Evolution, Creationisim, Abiogenisis, etc.

[grimace]

How can someone accept microevolution but not macroevolution? That is sort of ridiculous, seeing as it is the same thing.

 

What do you think happens when enough 'microevolution' happens? That the animal in question just stops changing and gets stuck?

[olympe]

Yes, it's still a dog. But their ancestors weren't dogs, they were wolves.

Still a wolf? (Yes, this chihuahua is an adult, and up to scale.)

 

About changing from one kind to another (click for larger pic)

 

"missing links"

Edited February 17, 2012 by olympe

[Alpha1]

Alpha, since most of what you referenced went far over my head, I'll just throw this out there...

 

If you’re confused on synteny or phylogeny based on genetic and morphological data, go look back at my previous posts with the images.

 

I’ll rehash a little on synteny:

 

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2000Natur.403..158B

 

Environmental genetics: Rapid chromosomal evolution in island mice

 

The mice on the island vary in chromosome count from 30-40ish. Because of chromosome rearrangement, a “jigsaw puzzle” is created.

 

It’s not elegant in the same way a zebra was “created” with 44 chromosomes vs. the domesticated horse’s 64 chromosomes.

 

Look at the now extinct Quagga.

 

 

God half-* it.

 

Um, Cambrian Explosion? Fully formed creatures all appearing on the fossil record in the same place? And where exactly does the fossil record show a progression from less to more complex??

 

 

It’s as clear as night and day. Note: Notice how soft-bodied organisms can be found much earlier, yet they’re harder to fossilize. Why can't we find a mammal down there?

 

The diversity of life was different than of today, and we can find transitions. For example, there were many lobopods (worm-like anthropods) during the Cambrian Explosion. These are thought to be the first transition to anthropods.

 

I fail to see why you think evolution has a problem when it’s the exact opposite. For example, how do you explain all the past megafauna?

 

Here’s how big a Terminator Pig can get, and it wasn't just a scavenger...

 

 

If that’s not evolution, then I don’t know what is!

 

Likewise, a few bear-dog species were as big as bears.

 

Riddle me this: The American pronghorn is the second fastest land mammal. WTH is it doing in the U.S.? Oops! Noah forgot that cheetahs and packs of hyenas with cheetah-like legs use to chase the pronghorns.

 

Are you a YEC? There’s plenty more.

 

As to "diploma mills" and the like, my PhD chemistry teacher got his degree from UT (that's Tennessee not Texas). I've discussed creation and evolution with a creationist who graduated with a degree in biology from Harvard.

 

How much original work on ID do they get published in peer-reviewed journals?

 

I’m not saying there’s none. After all, Michael Behe is a proponent of ID, and he has an accredited degree. The fact still remains that virtually none support ID.

 

. Part to whole argumentation is fallacious, as is arguing that because the majority believes it, then it must be right.

 

That’s not applicable because we’re talking about scientists who study it and have a rigorous methodology for arriving to their conclusions.

 

Still a wolf? (Yes, this chihuahua is an adult, and up to scale.)

 

VS.

 

Bandog

 

 

 

[sNIP] [Picture of horse evolution]

 

That truly is a horse of a different color.

Edited February 20, 2012 by Alpha1

[olympe]

I don't know what you're trying to get at with the quagga, but did you know that some people are trying to selectively breed plain zebras to look like quaggas again? (Quaggas are believed to be a mere subspecies of the plains zebra, so it's not quite as ridiculous as it sounds at first.)

http://www.quaggaproject.org/quagga-select...breeding-03.htm

[elderberrysyrup]

No, it will continue to adapt and change within its kind, not evolve into a completely new creature. An example is selectively breeding dogs. You can breed out whatever characteristics you want into a dog with certain specific desired traits... but it's still a dog.

Wait, are you trying to generalize species under very basic terms ('dog', 'wolf', 'mosquito')?

 

I imagine isolate a dog and millions of years later you can breed them to be more and more tree-friendly until they become unable to breed with normal dogs, thus it's not longer a dog in the traditional sense. This has already been seen in those sewer mosquitoes I was talking about, in which they can no longer breed with other mosquitoes, and the habitat never started until the old-timey sewers were originally built. They're still considered a different species. Evolution isn't saying completely new creatures arise suddenly. They arise gradually, and don't develop from things they don't already have. Like how a beaver will never develop chainsaw teeth.

[GhostMouse]

I've only skimmed this thread, but I didn't see this anywhere. On the topic of those who reject macro-evolution while conceding that micro-evolution occurs, I'd like to present this.

 

[Alpha1]

I don't know what you're trying to get at with the quagga, but did you know that some people are trying to selectively breed plain zebras to look like quaggas again? (Quaggas are believed to be a mere subspecies of the plains zebra, so it's not quite as ridiculous as it sounds at first.)

http://www.quaggaproject.org/quagga-select...breeding-03.htm

 

The mention of the quagga with the picture was just a joke. Get it?

 

 

 

[Colton O'Weekly]

I'm going to throw my few cents into the discussion.

 

I think that it's undeniable that there is evolution. We can see it in the world around us -micro and macro both. I say this because anyone can tell without any doubt that, every year, there are new virus strains from them rapidly evolving.

 

But the thing is, there are actually ongoing, observable cases of macro-evolution going on around us too. A lizard in Australia is currently evolving into two species - one a live-birth species, the other an egg-laying species. (This is cool in of itself as live-birth in reptiles is incredibly rare, so it might evolve into either a new branch of the animal kingdom in millions of years) I got that information here from National Geographic.

 

So then we have a question to ask here, that I really have no answer to - how did life begin? And without putting pure faith in something there is no answer. Perhaps, if there is/are a god/gods they created life to evolve? Maybe not.

 

Just my few cents, though. I think it's safe to say that evolution is undeniable - the question is what started life, that we can't answer.

[olympe]

I agree with that 100%. Sure, there are hints indicating that abiogenesis might have happened, but that's still a far way from proof in my mind. So, whatever has started life I don't know.

[MidoriRai]

I may sound ignorant but by evolution, we are talking about natural selection, right?

 

By natural selection I mean that traits that help an organism live longer so as to allow it more time to breed would eventually be dominate in the species because the organisms with such traits survive longer to breed more.

[7Deadly$ins]

I may sound ignorant but by evolution, we are talking about natural selection, right?

 

By natural selection I mean that traits that help an organism live longer so as to allow it more time to breed would eventually be dominate in the species because the organisms with such traits survive longer to breed more.

Well, that is what evolution is.

[MidoriRai]

Well, that is what evolution is.

Just confirming

[Kestra15]

We were?! I spent all my time arguing in favour of this:

 

http://ai-goers.2388085.n2.nabble.com/file...StellarWind.jpg ~Linked for size~

Edited October 28, 2013 by SockPuppet Strangler

[Ælex]

Hohohoho, this subject. It's rare to find a civil thread on this in particular, but I'm glad this one exists.

 

When I was very young, growing up here in Bulgaria, my parents were very pious much like their grandparents. Naturally they tried to push it on me just like their grandparents had pushed it on them. And they did, I honestly believed there was some sort of supernatural being out there who created everything somehow at some point in ancient history. I feared 'hell' and wished with all my heart to go to 'heaven' and play Pokémon all day and all night with my friends there.

 

And this went on until I was about the age of ten or so. It was then that I started to ask a few too many questions. We were active Christians, and attended church weekly, though every time we did I always got a little nosy. I asked them about the whole process, the how and the why of our 'creation', but often, or so I remember, I received unsatisfactory answers. I was really into stories at the time, following a lot of TV shows and reading some really nice Bulgarian classics that had me hooked, so a plot hole in one story made me itch like I had a tick stuck to my mind's face. To me, those unsatisfactory answers were exactly that. Plot holes. I had to know... I just had to.

 

Gradually I addressed the subject more frequently into my early teens, usually with people other then my family, because they usually gave me just more unsatisfactory answers. Unfortunately, the more I pushed, the less I learned. Not even the 'holy' text offered more information, instead making my eyebrows raise sky-high when I plowed through the pages. It was when I was 4th or 5th grade, I think that I had finished reading grandmum's old copy of the book. It shocked me, really.

 

This "god" character was a monster to me at that point. The gap between the kind loving fatherly figure and what I read in that book was so wide that I figured I must have read the wrong book. I honestly asked my grandparents if they'd given me the wrong copy, if this wasn't some sort of satire or something.

 

As I progressed through my primary and into my middle school education, I found Darwinian Evolution. At that point, already sick of not knowing the details into what my parents would have me believe, I pressed for answers from my teachers. It was one of the most elementary interpretations of Darwinian Evolution that we studied, but to me, it made so much sense. It was a story of its own, the story of our origins, told piece by piece, no magic, no witches or warlocks, or behemoths. No stoning or burning or floods or murder or sacrificing goats or children... Everything just clicked so well into place, and when I wanted answers, they were always there. My teacher was happy to explain, and she was such a sweet woman too. I remember holding her up after class to the point where she was almost late for her next classes, but she always did everything she could to answer my questions. Her name was Ivanova, I believe. She was a tall blonde woman with thick glasses in her late 30s. Or, well, that's what she looked like. I never asked her age.

 

I was genuinely fascinated with the story of our origins and of my own country in early middle school that I spent a significant amount of time either hunched over my history books or watching the Discovery Channel. Funny thing, though, I never actually studied English in any of my classes. What I am writing now is entirely thanks to watching Discovery Channel and some other similar stations in English with Bulgarian subtitles. I'd share with you of the times I spent discussing the Big Bang theory and the laws of physics with some of my like-minded classmates, but I have the feeling I've already bored you with details, haven't I?

 

Anyway, it was at about the age of 15-16, half-way through my middle school education that I, for the first time ever, refused to go to church with my family. I'd long dismissed "god" as the reason for my being here, so I simply had no reason to want to go any more. I'd been uncomfortable being there for a while anyway, and on that particular day, I was caught up watching one of my favorite animated series. It... didn't end well. My parents were still very religious, so after pushing me to tell them why I didn't want to go for several minutes, I decided to just come clean, and I told them I simply didn't believe their stories any more.

 

I still remember how they looked at me for that excessively long silent moment. They stared at me as if I'd just said the most vulgar and disgusting thing they've ever heard, or as if I'd just willingly beheaded a kitten. Mum didn't say a word, dad simply said "Fine, you can stay." and they left without me. We didn't address the issue for a long time, but I could feel they were cold to me. They tried to hide it, but I knew it was there. Thankfully, it didn't go on for very long. At the very least after we discussed it several times, my parents were smart enough to accept me as the thing I went by since then. An atheist.

 

And the rest, is history... That's my little story, and If it didn't detail my opinions and standing on Evolution and Creationism, then here it is in a nutshell.

 

I've gravitated away from the concept of Creationism, and have accepted the limits of what we know and not know as a species of ourselves, our planet and our universe. I have accepted my own mortality and the fact that we don't know, nor will we likely ever know what happens after a living organism passes away. I fully support in filling the gaps and finding the correct answers to these important questions using the Scientific Method. I am completely against blind faith, speculation and using fear tactics to force people into ignorance and to stifle their curiosity. I do not judge people based on their beliefs, so long as they do not force them on those around them. I still love Pokémon. My favourite will always be Feraligatr.

Edited October 28, 2013 by Ælex