benign has more than one meaning, and in the context of mutations it means harmless, not good. Same meaning in medicine. A benign tumor is not a good or beneficial tumor, but a harmless one.--Percy

A creation scientist who is serious about science, as opposed to what you describe as "their work," would do research in a way that was recognizably scientific and so could be published in legitimate peer-reviewed scientific journals. In other words, though creation scientists might be serious about their work, their work is religious apologetics, not science. This is inevitable because their views are founded upon an interpretation of a religious book, not real-world evidence. Mutation is not the primary mechanism of change. Rather, it is mutation, allele remixing and natural selection working together that is the driving force behind evolutionary change.This process is extremely reliable. For example, you can perform a simple genetic experiment with bacteria where a small environmental change is introduced (perhaps a different type of nutrient), and you'll get the same result every time. The necessary random mutation inevitably pops up somewhere and then propagates throughout the population. But they don't have trouble demonstrating it. College students, who are in essence science novices in the extreme, demonstrate it in the lab over and over again when they take Genetics 101. Mutations form spontaneously, which is what most fruit fly genetics research depends upon, not radiation. Some other ways of conducting genetics research with fruit flies involve transplanting specific genes and controlled breeding. You're referring here to mutation alone, but as I pointed out, it's random mutation, allele remixing and natural selection working together that drive evolution, and it works just fine. If it didn't work then laboratory experiments would have results showing that it doesn't work, but they show the opposite, that it does work. And adaptation happens outside the lab, too, including adaptational change to an extent great enough to produce new species. First, while vestigial organs do come up in creation/evolution discussions, no evolutionist would ever cite them as evidence for beneficial mutations.Second, given the time that has passed since the earliest life, very likely the vast majority of human genes arose through mutation. How much in common do human genes have with blue-green algae, the modern representative of what might have been one of the earliest lifeforms? Maybe 10%? Let's take 10% as the figure just for the sake of discussion. So if we share 10% of our DNA with blue-green algae, and if we're descended from blue-green algae or something fairly similar, then 90% of our DNA arose through mutation.In other words, the mutations, harmful, benign and beneficial, are everywhere throughout our genes. You're not specific about which fruit fly experiments you're referring to, but the experiments do not support the creationist model. Beneficial mutations are preserved and propagate through the population according to the degree of benefit they confer, neutral mutations may or may not be preserved, and harmful mutations are removed from the population according to the degree of harm they cause.No deterioration is ever observed. In a stable environment, natural selection will prevent harmful mutations from propagating, will encourage beneficial mutations to propagate, and will allow drift for neutral mutations. The net effect, at a minimum, is a continuation of being adapted to the stable environment forever. No deterioration.--Percy

Hi Peg,I think I can make this issue about the "origin of life" versus the "origin of species" clear for you.First of all, Darwin's Origin of Species is not about the origin of the first species. It's about the origin of the species that existed when he wrote his book. Where did pigeons come from? Barnacles? Giraffes?The answer he proposed was that species evolve gradually in tiny steps from prior species by a process of descent with modification (today we know it is actually due to mutation and allele remixing) and natural selection. Pigeons evolved from a species that existed before pigeons, and the same for barnacles and giraffes.So you see, the origin of species is not about how life began, its about how the species we see around us today began. It's about the process that causes one species to gradually become another, what we today call evolution (Darwin didn't call it evolution).But you're correct that there's an obvious implication, for as you follow the process back in time you quickly realize that there must have been a first species, a first life. And that first life must have arisen from non-life.Of course, it's not as simple as that. Just as harbors only gradually become ocean, and just as foothills only gradually become mountains, non-life only gradually becomes life. Where during that process you draw the line and say before this point was non-life and after it was life is probably fairly arbitrary, and we know far too little about this to say much about the dividing point between life and non-life, except that there was must have been one.The consensus opinion today is probably that life began on this planet, but panspermia, life arriving in the form of spores of some kind from outer space, is another valid theory. But that only pushes questions about the origin of the first life off to other planets or places in the universe.So if you reject evolution, what you're rejecting is that species can change into other species.If you reject a natural origin for life, then what you're rejecting is more formally known as abiogenesis.Abiogenesis and evolution are closely related to one another. Clearly one led to the other. But they are not one and same thing.--Percy

Let me answer your question with a question: If it's only a conclusion from huge numbers of tiny observations that the planets orbit the sun and not the earth, why is it taught as a fact?--Percy