Evolution debunked EZ-version

Evolution:
A species takes on characteristics that favor it's ability to survive.

Most texts and sources on evolution intentionally ignore a very important factor. Evolution should take place across species. Lets imagine a valley. This valley has many types of animals and many types of food. But lets consider two species whose migratory patterns are isolative to this valley. In addition, they only feed on grass. Lets call one, a cow. Lets call the other a horse.

They are very different species. One is very fast. One is very dumb. But ultimately they have the same purpose, to live in the valley and eat the grass.

In evolution, we learn that an eye will evolve in a long chain of evolutions. This occurs with thousands to billions of slight changes that eventually yeild an eye. Each of these changes are very slight, and they must be universally accepted across a species. Most of these stages are useless and can hinder the animal.

If the tinyest changes to the development of an eye can occur, why have the dramatic differences between a cow and a horse led to the extinction of one and a domination of the valley for the other?

This is why the topic is avoided by evolutionists. If they would consider this, the earth would be populated by only a fraction of the species that currently live here. The variety of species and complexity of their functioning parts all lead to a universally unlikely evolutionary theory.

Evolution:
A species takes on characteristics that favor it's ability to survive.

Evolution doesn't have to make the creature more fit to survive, even though that is usually the case.

...and they must be universally accepted across a species. Most of these stages are useless and can hinder the animal.

I don't really understand what you mean by "universally accepted across a species"...

But if the mutation hinders the animal too much, it will die off and the mutation will not be passed on.

Quote from: narcberry on April 05, 2007, 03:10:20 PM

Evolution:
A species takes on characteristics that favor it's ability to survive.

Evolution doesn't have to make the creature more fit to survive, even though that is usually the case.

Quote

...and they must be universally accepted across a species. Most of these stages are useless and can hinder the animal.

I don't really understand what you mean by "universally accepted across a species"...

If the mutation hinders the animal too much, it will die off and the mutation will not be passed on.

Universally is a little too strict. I mean something above 99%.

What I mean is, when speaking of the eye, if mutation A allow mutation B then mutation A must occur before B. If B is to ever be perpetuated, A must be accepted, almost universally, across the species. Otherwise B will be "bred out".

What I mean is, when speaking of the eye, if mutation A allow mutation B then mutation A must occur before B. If B is to ever be perpetuated, A must be accepted, almost universally, across the species. Otherwise B will be "bred out".

If A doesn't get accepted by the entire species, then you will just have one species split into two.

Quote from: narcberry on April 05, 2007, 03:23:28 PM

What I mean is, when speaking of the eye, if mutation A allow mutation B then mutation A must occur before B. If B is to ever be perpetuated, A must be accepted, almost universally, across the species. Otherwise B will be "bred out".

If A doesn't get accepted by the entire species, then you will just have one species split into two.

Correct, except the species with a B and no A is inferior to the one with an A and possibly a B. This is where it is likely that one will be more successful than the other. This may not be the case. But generally it would be, otherwise evolution is already debunked.

Correct, except the species with a B and no A is inferior to the one with an A and possibly a B. This is where it is likely that one will be more successful than the other. This may not be the case. But generally it would be, otherwise evolution is already debunked.

Yes, and if there is a lack of resources then the species that is better adapted to the environment will survive, while the ones that are not will probably die out over time. If there is an abundance of food, the two species will be able to coexist.

Quote from: narcberry on April 05, 2007, 03:32:23 PM

Correct, except the species with a B and no A is inferior to the one with an A and possibly a B. This is where it is likely that one will be more successful than the other. This may not be the case. But generally it would be, otherwise evolution is already debunked.

Yes, and if there is a lack of resources then the species that is better adapted to the environment will survive, while the ones that are not will probably die out over time. If there is an abundance of food, the two species will be able to coexist.

Agreed. However, when a gene is removed from a species, it is usually done in times of drought, famine, sickness, etc. A cow+horse population will grow to whatever the food supply will allow. Once an event occurs, one of the species will fare better than the other.

I think you are overlooking the point.
Evolution claims that slight changes in a species will make one more fit and will make the other extinct. If this were false, we would have every link to every evolutionary chain. These small causes for extinction are tiny when compared with the giant differences between a cow and a horse.

Agreed. However, when a gene is removed from a species, it is usually done in times of drought, famine, sickness, etc.

No, it is completely random.

A cow+horse population will grow to whatever the food supply will allow. Once an event occurs, one of the species will fare better than the other.

Yes, but I still don't understand what you are trying to get at when saying this...

Evolution claims that slight changes in a species will make one more fit and will make the other extinct.

No it doesn't.

If this were false, we would have every link to every evolutionary chain.

How do you figure?

Quote from: narcberry on April 05, 2007, 03:49:41 PM

Agreed. However, when a gene is removed from a species, it is usually done in times of drought, famine, sickness, etc.

No, it is completely random.

Mutation is random. Natural selection is not.

Quote

A cow+horse population will grow to whatever the food supply will allow. Once an event occurs, one of the species will fare better than the other.

Yes, but I still don't understand what you are trying to get at when saying this...

Cows and horses are in direct competition for food. If their food supply were challenged (a common occurance) the population of one would suffer more than the other. This would ultimately lead to the extinction of one.

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Evolution claims that slight changes in a species will make one more fit and will make the other extinct.

No it doesn't.

Then where are the all the links in the chain of human evolution?

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If this were false, we would have every link to every evolutionary chain.

How do you figure?

Ever heard of, "the missing link?" There are millions of these. Where are they? Evolution claims they went extinct. Are you saying they didnt?

I found the missing link.

Cows and horses are in direct competition for food. If their food supply were challenged (a common occurance) the population of one would suffer more than the other. This would ultimately lead to the extinction of one.

We have fossils of thousands of species that died out due to competition. The fact that there are two competing animals alive today is not evidence against evolution, and I can't understand how any reasonable person could claim it is.

Then where are the all the links in the chain of human evolution?

Scientists have an accurate timeline of the evolution of the human race.

http://talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/images/hominids2.jpg

Ever heard of, "the missing link?" There are millions of these. Where are they? Evolution claims they went extinct. Are you saying they didnt?

There will always be "missing links" unless we dig up every generation of every species that ever existed. Thats all that the missing link is. We have accurately documented the evolution of the human race, and the only people who claim that there is not enough evidence are the creationists, and they are hardly qualified to say that.

The fact is that Evolution has more evidence supporting it than any other scientific theory in the world. And no matter how much creationists deny it, no matter how much they want to believe that it doesn't happen, it does exist. We have observed the effects of evolution happening in the past, and we have seen it in action over the past few decades. Evolution happens whether you like it or not.

Here is a site that will show you some of the evidence for evolution: http://talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/section1.html



EDIT: Midnight, must you attempt to ruin every thread on this forum?

EDIT: Midnight, must you attempt to ruin every thread on this forum?

I apologize. I was under the impression the thread was ruined when the inane babble within the OP was transplanted from the OP's first attempt at the same, duplicated thread.

Hardly ruined the thread, as it was well on it's way there, long before I added my scab to the skin.

Fairly strong claim of 'every thread', but I digress.

He doesn't understand what evolution is.

He doesn't understand what evolution is.

No way!

In the case of two different species competing for the same food, we obviously see the case of an "arms race," the cows will evolve to have a slight advantage over the horses, and then the horses will have to respond with evolving a slight advantage over the cows, this continues until the constraints of energy result in further improvements being too costly.  We can see many examples of "arms races" in evolutionary development, and they're a crucial aspect of evolution, as I'm sure anybody who has studied evolution knows.

It's also important to note that there are very few examples of species competing over the exact same food with that food being equally accessible to both species.  It's all very well to give a hypothetical example, but lets see a real example of this so called situation, because hypotheticals are not actually evidence of your argument at all.

In evolution, we learn that an eye will evolve in a long chain of evolutions. This occurs with thousands to billions of slight changes that eventually yeild an eye. Each of these changes are very slight, and they must be universally accepted across a species. Most of these stages are useless and can hinder the animal.

This is completely false.  In fact we can easily follow the development of the eye and we can see that every stage in the development of the eye is, in fact, a benefit.  We can also clearly see that evolutionary changes are usually universally accepted across a species because of the way natural selection works.

The eye started out as a patch of light sensitive skin.  There are many examples of this in simple life forms.  By curving inwards, that light sensitive skin can receive more photons.  By being round that light sensitive skin can give a more accurate impression of the surroundings.  By getting to a point where the curve is greater than a half sphere, we can see that we would get a much more focused image, and indeed, the closer to a sphere, the more advantageous that would be.  We can see that a very small thin layer of skin across the open end of the sphere would give better focus.  We can see that a thicker film that can be controlled with muscles gives a better ability to focus.  All these steps are visible in current life, and we can perfectly trace the development of the eye through very small changes that always give a benefit to the species.  Many evolutionary works go through this process.  Rather than putting forward an argument based on your own ignorance, I suggest you actually try to learn about evolution.

The reason evolutionary changes are typically accepted across the species is because a small improvement means that species with that improvement will be more likely to survive, hence over generations, there will be more and more of that subspecies and because they are competing with the other non improved subspecies, there will be less and less of that subspecies until it gets to the stage where all the generations that did not have the improvement will be dead.  That's how natural selection works.  Mathematical models show that the process does indeed work.



So to sum up, the arguments put forward in this topic against evolution are completely bogus.  All they demonstrate is that the person putting forward the arguments does not actually understand how evolution works, and has not read much literature about evolution.  There are plenty of great books out there that explain evolution.  The Blind Watchmaker by Richard Dawkins is my favourite.

Mutation is random. Natural selection is not.

Query: is that a stochastic or a deterministic position?

Quote from: narcberry on April 05, 2007, 04:00:43 PM

Mutation is random. Natural selection is not.

Query: is that a stochastic or a deterministic position?

It's bullshit position.

Well it's entirely true, so I don't know how you can call it a bullshit position.

It works like this; every generation has small genetic "mutations."  I put them in inverted commas because they are so small that they are not having extra fingers or anything like that, it's a case of being slightly taller than your parents, or having a slightly shorter nose.  Obviously some physical differences are based on environment rather than genetics (for example, the fact that Europeans are a lot taller now than they were 400 years ago is probably due to an improved diet, rather than a change in genetics).  These changes are, at least to our current knowledge, completely random, we can't predict them at all.  That's not to say that in the future we may have the technology to predict the changes in genetic structure over generations, but when you look at the differences between siblings (and there are obviously significant differences, as well as similarities) we can see that it's very hard to predict (of course the main reasons there are differences is because of the different active genes that each sibling has, all siblings have all the genetic information from both parents, but only half is active, and again which is active and which isn't is, as far as our current technology shows, random).  The amount of variety falls along a standard distribution graph.  Hence it is most likely that the changes will be very insignificant, and much less likely that they will be a larger change.  All the changes either give the next generation a greater chance of survival, or a lower chance of survival.  Again this falls along a standard natural distribution graph.  We can see that each generation has an equal chance of being better or worse than it's parents.  Natural selection is simply the name given to the fact that the generations that are more likely to survive slowly become more dominate, while the generations that are less likely to survive become less dominate.  It is completely non random, given any amount of life forms of the same species, and an accurately known chance of survival for each generation, and enough time, we can easily predict which genes will survive and which ones will not.

Like most things, randomness only comes from not knowing the process that leads to the result.  Theoretically, if we knew the exact situation that sperm was released, we could predict which sperm would reach the egg first, however we don't know that, so we label it as random.  Likewise, theoretically if we were given enough information, and had enough knowledge, maybe we could predict what genetic information an offspring would contain, however since we do not have the knowledge or the information, we label it as random.  Natural selection, however, is clearly not random, but very predictable, providing we know the variables.  Perhaps we cannot predict what life will be like in 1 billion years, but that's not because we can't follow natural selection, it's because we can't predict what the environment will be like at that time, so we don't know what natural selection will be like.  On the other hand, last year scientists put a predator lizard with a group of smaller lizards, and easily predicted the evolution that they witnessed (natural selection led to the prey lizards becoming faster and faster runners over each generation; there is essentially a 50% chance that each sibling will be a faster runner than its parents and the faster runners have a much higher chance of survival).  So natural selection, when we know the information, is not random at all.

Ok, but you still have not answered the question posed before my previous post.

Well I don't really care.  I think it depends on the amount of knowledge you have and what you're actually trying to predict.  If we're looking at how humans will evolve in the future, we can't really be deterministic, but at the same time, I think that if we had enough information, we could predict human evolution; the fact is that we don't and as far as we can currently see, never will.  From that position, I see the question of stochastic vs deterministic entirely meaningless.  The reason there is a suggestion of a stochastic position is because of our lack of knowledge, rather than the actual possibilities of knowledge.  Is it a deterministic position to believe that we could theoretically predict everything, but that we'll never have the knowledge to do so?  I don't know, and I don't really care either.  Deciding that is a deterministic or stochastic position will not make any difference to the amount of knowledge we have, or the way we approach reality, or anything.  It's a question that has no constructive answer.

Well I don't really care.  I think it depends on the amount of knowledge you have and what you're actually trying to predict.  If we're looking at how humans will evolve in the future, we can't really be deterministic, but at the same time, I think that if we had enough information, we could predict human evolution; the fact is that we don't and as far as we can currently see, never will.  From that position, I see the question of stochastic vs deterministic entirely meaningless.  The reason there is a suggestion of a stochastic position is because of our lack of knowledge, rather than the actual possibilities of knowledge.  Is it a deterministic position to believe that we could theoretically predict everything, but that we'll never have the knowledge to do so?  I don't know, and I don't really care either.  Deciding that is a deterministic or stochastic position will not make any difference to the amount of knowledge we have, or the way we approach reality, or anything.  It's a question that has no constructive answer.

Eloquent covering of ass. Fail. I think I have tripped up over how you work now. You fill the screen with verbiage, to make your position strengthen. And yet. And yet...

You never really answer anything posed to you, but demand answers to questions that have no answer you will accept. Reminds me of Tom and his insanity. If you want someone to give you proof of a claim, but refuse to accept that answer, then you neither deserve being taken seriously, nor deserve anymore of my time.

I withdraw from this farce of a debate. You clearly are in this for entertainment, rather than enlightenment.

Eloquent covering of ass. Fail. I think I have tripped up over how you work now. You fill the screen with verbiage, to make your position strengthen. And yet. And yet...

...or else you just didn't understand what he said and assumed you wouldn't like it if you did understand it. If you bother to pay attention to what he said, he did answer the question.

Quote from: midnight on April 06, 2007, 06:49:00 AM

Eloquent covering of ass. Fail. I think I have tripped up over how you work now. You fill the screen with verbiage, to make your position strengthen. And yet. And yet...

...or else you just didn't understand what he said and assumed you wouldn't like it if you did understand it. If you bother to pay attention to what he said, he did answer the question.

No, he did not. He described the meaning of the terms put to him in the question. He sidestepped the question entirely, as is the case in every response thus far in this "thread".

Regardless, I am officially out of the conversation, the depth here is mind bogglingly shallow, and the defense of that is just pathetic.

Well let me be clearer; the position offered (mutation is random, natural selection is not random) is part stochastic and part deterministic.  Given what we know about the nature of the mutations however, we'd have to say that it's ultimately a deterministic position, since we know that essentially all possible outcomes fall from the random mutations and only specific ones are selected.  However that said, the factors determining which mutations are selected are currently too complex for us to make long term predictions.

So to sum it up in one word; deterministic.

Happy?

I would suggest my answers have been better than your response of; "It's bullshit position," which isn't even grammatically correct.

No, he did not. He described the meaning of the terms put to him in the question. He sidestepped the question entirely, as is the case in every response thus far in this "thread".

Regardless, I am officially out of the conversation, the depth here is mind bogglingly shallow, and the defense of that is just pathetic.

After carefully reading your contributions to the thread, all I could say is WTF!!? 

For the love of Christ people ...

You know what?  I'm going to make a topic covering what evolution is and what it isn't - it seems that religious brainwashing scare-tactics have worked.    Great.

Be on the lookout for a topic entitled "On Evolution - Facts & Myths" shortly.  Be sure you read it!

The most simple way of explaining why two different species living and feeding in the same environment can co-exist without the extinction of one is this; unlike religious zealots and FE'rs, nature is open-minded. There isn't only one right away to go about things.


Now, for those who say we've never witnessed evolution, or can't; another simple answer can found: the finches of the Galapagos. Research them, if they aren't proof enough, then you came into this discussion with a definite belief, rather than an idea about the subject.

One thing I don't agree with evolution, though: randomness. I don't think it's random. It may look random to us, because we weren't living during the time (therefore we don't know every different condition, although, we would be educated in some) when the mutation(s) occurred, so we took it as nature creating a bunch of options and letting the best ones survive. I think, if we looked more closely, which would be quite the task, each mutation had a reason. Unfortunately, for me, this is a near impossible task to prove true.

That makes sense. That is something that can be held in the hand, if one is inclined. Well said.

The most simple way of explaining why two different species living and feeding in the same environment can co-exist without the extinction of one is this; unlike religious zealots and FE'rs, nature is open-minded. There isn't only one right away to go about things.


Now, for those who say we've never witnessed evolution, or can't; another simple answer can found: the finches of the Galapagos. Research them, if they aren't proof enough, then you came into this discussion with a definite belief, rather than an idea about the subject.

One thing I don't agree with evolution, though: randomness. I don't think it's random. It may look random to us, because we weren't living during the time (therefore we don't know every different condition, although, we would be educated in some) when the mutation(s) occurred, so we took it as nature creating a bunch of options and letting the best ones survive. I think, if we looked more closely, which would be quite the task, each mutation had a reason. Unfortunately, for me, this is a near impossible task to prove true.

Well if you choose a particular gene and record the changes to that gene one generation away (ie. in the offspring of the animal with that gene), the changes fall exactly along a natural distribution curve, which is how we expect them to fall if it is random.

Quote from: Jesus Reborn on April 07, 2007, 06:42:47 AM

The most simple way of explaining why two different species living and feeding in the same environment can co-exist without the extinction of one is this; unlike religious zealots and FE'rs, nature is open-minded. There isn't only one right away to go about things.


Now, for those who say we've never witnessed evolution, or can't; another simple answer can found: the finches of the Galapagos. Research them, if they aren't proof enough, then you came into this discussion with a definite belief, rather than an idea about the subject.

One thing I don't agree with evolution, though: randomness. I don't think it's random. It may look random to us, because we weren't living during the time (therefore we don't know every different condition, although, we would be educated in some) when the mutation(s) occurred, so we took it as nature creating a bunch of options and letting the best ones survive. I think, if we looked more closely, which would be quite the task, each mutation had a reason. Unfortunately, for me, this is a near impossible task to prove true.

Well if you choose a particular gene and record the changes to that gene one generation away (ie. in the offspring of the animal with that gene), the changes fall exactly along a natural distribution curve, which is how we expect them to fall if it is random.

What do you mean by natural distribution curve?

On a side note: have you compared the living conditions (all aspects, from food, to air quality, etc, etc) of the grandparents and parents of the offspring?
Second side note/question: If you expect something to happen, it is really random?