Open Debate: Evolution.

[(Q)]

Chrisitianity is not about proof, while evolution is.

No, evolution is about generation of diversity and natural selection, both which have been observed. You too can observe evolution.

It is a fact that human kind will continue to speculate until it ceases to exist; continuing in his attempts to explain events that happened way before his time.

But, maybe you're wrong, maybe we won't cease to exist and will instead continue to evolve, to learn and gain knowledge, and perhaps eventually explain those events in great detail.

You call Christians crazy for choosing to have "faith" and simply exist when scientists strive for what can not be acheived? Don't take this as anti-science, take this as anti-life explanation.

That is quite the defeatist attitude - are you anti-life? And again, you could be very wrong about what science will achieve.

We are fish in a fish bowl. Just because the thinker fish can see outside of its fish bowl and make reasonable theories as to its existence, it can never be 100% accurate. They can never know all the variables of the outside world.

Perhaps one day we will. Us thinker fishes are quite persistent, you know.

So you athiest and scientist continue on your endless expedition, while we belivers choose to sumbit to something larger than ourselves. At least, we creationist aren't striving for the impossible.

No, only the imaginable.

And don't worry about the endless expeditions, we know you Christians will sit back in blissful submission, riding the shirt-tails of scientists successes, as you've always done in the past and will continue to do, in spite of yourselves.

 

[scibetel]

Having lived in the water for most of my life, I can tell you exactly what the evolutionary advantages are of leaving the water for the land:
1) Different menu
2) Prettier girls
3) You can smoke and drink (something other than ocean toilet water)
4) You only have to worry about being attacked from the front, back, sides, and sometimes above. If you live in the water, take my word for it, death can come out of nowhere and from any direction. It's a jungle down there.

 

[valich]

This thread really lacks any direction due to the fact that Muslim asks so many different and diverse open-ended questions. I really don't know what he is after.

The Earth was formed by "condensation and accretion" over 4.6 bya. The moon 4.5 bya. First there was water then there was life then life came out of the water onto land. We have recent fossil evidence of all this and it is posted on threads under "Biology and Genetics." The earliest evidence of life is now thought to be the plankton that gave off oxygen and formed the Banded Iron Formtions in Geenland, but this is debateable. Either way, life evolved from "chemical evolution" about 4 bya.

"4 Billion years ago. The Archaea branch of life may have begun this far back in time. (SFC, 8/23/96, p.A21) The first life forms on Earth were coacervates that formed from lipid aggregations and hydrophobic interactions. It was a reducing atmosphere back then but there were energy sources that put things like coacervates together: solar radiation, volcanic eruptions, radioactive decay released heat, lightning storms, etc. The coacervate was the first step to cellular organization!!! Prokaryotes were then able to form after coacervates and from then on came cyanobacteria. Cyanobacteria increased the levels of Oxygen in the atmosphere from 1% to 21% which formed ozone. Ozone then filtered uv light which allowed all life forms to then come on land instead of living in the ocean. Eukaryotes like us were then able to evolve." http://timelines.ws/0000BB_416MIL.HTML
See also "Banded Iron Formations" http://earthweb.ess.washington.edu/~jelte/essays/BIFs.doc

Then of course we have abundant evidence of cyanobacteria 3.85 bya from Southwestern Australia.

The oldest fossil fish date to 530 mya and are coming out of the Chengjiang fauna in Yunan Province, China.

The best transition species to land that we now have is Tiktaalik roseae, 375 million years ago. Found through a highly concerted effort by teams of geologists and bioligists at Ellesmere Island, north of the Arctic Circle in Canada. I'm citing an MSNBC article so that you can see an "artist's conception" but you can easily access the original article in the journal Nature.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12168265/from/RS.3/

I don't know what else Muslim is after unless he articulates his questions one at a time - being more concise and specific.

 

[Muslim]

Yes Blue_UK. At the time of the move to dry land, the land was a much less hostile environment than the sea. There were a virtually unlimited number of niches to occupy.

So they went from, only being able to breath in the water to breathing on the land? that doesn't make any sense why do we no find any evidence of this? why isn't there any abrupt changes in the fossil record? This is a very weak argument you guys present, one minute you say evolution takes billions/millions of years and the next minuted you say these creatures came out the water and started to breath on the land over night.

 

[Muslim]

This thread really lacks any direction due to the fact that Muslim asks so many different and diverse open-ended questions. I really don't know what he is after.

The Earth was formed by "condensation and accretion" over 4.6 bya. The moon 4.5 bya. First there was water then there was life then life came out of the water onto land. We have recent fossil evidence of all this and it is posted on threads under "Biology and Genetics." The earliest evidence of life is now thought to be the plankton that gave off oxygen and formed the Banded Iron Formtions in Geenland, but this is debateable. Either way, life evolved from "chemical evolution" about 4 bya.

"4 Billion years ago. The Archaea branch of life may have begun this far back in time. (SFC, 8/23/96, p.A21) The first life forms on Earth were coacervates that formed from lipid aggregations and hydrophobic interactions. It was a reducing atmosphere back then but there were energy sources that put things like coacervates together: solar radiation, volcanic eruptions, radioactive decay released heat, lightning storms, etc. The coacervate was the first step to cellular organization!!! Prokaryotes were then able to form after coacervates and from then on came cyanobacteria. Cyanobacteria increased the levels of Oxygen in the atmosphere from 1% to 21% which formed ozone. Ozone then filtered uv light which allowed all life forms to then come on land instead of living in the ocean. Eukaryotes like us were then able to evolve." http://timelines.ws/0000BB_416MIL.HTML
See also "Banded Iron Formations" http://earthweb.ess.washington.edu/~jelte/essays/BIFs.doc

Then of course we have abundant evidence of cyanobacteria 3.85 bya from Southwestern Australia.

The oldest fossil fish date to 530 mya and are coming out of the Chengjiang fauna in Yunan Province, China.

The best transition species to land that we now have is Tiktaalik roseae, 375 million years ago. Found through a highly concerted effort by teams of geologists and bioligists at Ellesmere Island, north of the Arctic Circle in Canada. I'm citing an MSNBC article so that you can see an "artist's conception" but you can easily access the original article in the journal Nature.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12168265/from/RS.3/

I don't know what else Muslim is after unless he articulates his questions one at a time - being more concise and specific.

Lol, that can be anything. The first one is computer generated image, why even have that in your post is beyond me. So the best you could do was bring a computer generated image?

According to the theory of evolution, every living species has emerged from a predecessor. One species which existed previously turned into something else over time and all species have come into being in this way. According to the theory, this transformation proceeds gradually over millions of years.

If this were the case, then innumerable intermediate species should have lived during the immense period of time when these transformations were supposedly occurring. For instance, there should have lived in the past some half-fish/half-reptile creatures which had acquired some reptilian traits in addition to the fish traits they already had. Or there should have existed some reptile/bird creatures, which had acquired some avian traits in addition to the reptilian traits they already possessed. Evolutionists refer to these imaginary creatures, which they believe to have lived in the past, as "transitional forms".

If such animals had really existed, there would have been millions, even billions, of them. More importantly, the remains of these creatures should be present in the fossil record. The number of these transitional forms should have been even greater than that of present animal species, and their remains should be found all over the world. In The Origin of Species, Darwin accepted this fact and explained:

If my theory be true, numberless intermediate varieties, linking most closely all of the species of the same group together must assuredly have existed... Consequently evidence of their former existence could be found only amongst fossil remains.

Even Darwin himself was aware of the absence of such transitional forms. He hoped that they would be found in the future. Despite his optimism, he realised that these missing intermediate forms were the biggest stumbling-block for his theory. That is why he wrote the following in the chapter of the The Origin of Species entitled "Difficulties of the Theory":

?Why, if species have descended from other species by fine gradations, do we not everywhere see innumerable transitional forms? Why is not all nature in confusion, instead of the species being, as we see them, well defined?? But, as by this theory innumerable transitional forms must have existed, why do we not find them embedded in countless numbers in the crust of the earth?? But in the intermediate region, having intermediate conditions of life, why do we not now find closely-linking intermediate varieties? This difficulty for a long time quite confounded me.

The only explanation Darwin could come up with to counter this objection was the argument that the fossil record uncovered so far was inadequate. He asserted that when the fossil record had been studied in detail, the missing links would be found.

Believing in Darwin's prophecy, evolutionist paleontologists have been digging up fossils and searching for missing links all over the world since the middle of the 19th century. Despite their best efforts, no transitional forms have yet been uncovered. All the fossils unearthed in excavations have shown that, contrary to the beliefs of evolutionists, life appeared on earth all of a sudden and fully-formed. Trying to prove their theory, evolutionists have instead unwittingly caused it to collapse.

A famous British paleontologist, Derek V. Ager, admits this fact even though he is an evolutionist:

The point emerges that if we examine the fossil record in detail, whether at the level of orders or of species, we find-over and over again-not gradual evolution, but the sudden explosion of one group at the expense of another.

 

[KennyJC]

I don't think it's any coincidence that almost all of those who don't accept evolution as being true, are religious. It's not a result of laziness and not reading up about the facts because you only need some common sense. But theists dispute biology more than any other science because it doesn't fit their fantasy of a living creator.

It is a theory because we don't understand everything about evolution, like how it happens, how it started etc, but it is fact that it does happen. The fossil record clearly defines 'evolution'. Take a good look at how a tree grows... how it branches out slowly very similar to the "tree of life" on Earth. For example, how the hominids slowly started to resemble modern man as hundreds of thousands of years went by.

one minute you say evolution takes billions/millions of years and the next minuted you say these creatures came out the water and started to breath on the land over night.

Except they didn't come out of the water overnight, that's not how evolution works, that more resembles intelligent creation like Adam and Eve. Hominids didn't start walking upright over night.

I mean that fish thing is a good example of a process that takes thousands of generations - If it spends most of it's time in shallow waters, don't you think over the generations it will develope better use of it's 'flippers' which change to suit it's environment? Don't you think it would venture further out of the shallow waters the more these 'flippers' become adaptable to moving on land? And don't you think that once they were so suited to land that they would never return to water?

 

[Muslim]

I don't think it's any coincidence that almost all of those who don't accept evolution as being true, are religious. It's not a result of laziness and not reading up about the facts because you only need some common sense. But theists dispute biology more than any other science because it doesn't fit their fantasy of a living creator.

It is a theory because we don't understand everything about evolution, like how it happens, how it started etc, but it is fact that it does happen. The fossil record clearly defines 'evolution'. Take a good look at how a tree grows... how it branches out slowly very similar to the "tree of life" on Earth. For example, how the hominids slowly started to resemble modern man as hundreds of thousands of years went by.



Except they didn't come out of the water overnight, that's not how evolution works, that more resembles intelligent creation like Adam and Eve. Hominids didn't start walking upright over night.

I mean that fish thing is a good example of a process that takes thousands of generations - If it spends most of it's time in shallow waters, don't you think over the generations it will develope better use of it's 'flippers' which change to suit it's environment? Don't you think it would venture further out of the shallow waters the more these 'flippers' become adaptable to moving on land? And don't you think that once they were so suited to land that they would never return to water?

Ah I understand, so things constantly evolve over millions of years YES? everything evolves over millions of years? is this right?

I want a quick YES/NO answer to this right now...

 

[scibetel]

Ah I understand, so things constantly evolve over millions of years YES? everything evolves over millions of years? is this right? I want a quick YES/NO answer to this right now...

I'm sure we're being set up here, but the answer is a qualified Yes. Just remember that the evolution of a species is not a straight line: there are all kinds of branches, blind alleys, and plateaus.

If you really want a better insight into the workings of natural selection, read this: http://www.sjgarchive.org/library/text/b16/p0089.htm
For some reason, the site does not link to subsequent pages, so the complete text has to be paged manually:
http://www.sjgarchive.org/library/text/b16/p0090.htm
http://www.sjgarchive.org/library/text/b16/p0091.htm
http://www.sjgarchive.org/library/text/b16/p0092.htm
http://www.sjgarchive.org/library/text/b16/p0093.htm

Or skip the above, and believe what you like. That's certainly the easier path.

 

[Blue_UK]

So they went from, only being able to breath in the water to breathing on the land? that doesn't make any sense why do we no find any evidence of this? why isn't there any abrupt changes in the fossil record? This is a very weak argument you guys present, one minute you say evolution takes billions/millions of years and the next minuted you say these creatures came out the water and started to breath on the land over night.

Who said overnight? No, creatures that started emerging from the sea to lay eggs would have been unable to breathe the air. They would not have been able to leave the sea for very long. However, this now places a selective pressure on how long creatures can stay on land for.

Do you like UK garage? "re 'e 'e, 'e 'e tard. When the crowd say 'bo' - selecta!"

 

[invert_nexus]

A famous British paleontologist, Derek V. Ager, admits this fact even though he is an evolutionist:

The point emerges that if we examine the fossil record in detail, whether at the level of orders or of species, we find-over and over again-not gradual evolution, but the sudden explosion of one group at the expense of another.

Muslim, the term you're looking for is called punctuated equilibrium. And, yes, it is postulated by some that evolution does occur in gasps and starts at times. While other times it moves along steadily and slowly.

How exactly does this prove your point?

If such animals had really existed, there would have been millions, even billions, of them. More importantly, the remains of these creatures should be present in the fossil record. The number of these transitional forms should have been even greater than that of present animal species, and their remains should be found all over the world.

Every animal alive doesn't make it into the fossil record. In fact, the series of events which leads to fossilization is quite rare. Especially in certain areas.

Which leads me to a point you tried to make earlier about Africa. The fossil record is actually quite sparse in Africa. At least for the crucial time period when early hominids began to form. This is one of the problematic areas in learning more about the origins of humans.

So. I don't know where you got your information about Africa being the motherland of fossils, but you're wrong.

 

[valich]

So they went from, only being able to breath in the water to breathing on the land? that doesn't make any sense why do we no find any evidence of this? why isn't there any abrupt changes in the fossil record? This is a very weak argument you guys present, one minute you say evolution takes billions/millions of years and the next minuted you say these creatures came out the water and started to breath on the land over night.

You really seem to have a very limited knowledge of evolution and the diversity of species in the world. Present day lung fish, as the name implies, can breathe in or out of the water. Also, coelacanths are an ancient species of fish that paleontologists widely study as a possible common ancestor. Coelacanths give birth to live young. There are also other species of modern day fish that are able to swim in the water or crawl on land. There is no problem in understanding this transition; nor can it be debated.

I suggest that you begin by researching these and other species and read a bit more on paleontology and evolution to gain more depth and insight before you just jump in and say that these are weak arguments without having any background in the field. There's a lot of info out there that you can learn from without just bickering back-and-forth about a subject that you apparently know very little about. I am not trying to belittle you as I openly admit that I know very little too. But I am always eager to learn, and continuously try to learn more. These new discoveries are fascinating and are the best explanations we have to understand the factual basis and the accumulated evidence that we have gathered over the last few centuries of the science of evolution - nothing makes better sense to explain all the evidence.

 

[valich]

Every animal alive doesn't make it into the fossil record. In fact, the series of events which leads to fossilization is quite rare. Especially in certain areas.

Which leads me to a point you tried to make earlier about Africa. The fossil record is actually quite sparse in Africa. At least for the crucial time period when early hominids began to form. This is one of the problematic areas in learning more about the origins of humans.

This is an excellent point if Muslim is confused by the lack of an adequate fossil record. It has been estimated that if every person in the United States were to become extinct that there would only be two or three fossil records to somehow be found. And what would be the chances of finding them? Close to nill.

One major problem with fossilization of ancient early organisms and species is that the soft tissue doesn't fossilize. Nothing is left of it except for possible chemical traces so a lot of this info has to be inferred. Early organisms had no bones and ancient fish were not bony fish.

 

[Ophiolite]

You don't need a scientific background to write the book. All you need is to sample random jibber jabber from people like you.

My, my, my. This is the first occasion I have noted this particular incarnation of blind ignorance and defective gene structure.

If you truly believe that the cogent, relevant remarks made by superluminal and invert nexus are 'random jibber jabber' may I recommend you promptly do the world a favour and provide a meal for one of the endagered carnivore species. Humanity has little need of the irretrievably dimwitted.

You then have the errant audacity to suggest that ignoring you after such a remark is evidence of 'a man without an argument'. How stupid can you be and still tie your shoelaces? Amazing.

 

[Ophiolite]

Or skip the above, and believe what you like. That's certainly the easier path.

Absolutely the best put-down of the willfully ignorant I have seen for several weeks.
A round of applause, and a virtual glass of vintage champagne.

 

[BSFilter]

ever heard of amphibians?

 

[Fraggle Rocker]

So they went from, only being able to breath in the water to breathing on the land? that doesn't make any sense why do we no find any evidence of this? why isn't there any abrupt changes in the fossil record? This is a very weak argument you guys present, one minute you say evolution takes billions/millions of years and the next minuted you say these creatures came out the water and started to breath on the land over night.

Oh come on guy! Do you even read newspapers, or just holy books? We don't need a fossil record to understand that transition.

There is a fish from Asia called the "Northern Snakehead" that has been turned loose in the northeastern USA. Its range is spreading prodigiously for the precise reason that it is able to "breathe" when out of the water. Gills work that way. If you keep them wet enough, respiration can continue after a fashion even if the only thing that stands between the fish and a gaseous atmosphere is a thin layer of water in his gills. You'd have to be living in a biosphere with no outside contact to not have heard of the Northern Snakehead. It's got the entire nation petrified because it could destroy all of our riparian ecosystems. It's a ferocious predator and wipes out the native species of fish everywhere it goes. And it goes everywhere because it can wriggle its way over land. That's no stretch, it's pretty much the way snakes locomote.

Catfish have also been observed doing the same thing. They crawl from one pond to another, "breathing" through their gills.

If a species does that for a few million years, natural selection will kick in and the ones with the most advanced ability will become dominant. This is not one of evolution's more difficult conundra.

 

[Dr Hannibal Lecter]

Don't worry, Muslim. Evolution is not true.

Everything was created a millisecond ago by a giant invisible fire ant, and all of our memories are fabricated.

 

[leopold]

So, any theory is just speculation, even evolution.

i disagree with this. evolution is a reality.
you want proof? cosmic rays.
cosmic rays are known to alter genes. the genes that are better at surviving the alteration will continue.

 

[scorpius]

So evolution, this debate has been done over and over again. I guess it doesn’t hurt to go over it again.

gets very boring though especialy when you dont have a clue wtf you are talking about
it would help if you actualy got some scientific education before debating
you could start here www.talkorigins.org

Now, firstly any propagator of the theory of evolution always states that life started in the water, which is a pretty strong hypothesis however like all theories it has its pitfalls.

for origins of life search ABIOGENESIS
evolution is about biological changes in lifeforms over time!
two completely different things

 

[Godless]

Awww man, not this again

Truth is we'll be witnesing this shit over & over again and again..

Until the cows come home, the gorialla talks buisness, and creationist make themselves look like total idiots.

Godless