Evolution

[Enoc]

There is still a lot we don't know about life and the origin of life.

Anyone who just reads Wikipedia or even Encyclopedia Britannica knows how very ignorant we are of everything and how much more there is to know and discover about virtually everything.

Btw where is wellwisher? I really enjoyed his comments.

 

[origin]

There is still a lot we don't know about life and the origin of life.

Anyone who just reads Wikipedia or even Encyclopedia Britannica knows how very ignorant we are of everything and how much more there is to know and discover about virtually everything.

You are sort of a glass half empty kind of guy I guess? I would say it is incredible how much we know and understand the universe.

Btw where is wellwisher? I really enjoyed his comments.

Wellwisher has been banned from posting in the science section for a while because his 'enjoyable comments' are riddled with pseudoscience.

 

[Billy T]

... Btw where is wellwisher? I really enjoyed his comments.

Me too - They normally gave me an opportunity to teach some physics, without appearing pedantic - I was just correcting his imagination. Now it is mainly QQ who extends that opportunity to me. Hurry back WellWisher, soon as you can. I need you.

 

[garbonzo]

Me too - They normally gave me an opportunity to teach some physics, without appearing pedantic - I was just correcting his imagination. Now it is mainly QQ who extends that opportunity to me. Hurry back WellWisher, soon as you can. I need you.

Feel free to "correct" my argument against evolution. Or rather provide proof for the story you told earlier in the thread.

 

[paddoboy]

Feel free to "correct" my argument against evolution. Or rather provide proof for the story you told earlier in the thread.

You do not have an argument. Evolution is as near fact as any scientific theory could be.
Evolution is so well established, evidenced and set in concrete, that no new findings or discoveries will ever invalidate Evolution....refinement of details, times etc are the only aspects open for interpretations, and which includes Panspermia.
Abiogenesis although we have no direct evidence is obviously the logical default position of the beginning of Universal life.
WE ARE ALL STAR STUFF!

 

[Daecon]

Feel free to "correct" my argument against evolution. Or rather provide proof for the story you told earlier in the thread.

Feel free to actually make a correct argument against evolution in the first place.

 

[garbonzo]

For goodness' sake, let me re-iterate my arguments with proper adressees this time so now no one will have an excuse to not respond. You posted in this thread and decided to debate me, now finish the debate please.

Of course it can. You merely lack the understanding of how that could happen.

You keep claiming it, and yet you cannot provide a single instance of how that could be accomplished that did not already happen, and did not falsify it.

biologists demonstrated that it was composed of several quite reducible units, all of which had evolved for other functions. Let me know if you would like more details.

I would.

In every case, an example of a reducible design was found. Again let me know if you would like more details.

I would.

biologists discovered that 1) you really didn't need all the proteins that creationists claimed you needed and 2) those proteins also served a function as digestive enzymes, thus giving a basis for their evolutionary development.

As I said in my first replies, those are just so stories unsubstantiated by evidence. Just because someone tells you that something could, possibly, maybe, we have no evidence against it, have happened a certain way, doesn't mean it did.

And by studying it, I don't mean reading TalkOrigins and memorizing talking points.

Let me put it to you bluntly.

You say that 'blood cloth' do not need all of the proteins that are used for it. What are the function of those unnecessary proteins, how does blood cloth works when those proteins are missing, what covers for their functions on their absence?

You said that proteins are also used for the digestive system, but the text is ambiguous. Do you mean to talk about the necessary or the non-necessary ones? What is the evidence that, despite their presence on present day's digestive system, they were also present on ancient life form's digestive system? What is the evidence that they were re-used? Do we have examples of life forms that possessed them in both digestive and cloth system? What's the evolutionary path, showing the progression from a digestive protein to a blood cloth one?

Ah, the bait-and-switch. You claimed that there was no "backing evidence that creatures simply evolved into hermaphrodites first, and then split the sexes away later." In fact creatures that "evolved into hermaphrodites" and then "split away the sexes" not only existed, but do exist today.

So we learned a new word and are eager to use it. Does not mean what you think it means, though. However, since you raised a strawman, I will have to, again, point out the dialog to you.

Me: Counter-evidence from sexual reproduction. Explained away by claiming without backing evidence that creatures simply evolved into hermaphrodites first, and then split the sexes away later.

You: Except there is evidence - organisms that still reproduce both ways.

Me: The fact that hermaphrodites exist is evidence that they exist, not that our ancestors were hermaphrodites. There is no evidence of the latter.

You: I'm not interested in word games.

So, let me get this straight. I asked for evidence that the organisms that reproduce sexually were once asexual and then hermaphrodites before becoming sexual. Your 'evidence' was 'there are hermaphrodites today'. That's it? That's your damning evidence? Stones exist, therefore all species were stones one day?

They meet the definition of macro-evolution; they represent new species that no longer share a gene pool.

Again, what's the threshold? And also, define species.

Categorically wrong: see Part 5 in http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.html. Also http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/speciation.html and http://blogs.scientificamerican.com...ution-watching-speciation-occur-observations/. So this argument of yours has also failed.

The desperation of the evolutionists. You can't reply so you will just link to talkorigins and declare victory.

it begs the question

This does not mean what you think it means. Although evolutionists do tend to beg the question a lot.

which is it you believe, then? That species are fixed? Or that species are not fixed, but that God is behind change or design, or designy change? You've alluded to both: and of those two, the notion that species are really fixed is shocking.

Really? When did I allude to anything? Are you sure we are following the same discussion?

I have listed several examples of where mutations accumulated until a new species - perfectly viable - has appeared.

Again, define species. Then demonstrate that those are new species by your own definition.

Fact that there was grass only for 41 individuals* trapped on rocky off-shore island after the ice of the last ice age melted and made it a tiny (football field size and mostly bare rocks) island no longer connected to the main land (and most of each new generation starving, but those with slight advantage, like being the runt of the litter and needing less food, or having eyes more forward looking** etc.) is why an entirely new species, the preã, could evolve in only 10,000 years.

Ok, prove. You have to keep in mind that I don't fall for the fairy tales of the evolutionists. Every time you decide to make your point with a fairy tale, I will ask you to prove it. A hint; 'the preã exists' is not evidence.

** No need for an eye on each of the two sides of the head, like their ancestors had, to better notice a predator's approach as their were none on the island but good depth perception, with large over lap of the two eyes field of vision, was a big help and strongly selected for. - Why prea eyes are close together on the front of their face.

Prove. Where are the skeletons of the 'ancient' preãs with eyes that are not close together on the front of their face.

note what appears to be depressions / or absence of hair/ on each side of the head about where a guinea pig’s eyes would be. (At first glance, you probably thought the eyes were there, but they are close together, where a guinea pig's mouth is on very tiny face.)

Fairy tales, fairy tales, fairy tales. Not a shred of evidence for the claims. As always, evolutionists are always confusing a good tale with scientific evidence. You can tell tales until the cows go home, I told you already. Prove them. That's the challenge. All you have are fairy tales.

* Note also their hind legs have evolved to be good for jumping, like a rabbit, and very different from those of the main land guinea pigs they evolved from in only 8000 years.

Cool, we have a time frame. I love time frames. Let's do some math, shall we? How many mutations it took to evolve those hind legs in those short 8000 years, and is such mutation rate possible?

 

[garbonzo]

Here's some more replies to arguments I found while taking the time to go through all the posts again:

Birds share a variety of features with reptiles

Irrelevant. Could be convergent evolution, by your own scientific theory. Sharing features isn't what it used to be since they became a problem for Evolution and evolutionists needed to come up with the epicycle of convergent evolution to explain them away. Obviously, it cuts both way. You need to prove it is not convergent evolution, but a case of common descent. The same goes for the rest of your argument.

Why did God make two kinds of jaws, one with a large dentary and one in which the length of the jaw is split between the dentary and the angular?

Because He wanted to? Seriously, are you really keep questioning God? If you want a theological debate, we can have one, but then I don't want you whining that I was supposed to restrict myself to scientific arguments. You are the one that keeps making theological arguments.

But I'd thought He created each organism independently! How can this be? One might as well just cry "Magic!"

I hardly believe that God created every single specie of dog, cat, horse, bird and flower out there, given that many of them are man-made. Are you defending this idea? I don't remember having ever mentioned it.

Prove God. You insist on Him, so I must believe in good faith that you have a reason for doing so. Share that reason with us.

I don't remember "insisting" on any idea whatsoever. As far as I am concerned, this is a debate on the merits of Evolution. Why are you trying to change the subject? Ran out of just-so stories already?

You have answered nothing, again: you have not explained why the DNA of a bat resembles other Mammals rather than birds.

I do not have to, since we both agreed that one; 'I do not know' is a valid scientific answer and two; that was not your question anyway. You are basically trying to change the subject to avoid admitting you cannot counter my point.

Of course! Absolutely! All life is made smart! The smart way! With recycled materials, and nothing left over or unused that might conceivably impact - sometimes literally - the health of the carrier organism, or represent some ancient purpose that obviously could never be.

Again, you did not deny that creating it using DNA was the smart thing to do. Can you address the point, please?

You are attempting, garbonzo, to promote a supernatural explanation for life.

No, I am not. I am discussing the merits of Evolution. The only mention I ever made of a Creator was to address your idea that DNA proves Evolution when I said that DNA fits equally well in a narrative of Evolution, Creationism or Panspermia. I have kept myself and my arguments solely on the scientific and logical side, save for the one exception I made to address a theological argument that you made.

I would like an apology for this. I came on a science website looking to debate science, and you bring up theology. What is this poppycock? This is in Biology & Genetics, is it not? We are not in Religion.

If you disagree, present your evidence, please.

I already did. I showed you three examples of convergent evolution, one between humans and hyenas, one between humans and macaques and one between humans and birds that break the paradigm of common descent by the evolutionists own admission.

DNA certainly does not fit into a fairy-tale of creation where each organism is created without reference to any other, instead of increasing sequence distance being correlated with increasing morphological and geological distance between taxonomic groups.

Where in the creationist narrative it says that every organism was created without reference to any other? All that the Bible says is that each organism was created individually. Can you point me to the verse it says that they were created without reference to any other?

And again, any super-intelligence, be it alien or divine, that has figure out the spark of life will have long before figured out engineering. DNA means life was not merely created. It was engineered. That's why it fits perfectly well either on creationism or panspermia.

Google "crystallization." Unless you claim that God or aliens cause it, you have an example of a local reduction in entropy.

Local reductions in entropy can exist. The key word being local. Since you did not read what you replied to, I will write it again here: "A local reduction in entropy requires a greater increase in entropy of the external environment." Crystallization is an exothermic reaction. Yes, it does reduces the local entropy, but at the cost of the external environment.

That statement is as foolish as saying as "Light as an EM phenomena is known to be incorrect; that's why they can't decide if it's a particle or a wave."

Light is an EM phenomena. I do not know what you mean by it being known to be incorrect.

Evolution, however, is known to be incorrect. There have been calls for a new evolutionary theory that encompasses the newest knowledge for a while now.

So you consider the science of embryology to be a hoax? Or were you referring to the "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny" argument, which was something completely different?

Then explain your point.

Here's a quotation from someone I was talking to regarding this, feel free to respond, I also told him he could join this forum to respond:

Evolution uses successful mutants/mutations and the unsuccessful ones usually perish by deselection as they don't reproduce as frequently or other factors kill them off. So that's why we are not piles of green goo right now.

You did not address the point. Every circumstantial beneficial mutation carries with it a detrimental effect. Every time evolution selected for the circumstantial beneficial effect, it also selected for the detrimental effect. Circumstantial beneficial mutations are circumstantial, and their benefit may or may not be relevant later. Detrimental effects, however, are always present and are forever. In accumulating circumstantial beneficial mutations that may or may not benefit us now, we have also accumulated detrimental effects that are always active, and remain with us.

To put it in your terms, how are we not the luckiest and the best of the best piles of green goo right now? Or put it in even more direct terms, how did we overcome the piling up of detrimental effects, since we could not have done so bymutating, as the mutations were the ones creating them to begin with?

We found microbes in asteroids.

No, we didn't.

I will have to check my sources on that. I found the article but it seems that there are some people disagreeing with it.

 

[cosmictotem]

Are we allowed to post threads on the denial of evolution outside of the mega thread where everyone is jumping over everyone else? It's just chaos in there, I want this to be more focused. Anyway, onwards:

I tend to be skeptical of theories that cannot be ever wrong or falsified. Evolutionists are like... let's see... when we find a characteristic that exists in similar species, then that's evidence of a common ancestor, and when we find a characteristic that exists in completely dissimilar species that couldn't possibly share a common ancestor because past species didn't possess such characteristic, then that's evidence for convergent evolution.

A close look to the theory of evolution will show that it is riddled with such... explanatory tools. You find an instance of something, it is evidence for evolution. You find an instance of the opposite of that, it is evidence for evolution.

In the end, when I put two and two together, I found the theory to run on circular logic. Everything is evidence for evolution because it cannot not be. Evolution is assumed as true for the purpose of assessing the evidence, leading to a line of thought not of 'let us see if this evidence points us to evolution' but rather 'let us see how this evidence fits into evolutionary paradigm'.

Response?

Well, garbonzo, how would you explain all the different species without evolution? Did they all just pop into existence, each of their forms and genetic compositions complete and separate from every other species? That would require Life to spontaneously appear millions, perhaps, trillions of times over the course of Earth's history.

What is your explanation for how that is happening?

 

[cosmictotem]

Could be convergent evolution, by your own scientific theory.

So here you are using evolution to disprove it? Oh, but I thought species didn't evolve at all? Go on...

 

[GeoffP]

So we learned a new word and are eager to use it.

I noticed you picked up "just-so stories", above. This term comes from Kipling, and is conventionally used to address theology's impression of natural science: theological explanations are "just-so stories", told without reason.

The desperation of the evolutionists. You can't reply so you will just link to talkorigins and declare victory.

Oh, so you have a decent counter-argument for the evolution of the jaw, of morphology, of cranial structure in birds and mammals? Very well: what is it?

Really? When did I allude to anything? Are you sure we are following the same discussion?

You have decried speciation, and then turned around and attempted to raise evolutionary arguments using the concept. Pick an explanation, and stick with it.

Again, define species. Then demonstrate that those are new species by your own definition.

A species is a reproductively isolated taxonomic unit. It is a quantitative definition, however, so that closely-related species can occasionally produce viable or infertile hybrids: wolves and dogs, lions and tigers. More distantly related species do not reproduce at all. Done. The classic error - to which most biologists also adhere - is to consider it as a binary or state process. It is not.

Irrelevant.

Wrong, flatly. Sorry.

Could be convergent evolution, by your own scientific theory.

Strange. I wasn't aware that I was working in convergence. Anyway: how strange that the converging features occurred more distantly in the past... when evolution, supported by paleontological evidence, predicts they should share an ancestor. Did they evolve from strong differences in jaw and cranial structure to a convergent state, and then back out along some other axis to their present structure?

Sharing features isn't what it used to be since they became a problem for Evolution and evolutionists needed to come up with the epicycle of convergent evolution to explain them away. Obviously, it cuts both way. You need to prove it is not convergent evolution, but a case of common descent.

Just did, above: unless you have some kind of evidence that they converged to the state of being the same and then differentiated again to their present state. For that, you'd have to prove that there was an even more ancestral state where they were different, in the evolutionary time between the origin of the different groups and this convergent state.

But one of the more central problems is that you again play loose with your claims about evolution: earlier, you took the position that speciation wasn't real. Now you're so well along that you're claiming convergent evolution could explain why ancestral reptiles and birds shared jaw structure, unlike today. So which is it? Are species immutable, or not? Why are all bird and reptile jaws so different today, but not in our proposed evolutionary past? Did they all disperse in jaw and cranial phenotype - chickens, robins, ostriches, emus vs. all squamates, chelonians and crocodilians - in exactly the same way? And all mammals - lions, tigers and bears, oh my, vs all squamates, chelonians and crocodilians? Again? Why would that be?

 

[GeoffP]

The same goes for the rest of your argument.

:yawn: A bit more difficult to dismiss than that.

Because He wanted to? Seriously, are you really keep questioning God? If you want a theological debate, we can have one, but then I don't want you whining that I was supposed to restrict myself to scientific arguments. You are the one that keeps making theological arguments.

You don't have any cogent counter for DNA similarity among highly phenotypically similar organisms - to which I add, you have no explanation for high DNA sequence similarity in non-coding regions, which have nothing to do with phenotype let alone morphology. Why is this DNA-level similarity in non-coding DNA? Surely God has no reason for that - and if He does, can you demonstrate Him? You are the one proposing special creation. Very well: let us see your agent.

I hardly believe that God created every single specie of dog, cat, horse, bird and flower out there, given that many of them are man-made. Are you defending this idea? I don't remember having ever mentioned it.

Interesting! There are lots of organisms that are not man-made. Which ones did God create?

I don't remember "insisting" on any idea whatsoever. As far as I am concerned, this is a debate on the merits of Evolution. Why are you trying to change the subject? Ran out of just-so stories already?

On the contrary, I am attempting to get at the root of your own doubts about evolution. Creationism is, indeed, a "just-so-story" (and by all means, keep using the phrase; but as you say, it doesn't mean what you think it means). If you believe otherwise, present evidence. This would, however, be a second step in proper debate, so that you would still have to sink evolution first. I don't deny this is a nigh impossible task.

I do not have to, since we both agreed that one; 'I do not know' is a valid scientific answer

It is not a valid rebuttal to the proposition that DNA sequence - including, I remind you, in non-coding regions - is similar among similar species because of common ancestry. As you have said, you do not know. Thus, DNA sequence is similar among similar species because of common ancestry. Done. Unless you have suddenly found a counter?

and two; that was not your question anyway. You are basically trying to change the subject to avoid admitting you cannot counter my point.

I struggle to recall what your point was. Does it matter, in light of one, above?

Again, you did not deny that creating it using DNA was the smart thing to do. Can you address the point, please?

Ah! You ask whether using DNA was not smart. I believe I did answer that, above. You claim DNA was the smart way. So your 'engineer' is smart. Very well. Why did this engineer or engineer leave us with useless organs, and vestigial appendages, and retroviruses - or, indeed, viruses at all, or any genetic disease - and mental illness, and male pattern balding, and capitalism? What the fuck was all that for? Did we piss them off, while still in the test tubes? I can only apologise profusely and ask their forgiveness, so that they reconsider our state. But as I think it unlikely that we could have so offended them that in the amazing effort of creating life in the first place, I am forced to conclude that we have all these things because our being has not been engineered. If you think that all of it is part of some 'greater plan', fine. But there is no naturalistic way to determine this, and no reason therefore to teach it in school.

No, I am not. I am discussing the merits of Evolution. The only mention I ever made of a Creator was to address your idea that DNA proves Evolution when I said that DNA fits equally well in a narrative of Evolution, Creationism or Panspermia. I have kept myself and my arguments solely on the scientific and logical side, save for the one exception I made to address a theological argument that you made.


I would like an apology for this. I came on a science website looking to debate science, and you bring up theology. What is this poppycock? This is in Biology & Genetics, is it not? We are not in Religion.

Well, as I see my own arguments being dismissed or misrepresented, so too must your ego go unwatered.

I already did. I showed you three examples of convergent evolution, one between humans and hyenas, one between humans and macaques and one between humans and birds that break the paradigm of common descent by the evolutionists own admission.

You surely must be kidding. Behaviour, of all things? Do you feel that behaviour - a highly plastic set of traits - has some kind of paleological value in discriminating large-scale taxonomy? If so, what kind of value? Blue tits in Britain have learned to open milk bottles and siphon off cream. Cats do this also. Do you think anyone would take that as evidence that the blue tit and the common house cat were therefore more closely related than they were, respectively, to any other kind of tit or bird on the one hand, or any other kind of feline on the other? Are you mad, Sir? Good God: animals of all kinds pick up bloody behaviour of all kinds. Humans farm. Ants farm. AND? Should we now presume them more closely related on the basis that they have acquired the same behaviour? That might work at lower levels of organisation, with birds of whatever sort cracking nuts on things or not cracking nuts on things, but it is nothing against the mass of other dissimilarites and similarities in proportion that illustrate their true level of relationship - middling, in the case of hyaenas and men, although perhaps not all men. Are you unfamiliar with the masses of morphological data that indicate, for example, substantial distance in the relationship between hyaenas and men? Humans have a head. Beer has a head. Are humans more related to beer?


If you wish to illustrate an example that will shatteringly disprove convergent evolution, or prove it in your favour, or do whatever purpose you are attempting to put it to, you will need a better example. Moreover, show me the quotes from those supposed evolutionists, and I will show you misappropriation, or foolery.

 

[GeoffP]

Where in the creationist narrative it says that every organism was created without reference to any other? All that the Bible says is that each organism was created individually. Can you point me to the verse it says that they were created without reference to any other?

I proposed above that "DNA sequence is similar among similar species because of common ancestry" and you have admitted you have no answer to, above, they are certainly not individually. The Earth was formed long ago. Present-day organisms did not appear on this Earth, in their present forms and unchanged, those long aeons ago and remain as such, unchanged and created individually. Instead, present-day organisms have - as we demonstrate above, and to which you have admitted you cannot refute - evolved from other organisms that came before, and which the paleontological evidence shows are proportionally different to their descendants, and even to their ancestors. Dogs and cats and bats and rats were not "created individually". They evolved from earlier life forms, which more generally resembled rodents, at least in body size.


Thus, there is no "created individually". You can adopt the paradigm of the Spinozan God, if you like. That's what I do, generally. But there's no naturalistic evidence for it. That's why one says "I believe".


As in this: I believe in God the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth. I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord. He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. Under Pontius Pilate, He was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended to the dead. On the third day he rose again. He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen.


Or, in it's much-underappreciated Latin: Credo in Deum Patrem omnipotentem, Creatorem caeli et terrae, et in Iesum Christum, Filium Eius unicum, Dominum nostrum, qui conceptus est de Spiritu Sancto, natus ex Maria Virgine, passus sub Pontio Pilato, crucifixus, mortuus, et sepultus, descendit ad inferos, tertia die resurrexit a mortuis, ascendit ad caelos, sedet ad dexteram Patris omnipotentis, inde venturus est iudicare vivos et mortuos. Credo in Spiritum Sanctum, sanctam Ecclesiam catholicam, sanctorum communionem, remissionem peccatorum, carnis resurrectionem,

vitam aeternam. Amen.

Central to this is credo. Belief. It requires no evidence, and does appear to have produced any.

And again, any super-intelligence, be it alien or divine, that has figure out the spark of life will have long before figured out engineering. DNA means life was not merely created. It was engineered. That's why it fits perfectly well either on creationism or panspermia.

Good! Demonstrate this engineer, please, or engineers, or force, if that force be with you.

 

[paddoboy]

I don't remember "insisting" on any idea whatsoever. As far as I am concerned, this is a debate on the merits of Evolution. Why are you trying to change the subject? Ran out of just-so stories already?

This is actually an exercise/evangelistic mission of yours to show Evolution is wrong and then conclude your deity of choice did it all.
Your underlying motives are clear. Any evidence shown to you is just totally ignored or written off with "it's just fairy tales".
You are also apt to be somewhat dishonest as shown in another thread, and will conveniantley twist and squirm with facts to project your own warped view on science in general.
I don't know enough about the details of Evolution to debate it with you, but I do know that Evolution is as near fact as anyone could wish.
http://evolutionfaq.com/articles/five-proofs-evolution
This of course is recognised by the Catholic Church in not only recognising Evolution, but also the BB theory of Universal Evolution.
From that point though, they depart from science and say God did it, [without any evidence] while the causes and why's and how's of the BB are still under scientific investigation.
Science has pushed the need for a deity into near oblivion, with the plentiful access of data that has shown in actual fact, that all you see around you, the ground you stand on, the planet as well as yourself, are nothing more then star dust.
We/everything was born in the belly of stars.

I do not have to, since we both agreed that one; 'I do not know' is a valid scientific answer and two; that was not your question anyway. You are basically trying to change the subject to avoid admitting you cannot counter my point.

And your delusions and Illusions continue as they did in the ghost/fairies thread.

No, I am not. I am discussing the merits of Evolution. The only mention I ever made of a Creator was to address your idea that DNA proves Evolution when I said that DNA fits equally well in a narrative of Evolution, Creationism or Panspermia. I have kept myself and my arguments solely on the scientific and logical side, save for the one exception I made to address a theological argument that you made.

If you had any solid evidence at all, refuting or invalidating Evolution, you would not be here. You would be writing a scientific paper and undergoing peer review.
You have nothing but denial and are fooling no one.

I would like an apology for this. I came on a science website looking to debate science, and you bring up theology. What is this poppycock? This is in Biology & Genetics, is it not? We are not in Religion.

Well now that is a case of the pot calling the kettle black...Such indignation!
Especially since you have seen the need to lie in another thread.

Evolution, however, is known to be incorrect. There have been calls for a new evolutionary theory that encompasses the newest knowledge for a while now.

Reputable references or link to support that please?
Or is this another lie? [And please don't give me some creationist website!..reputable is what I'm insisting on.

I will also add since you did raise Panspermia, that Panspermia does not invalidate Evolution as you seem to suggest. They can and may go hand in glove. Panspermia is an extension of how life may have arose on Earth.

We have no proof of Universal Abiogenesis either, but it is logically accepted as the default position, based on our cosmological model of the Universe. space-time, and matter/energy.
It appears to be the only scientific solution.

 

[Kajalamorth]

Evolution is not a random process.

Are you kidding me? It is a random process. A species is just as likely to mutate a benign trait or a disadvantageous trait as it is to mutate a beneficial trait. The only thing that mutation has going for it is that beneficial traits marginally increase the likelihood of survival. Look at the Ocean Sunfish for example, it has no means of escape due to it's inefficient means of movement. This fish lays about a million eggs per clutch and only one in a million of its offspring is going to survive into adulthood.

It's an evolutionary dead-end.

 

[spidergoat]

Are you kidding me? It is a random process. A species is just as likely to mutate a benign trait or a disadvantageous trait as it is to mutate a beneficial trait. The only thing that mutation has going for it is that beneficial traits marginally increase the likelihood of survival. Look at the Ocean Sunfish for example, it has no means of escape due to it's inefficient means of movement. This fish lays about a million eggs per clutch and only one in a million of its offspring is going to survive into adulthood.

It's an evolutionary dead-end.

Surely you're joking. Mutations provide variations on which natural selection works (and secondarily, sex increases the variations). Natural selection is the opposite of random.

The Ocean Sunfish is a highly successful organism, it's the most common of all sunfishes. It's size means that it has few natural predators. It has existed far longer than mankind. I don't know what point you are making about the eggs. Laying lots of eggs is also a successful strategy to make sure that your species survives.

 

[Trippy]

The Ocean Sunfish is a highly successful organism, it's the most common of all sunfishes. It's size means that it has few natural predators. It has existed far longer than mankind. I don't know what point you are making about the eggs. Laying lots of eggs is also a successful strategy to make sure that your species survives.

Especially when those eggs require a fairly minimal investment.

 

[Kajalamorth]

Surely you're joking. Mutations provide variations on which natural selection works (and secondarily, sex increases the variations). Natural selection is the opposite of random.

The Ocean Sunfish is a highly successful organism, it's the most common of all sunfishes. It's size means that it has few natural predators. It has existed far longer than mankind. I don't know what point you are making about the eggs. Laying lots of eggs is also a successful strategy to make sure that your species survives.

I'm talking about evolution as a whole. Not natural selection which is only a part of speciation. And while not random, there is no guide hand that always goes for desirable traits.

http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/evo_32

http://ncse.com/book/export/html/1902

Useful traits tend to be passed on but they aren't always useful.

Anyway, I think we are have communication issues.

On the Sunfish thing... I thought they were an example but I guess I made some poor assumptions. I apologise.

Though a mutation is by definition an error created in genetic recombination.

When I learnt about that, I found it humbling. Nothing is perfect.

 

[spidergoat]

Evolution as a whole isn't exactly random either. And useful traits are passed on. Why do you think they aren't? Every living species on Earth is an example of a life form that had successful ancestors, by definition. Evolution makes use of imperfection as a kind of driver of innovation.

 

[spidergoat]

Especially when those eggs require a fairly minimal investment.

Right, they don't have to parent any of them.