"Best" evidence for evolution.

Hi Archangel,Could you please stop posting to this thread? You don't seem to be on topic. Thanks.

It included Cain interbreeding with the Neanderthal. That truth puts evolution, for modern man, down the toilet. Does away with "God" and instills the Almighty God. What is the "Best" evidence for evolution you have there? We have an intelligence gene. From what ape did we inherit that? Answer me that, and Ill go away.....

There is no such a thing for any theory in science as "foundational evidence."Various ideas are suggested to explain observable phenomenon, then evidence is gathered to support the hypothesis.I think you must mean what is the foundational observations which the idea of evolving seem a possible explanation.Along those lines, I would say that finding sea shells in rock layers of earth, high up in the mountains convinced Leonardo Da Vinci that the earth was way older than people thought.
Then, the layers of rocks that contained fossils not present in layers below and above suggested that life arose, disappeared, and started over again many times.These were the foundational observations that gradually lead to hypothesizing evolution of complex life from more simple.

You've been given a better topic to go to and been specifically told that your material does not belong in this topic. You are being incredibly dense.But upon further consideration, what you probably need is a new topic. Please go to Proposed New Topics, click on that "New Topic" button and write and submit a new message.Post again in this topic and you are quite possibly going to get permanently suspended.Adminnemooseus

{Off-topic - Content hidden - Adminnemooseus}Edited by Adminnemooseus, : Hide off-topic material.

I am not dense! Incredibly or otherwise. This is Creation verses Evolution, isn't it? The fact that intelligence doesn't evolve. And is inherited does away with Darwin. He never addressed the issue....You chosen to be evolved, don't either.....What the frick did you evolve from? Me and you are 99.8% Neanderthal genome. We inherited the intelligence gene from Cain.
And we borne the first modern humans. The Cro-Magnon...."nough said".....

Hi WarriorArchangel,I'm writing this more for the general membership than for you. They'll be something specific for you at the end.It would be reasonable to expect moderators to engage in some give and take, that when they're asked to reconsider that sometimes they would hold fast and sometimes they would relent. But that can't really happen with many of the newer members because they refuse to follow or do not understand the simplest of instructions, and they're remarkably determined to post off-topic to any thread. If you ask them to post discussion problems to the Report Discussion Problems Here 4.0 thread, they won't do it. If you ask them to stop posting off-topic and to instead propose a new topic over at Proposed New Topics, they won't do it. If you ask them to send a PM describing their issues, they won't do it.What they seem determined to do is just whatever they please, and so we often have to suspend them just to make it stop.WarriorArchangel, it doesn't seem possible to have a constructive dialog with you. You don't understand moderator requests, you don't follow moderator requests, you don't understand the topic, and you don't understand that you don't understand the topic. Adminnemooseus warned you that if you posted again to this topic that you could possibly get permanently suspended. Consider yourself lucky to draw only a week.

The best foundational evidence for the ToE for me would be the cohesiveness of all the theories that form the ToE.
No cohesive refutation has been mustered against the ToE as a whole or a single contributing theory.Edited by rationalone, : No reason given.Edited by rationalone, : No reason given.

It would be important to differentiate evolution, which is real and proven, and the theory of human evolution which was a never proven unrealistic scenario. The best evidence for evolution is just our ecosystem. A very well stable balance of species through natural selection. Constant adaptation to their environment causing small mutations and ultimately, evolution over millions of years.

You like the Gish Gallop, don't you?Edited by Pressie, : No reason given.

You have already raised this argument on two other threads, and you have been shown the errors in your thinking.Repeating this on another thread won't make your argument any more persuasive or valid, it just shows that you are incapable of recognizing that you are wrong.I had hoped you would be more than a one-trick pony ... sighEnjoyEdited by RAZD, : ...

Yes, of course, just as you say: "... evolution, which is real and proven, ..."But then you balk at human evolution. Why? You're sounding like Bill Murray in "Ghostbusters" when he warns that they must not allow the streams to cross. Why not? He never ever says, but only says that it's really, really bad -- FWIW, it took me more than 20 years to finally get that joke through a scene at the end of Europa, Europa.So then, evolution is real and proven. Which is true! Evolution is really nothing special, but rather is just the natural consequence of life doing what life does. Reproducing, surviving, and reproducing. No special forces, no special processes, just life doing what life naturally does.Humans do what humans naturally do. Humans are yet another example of life doing what life naturally does. So why should human evolution be anything different from the evolution of any other species? IOW, what exactly and precisely is the problem that you have with human evolution that you do not have with the evolution of every other species on earth? Especially given that there are so many more of them than there are of us.Nuh?

It is important to differentiate between the process of evolution, which is real, observed, fact, and the theory of evolution, which has been tested thousands of times and validated by the absence of negative (falsification) data. The theory of evolution is accepted as the best explanation of life as we know it, from the world around us, from historical information, genetic information and fossil information. In science 'theories' are never proven -- indeed the word "proof" is very rarely used -- however they can be disproven (falsified) by contradictory evidence, but the best they can achieve towards "proof" of a concept is increased confidence and acceptance based on passing more and more prediction tests. The process of evolution involves changes in the composition of hereditary traits, and changes to the frequency of their distributions within breeding populations from generation to generation, in an iterative feedback response to the different ecological challenges and opportunities for growth, development, survival and reproductive success in changing or different habitats. ... and it is a FACT that this has been observed to occur in virtually every living species ... and this is often called "microevolution."The theoretical evolution of humans (Homo sapiens) as a species is no different than the theoretical evolution of all other species, and this involves what is called "macroevolution" by scientists -- the effects of microevolution over multiple generations. Such macroevolution falls into two categories:

1. The process of anagenesis, also known as "phyletic change", is the long term evolution of the entire (breeding) population of a species over multiple generations ... and it is a FACT that this too has been observed to occur, and this multi-generation process is fully explained by the process of evolution occurring generation after generation and affecting the whole breeding population.
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2. The process of cladogenesis involves an evolutionary branching event of a parent species into two or more closely related sister species, where the parent population and each daughter branch (and any subsequent smaller branches) form a nested hierarchy called a "Clade"; a process that leads to the development of a greater diversity of species in the world ... and it is a FACT that this has also been observed to occur, and this multi-generational process is fully explained by the process of evolution occurring generation after generation and affecting two or more separated breeding populations with different results over time, becoming more different with each passing generation.

Thus there are two long term process in macroevolution -- linear evolution that affects the whole breeding population, sometimes call phyletic speciation, and divergent evolution that divides the original breeding population into two or more isolated breeding populations, sometimes called divergent speciation. The Theory of Evolution (ToE), stated in simple terms, is that the process of anagenesis (phyletic speciation), and the process of cladogenesis (divergent speciation and the formation of nested hierarchies), are sufficient to explain the diversity of life as we know it, from the fossil record, from the genetic record, from the historic record, and from everyday record of the life we observe in the world all around us.Thus this theory immediately makes two testable predictions:

• Species will change over time, eventually appearing different than their ancestors, and
• Species will divide in a pattern that forms nested hierarchies.

The first prediction is very easily tested by direct observation, and as noted above, the process of evolution has been observed in virtually every living species, so this prediction has been validated.The second prediction is also easily tested -- look at the genetic information for divergent speciation and look at the fossil information for divergent speciation, compare the results to see if they agree.In that regard here are some phylogenic trees that have been tested in this manner:The primate phylogenic tree: Note that the ancestors of apes (including humans) separated from the ancestors of monkeys some 25 million years ago (before "monkeys" and "humans" existed); the ancestors of chimps and humans divided about 7 million years ago (before Pan troglodytes\paniscus, the two modern chimp species, and Homo sapiens\neaderthalus, two recent human species, existed).We can "zoom in" on this simplified tree to the to the "human" branch: This covers most of the 6-8 million years of hominid evolution ending in Homo sapiens (modern humans) since the common ancestor with chimps.We can also "zoom in" on the latter part of this evolution: Here we can see some occasional cross-breeding before complete speciation occurs, and when we look at just Homo sapiens we can see divergence with occasional cross-breeding in the whole population: Thus we see the formation of nested hierarchies in the human ancestral lineage. But more than that, we see a transition period before reproductive isolation is complete, where interbreeding can occur and did on occasion during this period. This would also be predicted by evolution as further evidence of the splitting of a breeding population into two (or more) sister populations, as opposed to de novo creation of new species or completely independent evolution.In most cases the tendency for interbreeding would become reduced as visible\behavioral differences occur, as mates would not be as appealing from the other sub-population. We can see this very tendency in human populations today, where we are all one species and can theoretically interbreed with any other sub-population shown on the last picture, but by and large choose to breed within our "cultural" sub-population.We can see similar evidence of reduced interbreeding behavior in the Asian Greenish Warblers, a ring species, where breeding occurs around the ring, but not at the point where the ends meet due to perceived differences in coloration and mating calls.We can also see this period of transition between initial division and complete reproductive isolation in horses, donkeys, and zebras.Enjoy.Edited by RAZD, : added at endEdited by RAZD, : clrtyEdited by RAZD, : added examplesEdited by RAZD, : more clrtyEdited by RAZD, : clrty

Sounds snarky but it isn't. The best evidence is the preponderance of the evidence. This is not unique to the TOE, of course. It is the norm for all scientific theories.Having said that, the best evidence AGAINST Intelligent Design and therefore good evidence for the TOE, is the multitude of derived characters we can readily observe as well as a corollary observation, the fact of convergent evolution (different ways of solving the same problem). I am not going to elaborate on the arguments against ID because that would be off topic but if someone wants to propose that topic I will be happy to chime in.

Also, the fact that nothing to do with biological diversity makes sense without evolution.