Denial of Evolution VI.

[Fraggle Rocker]

It didn't create everything. The big bang has failed to account for so many observations that it should have been discarded decades ago. It is based on two arbitrary assumptions: (1) the universe is boundless and (2) it has no center. These defy logic and common sense, but they are necessary principles for the big bang theory.

Why do you say they defy logic? The concept of infinity (which is merely a fancy and more easily pronounced word for "boundlessness") is well established in science. As for centers, they are often defined arbitrarily by humans. The earth has a center, but then we discovered that the earth revolves around the sun, so the solar system has a center 130 million km away from the earth's center. Then we discovered the galaxy, which has a center quite a bit further away than that. Then we discovered the universe, Hubble Volume, whatever you want to call it.

BTW, I'll certainly defer to the knowledge of the astronomers who are posting here, but isn't the notion that the universe is infinite and has no center very old-school? Now they're saying that it's a sphere 93 billion light years in diameter, with a center right where the center of any sphere is: equidistant from all points on the surface. Garbonzo must be older than me (1943) to not have gotten that memo.

(in science "proof" is a non-sense word outside of math and formal logic)

Well... as I've often complained, most scientists are dismally bad communicators who mangle whichever language they happen to speak. Just look at their two confusing uses of the word theory in "The Theory of Evolution," which is part of the canon of science, and "String Theory," which is a bunch of arm-waving. I prefer to use a combination of science's terminology and yours:

A theory is a hypothesis that has been proven true beyond a reasonable doubt.​

. . . . if being stupid (instead of aware) were a survival trait . . . .

It's not a survival trait for humans, but it is a survival trait for their religions.

And yet our DNA is almost identical to ape's DNA.

Since we've ventured into the realm of proper use of language (a realm over which I claim sovereignty as the Moderator of Linguistics ), let's be careful NOT to suggest a distinction between humans and apes. Humans ARE apes, merely one species of them. Humans, orangutans, the two species of gorillas and the two species of chimpanzees comprise the family Hominidae, colloquially called "Great Apes." Combined with the family Hylobatidae, colloquially called "Lesser Apes," which includes 16 species of gibbons, we comprise the superfamily Hominoidea, "apes."

We are also (working our way up the taxonomic tree) primates, mammals, chordates, animals, and eukaryotes.

 

[leopold]

leopold



Yes, it has been shown to be true beyond a REASONABLE doubt(in science "proof" is a non-sense word outside of math and formal logic).

actually it hasn't been "shown" anywhere except maybe some paper that says so.
mind games, er "experiments", are far from proof grumpy.

 

[billvon]

actually it hasn't been "shown" anywhere except maybe some paper that says so.

And in the lab. We've actually seen new species evolve.

 

[arauca]

And in the lab. We've actually seen new species evolve.

What specie did you get , bacteria or any higher life form ?
?

 

[billvon]

What specie did you get , bacteria or any higher life form ?
?

Here are a few:


Evening Primrose (Oenothera gigas)
Kew Primrose (Primula kewensis)
Tragopogon
Raphanobrassica
Hemp Nettle (Galeopsis tetrahit)
Madia citrigracilis
Brassica
Maidenhair Fern (Adiantum pedatum)
Woodsia Fern (Woodsia abbeae)
Stephanomeira malheurensis
Maize (Zea mays)
Drosophila paulistorum (fruit fly)

 

[KilljoyKlown]

Wouldn't humans have evolved even slightly over the past couple thousand years?

The answer is yes they have. Whenever the human race has been devastated by disease that kills millions. Those are the non survivors that don't ever get a chance to breed anymore. Many of those that did survive had genetic reasons for their survival and they are able to pass those survival adaptations on to following generations. So now the human population goes forward with many more people that are resistant to that particular disease. That's a change you won't be able to see in the appearance of humans, but it is a big survival advantage for our species.

 

[garbonzo]

Wrong again. A monkey's tail is primarily used for balance, There's no grip to it.

You're now at 3 out of 3.

Then please explain what a prehensile tail is.

 

[leopold]

And in the lab. We've actually seen new species evolve.

new species, as in tulips with bigger leaves or birds with longer beaks.
this is MICRO evolution billvon, adaptation.

 

[Aqueous Id]

new species, as in tulips with bigger leaves or birds with longer beaks.
this is MICRO evolution billvon, adaptation.

What other kind of evolution is there?

 

[Aqueous Id]

What specie did you get , bacteria or any higher life form ?
?

There usually called strains.

 

[KilljoyKlown]

Evolution doesn't take place in a major way when there are no stressful reasons for it to take place. When major climate changes happen it changes the biosphere to such an extent that some species will go extinct and some others will have a few of their kind that will survive and pass their survival characteristics on to future generations. In the case of a major worldwide extinction event where most of the species perished. That left a lot of niches that had supported life before to be available. Nature abhors a vacuum or a vacant niche that life can take advantage of and at these times evolution will diversify life to fill all the available niches that will support life.

 

[Aqueous Id]

It didn't create everything. The big bang has failed to account for so many observations that it should have been discarded decades ago.

If you oppose the BBT for contradicting observations, you might want to elaborate. That might be a platform that expands on what was given in the OP.

It is based on two arbitrary assumptions: (1) the universe is boundless and (2) it has no center.

I wouldn't say that the theory is based on those assumptions at all. It is based on Hubble's observation that astronomical objects are flying apart. Played in reverse, it says that the objects in the sky (or their energy) were co-located. "Big Bang" seemed to be a convenient term, and it stuck. And I wouldn't associate the BBT with a boundless universe. If anything the BBT could just as well impose a boundary that is expanding.

These defy logic and common sense, but they are necessary principles for the big bang theory.

I would tend to agree that they are related, but not really necessary principles.

 

[garbonzo]

If the forest the creature lived in disappeared over a few thousand generations, replaced by a Savannah of grass with isolated copses of food trees separated by long walks, yes. Those among the populous who were better able to see over the grass(looking for lions, no doubt)and used less fuel walking between the scattered food sources survived better than those stuck with tree climbing bodies(who never saw the lions coming or who broke down halfway to the next food. Plus the upright stance leaves the hands free to carry the harvest back to camp for the children, wield rocks, sticks and limbs as tools and weapons of defense and hunting, further reinforcing the trend toward uprightness over time because of better survivability. The Peacock(a dinosaur akin to T-rex, by the way)did not get it's ridiculous tail overnight, but by a process of sexual selection by the females over thousands of generations. And broccoli, cabbage, Brussels sprouts and cauliflower are all artificially created varieties of the same plant.

Grumpy

Even though your comment has not convinced me of the concept of the big bang and/or evolution, it has helped me understand more about evolutionist beliefs, and for that I thank you. Even though I do not believe in the theory of evolution, I do believe it is a good idea to learn as much as possible about other beliefs. Continuing our conversation, I am curious as to how a creature could ever become as smart as the modern human, and humans nowadays only seem to devolve.

 

[exchemist]

Even though your comment has not convinced me of the concept of the big bang and/or evolution, it has helped me understand more about evolutionist beliefs, and for that I thank you. Even though I do not believe in the theory of evolution, I do believe it is a good idea to learn as much as possible about other beliefs. Continuing our conversation, I am curious as to how a creature could ever become as smart as the modern human, and humans nowadays only seem to devolve.

Nonsense! If you were interesting in learning any science you would have read all this for yourself by now, in any of the countless sources available in books or the internet.

Creationists are virtually always the same: swaggeringly ignorant and impervious to reason - whether through stupidity or blind obstinacy is usually impossible to determine. Your OP is typical of the genre.

 

[Aqueous Id]

I do believe it is a good idea to learn as much as possible about other beliefs. .

Neither Big Bang Theory nor the Theory of Evolution are beliefs. They are both scientific theories.

 

[leopold]

What other kind of evolution is there?

the kind that accounts for lifes diversity.
it hasn't been shown that micro evolution, AKA adaptation, is the cause.

 

[gmilam]

I am curious as to how a creature could ever become as smart as the modern human, and humans nowadays only seem to devolve.

Every large group forms a bell curve with people on each side. Sometimes it's hard to tell if the left side is holding the right side back, or if the right side is pulling the left side along.

 

[Grumpy]

garbonzo

Even though your comment has not convinced me of the concept of the big bang and/or evolution, it has helped me understand more about evolutionist beliefs

Evolution is a well supported(by massive evidence in many different forms)scientific theory that I accept as being true. Belief is accepting as true without evidence. Evolution is both a fact(it has been conclusively shown to have occurred throughout the 3.5 billion year history of life on Earth(and probably even earlier))and a theory. Any changes we have to make in our theories(as we learn more or understand better)do not change the fact that evolution has occurred. Nor will willful ignorance of the facts change those facts.

actually it hasn't been "shown" anywhere except maybe some paper that says so.
mind games, er "experiments", are far from proof grumpy.

Just because you are ignorant of the facts does not change the facts. Species do come from other species, even over timeframes as short as a few thousand years.

"Some critics of the theory of evolution argue that it doesn't convincingly explain the origin of new species. They say that members of one species couldn't become so different from other individuals through natural variation that they would become two separate non-interbreeding species. "

"The various Ensatina salamanders of the Pacific coast all descended from a common ancestral population. As the species spread southward from Oregon and Washington, subpopulations adapted to their local environments on either side of the San Joaquin Valley. From one population to the next, in a circular pattern, these salamanders are still able to interbreed successfully. However, where the circle closes -- in the black zone on the map in Southern California -- the salamanders no longer interbreed successfully. The variation within a single species has produced differences as large as those between two separate species."

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/05/2/l_052_05.html

The FACT is that we see evolution throughout all the various forms of life on Earth, especially when it comes to diseases, which mutate ANNUALLY, requiring new vaccines. You are sadly misinformed on the subject of which you speak, if everyone were so misinformed the death toll from simple influenza would be measured in percentages of world population, in the 20s one third of the population of the WORLD died of the flu in the years after WW1. Today we get upset if the flu kills a few tens of thousands. That's because we now understand how rapidly the viruses can mutate and evolve, we keep up with them much better today because of our knowledge of evolution. There's a 30-50% chance that you are alive ONLY because we understand the evolution of flu viruses as well as we do(one in three of your generation, plus one in three in your parents generation plus one in three of your grandparents generation...). There is also a growing likelihood that you will die from MERS or several of the other drug resistant organisms that evolution has developed, largely because we used our best antibiotics to fatten cattle and pigs(which knowledge of evolutionary principles should have told them was a really stupid, greedy and short sighted idea). Evolution is a two edged sword, we either learn to wield it well or it will cut us to pieces, and ignorance of the science will not change that.

Grumpy

 

[gmilam]

"Some critics of the theory of evolution argue that it doesn't convincingly explain the origin of new species. They say that members of one species couldn't become so different from other individuals through natural variation that they would become two separate non-interbreeding species. "

Two words for them... ring species.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_species

 

[Fraggle Rocker]

Two words for them... ring species.

We have the same phenomenon in linguistics. It's called a dialect continuum. The people in Village A can communicate with the people in Village B, even though they find each other's speech a little quaint and some of the vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation take a little time to figure out. The people in Village B can communicate with the people in Village C, etc., etc., until you find the people in Village Y able to communicate with the people in Village Z.

But the people in Village A and the people in Village Z can't understand each other at all. As far as they're concerned they speak two different languages and it would take months or years of study before they could start communicating.

There are villages on both sides of the Germany/Netherlands border where people speak a Germanic dialect that sounds like the missing link between German and Dutch. The Dutchmen there can understand the TV and government documents from Amsterdam, and the Germans on their side can understand what comes out of Berlin. But the people in Berlin and the people in Amsterdam can't understand each other at all.

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Besides, it's quite common for different species within the same genus (or even merely the same family) to be able to interbreed. They don't do it commonly in nature for a variety of reasons, usually either geographical separation (the camel and the llama) or different habitats (polar bears stay on the snow where they're camouflaged, whereas brown bears avoid it because they stand out like a neon sign).

But put them in captivity where the natural signals that guide their behavior are muted or missing, and suddenly you've got donkeys cross-breeding with zebras and giving birth to zebrasses (now called, more politely, zedonks). Or take them from their parents and let humans raise them, perhaps causing imprinting so they think they're people, and there's no telling what might happen. You get ligers, ocicats, and an entire catalog of hybrid parrots, like the third-generation Lavender Macaw, seven parts Scarlet and one part Blue-and-Gold.

Humans can also cause hybridization indirectly. We almost eliminated wolves in the USA, and many of the survivors escaped to Canada. There they were far outnumbered by coyotes. The wolves needed a little variety in their love life, and the coyotes were impressed by the much larger, fiercer and beautiful newcomers. So they began to interbreed. The result is an animal larger than a coyote, with the coyote's cleverness and lack of fear of humans. These animals are migrating back across the border, and we have mixed feelings about them. America has been overrun by deer since we killed off all their predators, and coy-wolves just love venison.

Even a breakdown in the natural environment can accomplish this. Humans clear-cut the dense, wide forest that grew along both sides of the Mississippi River, which was the boundary between the black-headed grosbeak of the Western states and the rose-breasted grosbeak of the East. And then we planted orchards. Fruit is the favorite food of both species so they began meeting for lunch every day. There are now black-rose grosbeaks all over the country.