Evolution

[Sterling]

(pretend I quoted the entire above post)

I love it when people can articulate points more clearly than I can.

Thank you and God bless you!

[Bread_of_Life]

Christopher,

Population Rate: I would assume you would be referring to Population Growth Rate?

No, I meant population. In a small population genetic change is effectively stunted because of less interbreeding.

From 1963 - 2000 the human population doubled from 3 billion to 6 billion which is a 2:1 growth ratio in just 37 years. How can anyone possibly believe that human existence has spanned for 6 million years with a compounding exponential rate of growth? you really have to be extremely naive to believe that not only mankind but also animals had to have lived for 6 million years...there would literally be no room to move seeing that the animal growth rate far exceeds the human capability for reproduction by numbers alone.

Christopher, I'm not going to answer this for now. That's because I know that, since you're intelligent enough to write this down in unbroken english, you're probably bright enough to know why it's wrong. I want you to re-read it. I want you to figure it out for yourself.

This argument is so awesomely and incredibly dumb that I'm amazed every time I see it - that the person didn't figure it out before writing it down. From that, you should take it that I've seen it before, from intelligent people - it aint just you. And I'm not dissing you here, or putting you down, I genuinely have faith that looking at the argument again, and taking just a little time to sit back and think, you'll understand just how stupid it is - you'll be able to figure it out yourself.

mutation rate: Just what exactly do you mean by mutation rate?...beneficial mutation?...what evidence is there, that supports beneficial mutation and ultimately by which process were the mutational differences capable of spawning a "New Species" ( barrier for mutations to cross?) and how does one extrapolate Human Evolution from such a huge lack of empirical scientific evidence to back it up?

Firstly, many of the differences in chimp and human DNA will not be beneficial, they will be neutral. There are large parts of our DNA that do not code for anything at all - and these will have mutated freely.

Secondly, I'm not sure why you believe there is a mutational barrier at the level of speciation. Is there something you know about such a limit that I don't?

Thirdly, there are various evidences for human evolution. Specifically though, the timescale I got from reference fossils that we believe to be common ancestors between humans and chimps. These timescales were worked out using various forms of radiometric dating. In other words, real empirical evidence.

[Bread_of_Life]

Can you please present your

[ChrisChrusherComix]

It's amazing that people can actually believe in evolution (and in that, I mean the wacky theory of macro-evolution, not micro-evolution, which is proven science and agreeable to every scientific theory), and then mock creation as a fairy tale.

Let's see... a single cell organism evolved from nothing, evolved into a fish, then to a frog, then to an ape, then a human. And absolutely no traces of any missing links in the fossil record while these amazing changes occured!

How many deformed, bum-legged or web-armed animals had to mate until they developed the ability to fly?

How many zits on a face had to develop before one turned into an eyeball and could see?

Evolution is a fairy tale. There is absolutely zero proof in the fossil record or any other scientific field. Yet so many believe in it. Why? Simply because the alternative; believing in a God/Creator, is simply something they will refuse to believe.

Next time you see an evolutionist, ask them: What is the greatest single empirical evidence for evolution?

It's often laughable what they come up with after you ask them.

You may want to download and listen to this MP3 of Bob Enyart's debate with Michael Shermer, an editor at Scientific American, in 24 or 10 MBs or read Bob's 170 page, 10-round moderated debate titled Does God Exist? And the best, and funniest debate I've ever heard with an evolutionist is Bob Enyart's debate with Dr. Eugenie Scott. it's very humorous!

[Bread_of_Life]

Allow me to illustrate my point from quotes found in two of the most prominent evolutionists of our time, Stephen Gould and Richard Dawkins. Again my question to you must be why do you choose to pitch your tent under the flag of a philosophy that will have nothing to do with a Creator-God? And what part of philosophical materialism do you have problems understanding?

It is sad to see that you still confuse people for theories. Darwinism may be named after Darwin, but it doesn't necessarily take after Darwin, at least in the philosophical sense.

Darwin was an atheist when he died, that's for sure, but it doesn't make his theory atheistic. Darwin may have been a materialist when he died - but that doesn't make his theory materialistic. You are yet to present ANY evidence that the actual theory of evolution, as opposed to some of its proponents, is akin to philosophical naturalism or materialism. It is sad that all you can do is quote mine - when our discussion would be much more fulfilling if you stuck to the facts of the theory itself.

Clearly you have no interest in showing the theory of evolution to be akin to philosophical naturalism, as you are yet to present any evidence that it is. You have had many chances. I suggest we shut down this part of the discussion until you can come up with evidence showing that the theory of evolution itself is akin to philosophical naturalism. The fact that Richard Dawkins is an atheist is by-the-by, frankly.

In fact most evolutionists today admit that Darwin was wrong on many specific issues.

This is why, had you been listening, we now have the neo-darwinian synthesis - because Darwin was incorrect on several counts.

He was wrong when he said embryos trace evolutionary development;

The theory of recapitulation to which you refer was not Darwin's theory. But okay.

he was wrong when he said the fossil record would support evolution if it were more complete

How do you know, it isn't complete..?

he was wrong when he said diet causes variations that are inherited

The theory of acquired characteristics, to which you obliquely refer here, is indeed wrong. Hence mendelian genetics. Hence the neo-darwinian synthesis.

Or did Lucy not walk like humans simply because she was no more adapted to bipedal locomotion than chimpanzees or gorillas?

No, after some initial contraversy, it is now generally agreed amongst pretty much all paleontologists that Afarensis was a facultive biped.

As for Charles Oxnard, you misrepresent his position. He published (more than 30 years ago) the results of his morphometric analyses that he claimed showed that Afarensis had more in common with Modern Orangs than Modern Humans. In other words, in his opinion, they were more ape than man. However, he didn't dispute that Afarensis was a facultive biped.

His analysis has been disputed further - and also put in the context of other fossil finds. As I said, it is now generally accepted that Afarensis, along with other Australopithecines, do form important intermediates in the human lineage.

Evidence please! To make the statement that Lucy was considered lineal to human beings because of her crude bipedal walking ability is mere speculation on your part.

Except I didn't say that. I said that she was considered lineal to humans, and that she was a facultive biped. Her bipedalism is only one reason that she is considered lineal to humans.

All you need to do is go to Pubmed and search pretty much any paper on Australopithecine Afarensis. You could also purchase "Ape Man" (which is an illustrative guide to current findings in human evolution), or indeed the Descent of Man Revised (by Steve Jones).

It is clear from her hip, knee joint, and skull that Lucy was an upright walker. Knock yourself out reading papers.

[Bread_of_Life]

Please explain why you made the claim that recapitulation was not part of Darwin

[Cyrrylia]

Did you hear about how they found new indermediate speciese between Homo Erectus, and Homo Sapian? They have not named it yet.

[Bread_of_Life]

Yes: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4849320.stm

As well as the recent Anamensis find:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4900946.stm

Exciting stuff!

N

[Bread_of_Life]

Christopher John

All age dating methods originally spawned from the idea that the geological column is irrefutable evidence of strata layering of millions of years. The dating methods were designed and developed around the idea that the earth is billions of yeras old, therefore, the dating mechanisms are designed and calibrated to match the idea of an old age earth.

Perhaps you could explain this Chris, as I do not recognise how any methods of radiometric dating make the assumption that the earth is old (with the possible exception of C-14 dating, which requires calibration against objects of known age).

If mankind has been around for 6 million years, where all the other sociological evidence for their culture?....building structures mainly, where are thise?...oh I forgot...they were "cavemen" they lived in the caves....but for some reason out of those 6 million years mankind was only intelligent enough within the past 5000 years to actually start building structures to live in....yes I see now how intelligent the evolutionary science community is.

Actually, no, there is significant evidence of cultural artifacts dating back tens and hundreds of thousands of years. I'm surprised you've not come across these.

Evolution theory is the lazy mans way out of understanding human origins...the "simple" answer.

The main reason why people reject the Bible is because it attacks their personal lifestyle.

I'm not sure what this has to do with evolutionary theory - that the bible attacks people's personal lifestyle. I know many Christians who are evolutionists - I wonder what the bible would say about their lifestyles?

[penfold]

hello all

Just to say that I am studying for an MSC in psychology and have come across the sticky subject of evolutionary psychology and I have found some good hard evidence based stuff to support creation theory.

The incredible complexity of life

Atheistic scientists have been trying to develop a complete naturalistic theory for the origin of life from the big bang, to molecules, to bacteria, to fish and finally to mankind. In order to find evidence for this naturalistic theory, atheistic scientists have been searching high and low for evidence that life can form spontaneously from non-living chemicals. This is termed abiogenesis. They are still searching after 130 years of failure, with huge amounts of time and resources spent looking for evidence; from the bottom of the ocean floor, to the surface of Mars.

Bathybius: Thomas Huxley in the nineteenth century thought he had found the protoplasm of life at the bottom of the ocean when he treated a sample of sea floor sediment in alcohol and found a jelly that appeared to move. He named this jelly Bathybius and for seven years it was considered by many scientists to be the protoplasm of life. However, it was later found to be a simple chemical of hydrated calcium sulphate. More recently the very expensive search for life on Mars has turned up evidence for volcanism and not life.

The Miller-Urey Experiment: Miller and Urey carried out an experiment in 1953 to see whether it was possible to artificially create life. They passed an electric current through a chemical atmosphere that was free of oxygen. They thought that chemicals such as ammonia and nitrogen were present after the formation of the earth without oxygen. Miller and Urey managed to create some simple amino acids, but simply creating amino acids is not enough to bring about the complex and ordered long chain molecules necessary for life to occur. As Paul Davies has noted, it is the ability to write the genetic code that is what is needed. This is simply impossible with the application of an electric current through a chemical soup. Davies compares this experiment to an attempt to build a house by placing a stick of dynamite under a pile of bricks. Sir Fred Hoyle compared it to a tornado sweeping through a junk- yard creating a 747.