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Author | Topic: Evolution for Dummies and Christians | |||||||||||||||||||
Chiroptera Inactive Member |
And some of the best transitional fossils are found in the human family tree.
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Chiroptera Inactive Member |
Hi, gnojek.
The days of the week were originally named for the Roman gods. When Christian missionaries introduced the calendar to the Anglo-Saxons, the names of the days were changed to what they felt were the closest equivalent Anglo-Saxon gods.
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Chiroptera Inactive Member |
Welcome to the "monkey house", thure.
quote: This is an interesting statement -- I'm not sure what to make of it. There's quite a bit of evidence in favor of evolution -- in fact, the evidence is pretty overwhelming. This evidence exists in many different fields, and relies on many different unrelated methodologies. Far from the "foundation crumbling", the theory is strengthened with each passing decade. By the way, what do you think the "foundation" of the theory is, and why do you think it is crumbling? -
quote: Actually, the fossil record has some pretty interesting gradual transitions -- human evolution, for example, is pretty well documented by gradual transitions, as is the evolution of the horse's family tree. Niles Eldridge and Stephen J. Gould, the originators of "Punctuated Equilibrium" also noted examples of slow gradual evolution in the families that they studied. -
quote: Again, I am not sure what to make of this statement. The theory of evolution does not rely on the fossil record; in fact, the fossil record was very incomplete in Darwin's time. The fossil record is useful not so much as "proof" of evolution, but to give details of the evolution of particular lineages. That said, the fossil record has become, in the last 150 years, remarkable evidence in favor of evolution. It is known, for example, that whales evolved from an ancient terrestrial animal related to the artiodactyls. Fossils were discovered of animals that had characteristics in between ancient artiodactyls and modern whales, and the older the fossil, the more terrestrial, less whale-like they were. It is known that terrestrial vertebrates evolved from fish. And, sure enough, there are fossils of animals that are in between certain lung fish and ancient amphibians, and the older the fossils are, the more fish-like and less terrestrial-like the creature is. Here is a nice, although still incomplete and now out-of-date, list of nice fossil transitions. --
quote: This is another statement that I don't quite understand. Here are the postulates of the Theory of Evolution: (This is the third time that I have posted this; I apologize if people are getting tired of it) 1. Fact: Most breeding organisms produce more offspring than is necessary to replace themselves. 2. Fact: The population of most species are not increasing. 3. Conclusion: Most individuals must die before reproducing. 4. Fact: Many of the physical traits of individual organisms are hereditary. 5. Fact: Some traits make an organism more likely to survive and reproduce, while others make an organism less likely to survive and reproduce. 6. Conclusion: From 3, 4, and 5 we can conclude that organisms with the traits that make them more likely to survive and reproduce will produce offspring with those traits, while organisms with traits that make them less likely to survive and reproduce will leave few or no offspring with those traits. 7. Conclusion: A corollary of 6 is that as generations pass, the number of organisms with "good" traits will increase, while the number of organisms with "bad" traits will decrease, until eventually all individuals in the species will have the "good" trait and the "bad" trait will disappear altogether. 8. Fact: New heritable traits, usually subtle, occasionally appear. 9. Fact: These new traits do not appear in any predictable pattern; these traits can appear in any body part or instinctual behavior; furthermore, some of these traits are helpful to an organism's survival, and others are detrimental. 10. Conclusion: From 7, 8 and 9 we can conclude that a species will slowly "improve" with time, as new helpful traits appear and as the organisms with these traits are better able to survive and produce offspring with these traits. 11. Fact: There is no mechanism that is known to prevent these small, incremental changes from adding up, over time, to large changes; furthermore, there very few (if any) physical organs and instinctual behaviors in any species that do not appear in simpler versions in other species. 12. Conclusion: From 10 and 11 we conclude that there is nothing that will prevent very simple, primitive living species from producing the complex species that we see around us. 13. Fact: Occassionally separate populations of a species will become physically isolated from one another and cannot interbreed. 14. Conclusion: From 9 and 13 we conclude that these populations will evolve independently; from 12 we conclude that these will become different species. 15. Conclusion: From several interations of 14, we conclude that several species can have a common ancestor. The items I have labelled as "facts" are, indeed, facts that are known to science. Do you have a problem with any of these facts? Furthermore, the items I have labelled "conclusion" seem like logical conclusions to me -- do you have a problem with any of them? Of course, these facts and conclusions would be merely intriguing if it weren't for the fact that there is much, much evidence that exists for macro-evolution -- evidence that is in the links I have supplied.
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Chiroptera Inactive Member |
I hope that Rahvin doesn't mind my butting in here, but this is my favorite evidence for the theory of evolution, so I can't resist.
quote: You miss the point of this piece of evidence, thure. The evidence is not the similarities themselves -- the evidence is the patterns we see in the similarities. The point is that based on sets of similarities we can place the various species in a nested hierarchical classification scheme. What is more, unlike attempts at classifying human-made objects, this nested hierarchy is real and fundamental, that is, the groupings are largely independent of the choice of characteristics that you choose. Linneaus and other taxonomists noticed this long before Darwin proposed common descent. A "common designer" does not really explain this pattern. A common designer could have made all the species very different from one another; or a common designer could have made the species very similar to one another; or a common designer could have mixed and match the various traits in such a way that a single nested hierarchy would not exist, just as one cannot find a single, universal nested hierarchy to classify all watches and clocks. So, since a common designer could have designed life anyway she chose, there is no reason to expect a nested hierarchical pattern. On the other hand, if common descent were true, we would have to see a nested hierarchical pattern: species that share a recent ancestor would have many, many similarities: species that share a more distant ancestor would share fewer similarities; species that share a very distant ancestor would exhibit relatively few similarities; and all life would either share no feature or a very small number of features in common. This is exactly what we see: the "similarities" fall into a very definite, suggestive pattern. The common designer did not have to create life this way; yet she seems to have done so. On the other hand, if common descent were true, this is exactly what we would see. If this pattern did not exist, this would count as evidence against evolution. There is no reason to expect that the species would fit into a nested hierarchical classification -- yet it does, just as the theory of common descent says it should. This is how science works; to test a theory, one provides a prediction of what one would necessarily see in nature if the theory were true, but not necessarily if the theory were not true. Then one checks to see if the prediction is seen. If it is, it counts as confirmation; if not, it counts as a falsification.
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Chiroptera Inactive Member |
Archie is always a fun subject, Nuggin.
quote: Although perhaps somewhat closer to theropod dinosaurs than to modern birds -- archaeopterix seems to be more of a theropod dinosaur with wings and feathers (or, seeing how many, if not all, theropods had feathers, more simply a theropod dinosaur with wings) than a modern bird. The main reason that archaeopterix is called a "bird" is that taxonomists purposely define Aves in such a way to include Archie. Edited to add:Oops. I should clarify: by "closer to theropod dinosaurs", I mean in terms of number and morphology of physical characteristics. If archaeopterix is, as is accepted, an offshoot of the lineage that led to modern birds, then phylogenically Archie is closer to modern birds than non-Avian theropods. I also am taking the liberty of correcting a few minor typos. This message has been edited by Chiroptera, 27-Sep-2005 11:10 PM "Intellectually, scientifically, even artistically, fundamentalism -- biblical literalism -- is a road to nowhere, because it insists on fidelity to revealed truths that are not true." -- Katha Pollitt
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Chiroptera Inactive Member |
Hello, thure. Are you Scandinavian, by any chance? Anyway, you might already know that there is a day of the week named after you.
quote: To what conjectures are you referring? Are you sure that they are unaware of them? Or maybe what you think are conjectures are actually established fact? -
quote: I may be mistaken, but I think "Java Man" usually refers to the Trinil 2 skull cap discovered by Dubois about a century ago on Java. Talk Origins claims that it is 700,000 years old, as does this site. At any rate, if this redating is true, then my questions are: how were the original dates obtained? Did the people doing the original dating already note that there was great uncertainty in their dates? If the original dates were already known to be uncertain, then it is no surprise that a subsequent dating may give a more accurate estimate that is quite a bit different. How was the second date obtained? Were the tests more reliable? I cannot evaluate your claims here until I know the methods that these dates were obtained, and the uncertainties associated with these dates. It may very well be that this discrepency is not as big a deal as you think they are. I should also point out that fossils are only one line of evidence for the theory of evolution. In fact, Darwin did not base his theory on fossil evidence at all; if you read Origin of Species and Descent of Man you will see that these books are filled with very detailed evidence for his theory of evolution, by fossils make only a very, very small amount of the evidence. Darwin based his theory on observations made on present species in the here and now. That said, you don't understand the significance of the fossils. The very existence of the fossils are evidence for evolution. According to the theory of common descent, humans and apes evolved from a common ancestor. Therefore, according to the theory of evolution, there used to exist creatures that show characteristics in between modern humans and apes. Now, there is no other reason to assume that these creatures existed; certainly there was no reason for the creator to make these creatures. Yet, we have evidence that ape-people used to exist. In fact, there used to exist creatures that fit a continuum from obvious apes to modern humans. These creature had to exist, according to the theory of evolution, and there they are. Now the creator did not have to make these creatures, yet for some reason she did. She could also have made fox boys -- creatures in between humans and foxes. According to the theory of evolution, such creatures should not exist. The creator could have created such creatures anyway, yet she chose to only create creatures that the theory of evolution predicts should exist. She did not make creatures between fish and whales, as another example, but she did make creatures that fit into a line from ancient artiodactyls and whales. She could have made creatures in between bats and birds, but so far we have found no evidence that she did, and I predict that we will never find evidence of creatures in between bats and birds. However, it is very possible that people might find the remains of creatures in between ancient tree-dwelling mammals and bats -- which must have existed according to the theory of evolution. So finding bat/ancient tree mammals transitionals will count as confirmation of the theory of evolution, while finding bat-birds will count as a falsification. -
quote: I hope you will not be offended when I say that you have a habit of making rather bold statements with very little back up. What discrepencies are you talking about? It is true that certain details about human evolution are being debated; however the general outline is generally accepted and well verified. What factual information do you find highly suspect? "Intellectually, scientifically, even artistically, fundamentalism -- biblical literalism -- is a road to nowhere, because it insists on fidelity to revealed truths that are not true." -- Katha Pollitt
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Chiroptera Inactive Member |
Hello, Omnivorous. I hope that you don't mind if I take your very nice story and ruin it by showing how it teaches an important lesson.
If what I am reading is correct, then Dr. Ostom is the person who rediscovered the very first fossil of archaeopterix ever found. The very first fossil of archaeopterix found was discovered in the middle of the 19th century. However, this specimen did not have clear feather impressions like the others. So it was not recognized as a bird. It was classified as a new species of dinosaur, placed in a museum drawer, and forgotten. Ostom, for reasons that I cannot recall, was digging through the drawers in that museum -- perhaps looking for a research project -- and discovered this archaeopterix speciment. Since archaeopterix is now well-known, he recognized it for what it is. The moral of the story is that archaeopterix is so dinosaur-like, and so unbirdlike, that without the feather impressions it was easily mistaken for a mundane dinosaur. I cannot think of anything that screams, "Transitional!" louder than this. Congratulations on being able to sneak a "peek" at Dr. Ostom as he was explaining the interesting bits of his field. "Intellectually, scientifically, even artistically, fundamentalism -- biblical literalism -- is a road to nowhere, because it insists on fidelity to revealed truths that are not true." -- Katha Pollitt
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Chiroptera Inactive Member |
quote: Well, what do you know. I was looking up Robert Bakker and found out that he was Ostrom's student! I was looking him up because your quote reminded me how Bakker advocates removing the dinosaurs from the class Reptilia and combining the dinosaurs and birds into a new class Dinosauria.
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Chiroptera Inactive Member |
Hello, thure.
You haven't yet replied to my previous message to you. Perhaps you felt that that discussion has played out, or maybe you find that you are too busy responding to too many people, and that's fine. I'm just bringing it up in case you just didn't see it. At any rate, the reason I am bringing it up is that I am reading the discussions that you are currently engaged in, and it seems that your argument is that you do not understand how "macroevolution" can be possible. Even if you do not understand how evolution can produce the diversity that we see around us, how do you deal with the great amount of evidence that exists that evolution has occurred? That is one of the points in my message -- in the message to which I was responding you were focussing on a very minor, irrelevant detail and ignoring the broader implications of the evidence. How do you deal with the actual evidence? "Intellectually, scientifically, even artistically, fundamentalism -- biblical literalism -- is a road to nowhere, because it insists on fidelity to revealed truths that are not true." -- Katha Pollitt
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Chiroptera Inactive Member |
quote: Heh. Yeah, that happens; there are quite a lot of evolutionists here, and when one of the few creationists tries to get involved in a debate we kind of go into a feeding frenzy. When there are too many responses to a post, you have to do your best and reply to the ones you feel you have time for. -
quote: This is a very scientific question. This is a question that should be asked for any and all scientific theories, not just the theory of evolution. But be careful what you consider "faults". It is true that unexplained phenomena (which is what you seem to be trying to bring up) can be considered a "fault" of the theory. However, this often just means that our knowledge is incomplete and further investigation is needed to better understand the phenomenon. It is rare that a theory is abandoned just because there is something that is not explained. What any theory ultimately must rest on is how well the evidence fits into the theory. The main faults in a theory are not the phenomena that are left "unexplained", but the data that ends up contradicting the theory. To find "fault" with a theory (called falsification in the philosophy of science) is to find data that contradicts it. One determines what must be true if the theory were true, and then checks to see if this is indeed true. For example, Darwin's theory of evolution states that current species evolved from a fewer number of earlier species through the selection of randomly occurring variations. In Darwin's time the means of heredity (what we now call genetics) was completely unknown. Since then, genetics were discovered; that is, the units of heredity were genes which were passed to each subsequent generation -- this is Mendel's discovery. Well, for evolution to be true, these genes had to be able to undergo changes. With the discovery of molecular genetics (and DNA), had the replication of DNA been shown to be perfect, with no changes whatsoever being possible, evolution would have been falsified.
Doulgas Theobald has written an essay giving several dozen pieces of evidence for the theory of evolution, and each piece of evidence is phrased in this way: "If evolution were true, we should see this; when we look, this is what we see. If evolution were true, we would not see that; when we look, that has never been seen." So this is the real test of a theory; simply pointing out phenomenon that are (as yet) unexplained do very little to discredit a theory. After all, just because we don't know an answer now does not mean we will never know an answer. In fact, that is why we still have scientists: there are still plenty of questions that we cannot answer and plenty of phenomena that we cannot explain in all the fields of science. The job of scientists to look for answers and explanations. If all the questions were answered, there would be no need to keep paying people to do research. "Intellectually, scientifically, even artistically, fundamentalism -- biblical literalism -- is a road to nowhere, because it insists on fidelity to revealed truths that are not true." -- Katha Pollitt
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Chiroptera Inactive Member |
quote: That depends on what you mean by "Old Earth Creationist", Nuggin. Traditionally, an OEC is someone who accepts that creation is old but that the species (or at least the "kinds") were each specially created at the proper time. But I imagine that there is no sharp division between OEC and theistic evolution, which is what some people these days mean when they refer to OEC.
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