To All Evolutionsts

[MorningGlory]

Then you also agree that micro evolution occurs among humans and is responsible for the origin of the various races of humans since the time of Noah?

I believe macro evolution is a misnomer. There really is no such thing; but, don't misunderstand me, I do fully accept that humans evolved from apes, apes from monkeys, and so on.

The only kind of evolution that occurs is micro evolution, so we really only need speak of evolution. It is not a difficult concept and perhaps the only reason you can't accept it is because your vision of the world does not allow more than six to ten thousand years of history, which is not enough time for new macro species to evolve; bacteria are a different matter. But then, you did say that you can't accept evolution because the Bible says God created every species independently. You must have familiarity with the many transitional forms that have been found. How do you explain them away?

Of course, microevolution is necessary for all creatures; in order to adapt to and survive changing environmental conditions. I didn't state my beliefs as to the age of the earth or how long man has been here though; that's supposition on your part. I have no trouble understanding the concept; I do, however, have trouble understanding why anyone would believe that man is descended from apes. The Bible tells us our lineage and that's what it is. Now, as for those transitional fossils, please list them. I have not seen any of those......although we have had umpteen posters on these boards that point to this or that. Still haven't seen any examples of them.

[MorningGlory]

I believe that evolution does happen within species...that God created beings this way to assure the species survival as environments change. He is the most awesome of Creators, after all. I don't believe in macroevolution; the process by which one species evolves into another;the theory that all creatures on earth have a common ancestor is just not credible to me. The Bible tells us that God created every species after it's 'kind'. I cannot fathom that the Lord ever said 'Let Darwin be'; the Bible tell us that He said 'Let there be light, and there was light'; I believe the 'Big Bang' is the moment God spoke the universe into being as put forth in Genesis.

By what mechanism does evolution happen within species?

By natural selection...if I remember my biology notes. Come on, jukia, you already know this stuff.

MG: You forgot mutation. That is the thing natural selection "works" on. There are some other issues but in general I think the biggies are mutation and natural selection.

Next question is--what stops mutation and natural selection from working above the species level? If living things can change within their species, why does such change stop there? What is the barrier?

You're right, jukia, I DID forget mutation, although it does occur randomly and, usually, is not advantageous for the species in question. As for what stops evolution at the species level.....that's a good one but...I'm an engineer not a biologist and I just don't have the answer. Obviously something prevents this; and I believe the current theory is that a 'stop' code is programmed into the DNA. I, of course, believe that the Creator programmed eveything this way but, even coming from that viewpoint, I don't know what the mechanism is. I wish I did.

[MorningGlory]

Of course, microevolution is necessary for all creatures; in order to adapt to and survive changing environmental conditions. I didn't state my beliefs as to the age of the earth or how long man has been here though; that's supposition on your part. I have no trouble understanding the concept; I do, however, have trouble understanding why anyone would believe that man is descended from apes. The Bible tells us our lineage and that's what it is. Now, as for those transitional fossils, please list them. I have not seen any of those......although we have had umpteen posters on these boards that point to this or that. Still haven't seen any examples of them.

What do you think a transitional fossil is? Can you define the term?

Sure. A transitional fossil would show enough traits of two (or more) different species to 'bridge the gap' so to speak; showing a definite relationship between organism 'A' and organism 'B'. I remember someone tried to show this a year or so ago with the 'horse' evidence. The trouble is that it was a horse at the beginning and still is; just changed in size and appearance but still the same species. Now if evidence is brought forth that shows a fish that evolved into a horse....that would be something!

[MorningGlory]

That last seems to be one of the major issues with fundamentalist Christians. They seem to have difficulty being nudged out of their comfort zone on almost any level.

Gotta go.

Maybe Cycel might agree with this statement but I have to tell you, Jukia....it's not that Fundamentalist Christians have difficulty being nudged out of their comfort zone but, rather, that they have no desire to be in the WRONG zone. God is the Creator; He created you, me and everything else that exists or has ever existed. You can argue against that premise until the end of time but it won't change anything at all. His truth is eternal.

[MorningGlory]

That last seems to be one of the major issues with fundamentalist Christians. They seem to have difficulty being nudged out of their comfort zone on almost any level.

Maybe Cycel might agree with this statement....

... but I have to tell you, Jukia....it's not that Fundamentalist Christians have difficulty being nudged out of their comfort zone but, rather, that they have no desire to be in the WRONG zone. God is the Creator; He created you, me and everything else that exists or has ever existed. You can argue against that premise until the end of time but it won't change anything at all. His truth is eternal.

MorningGlory, a while back I had a long discussion on transitional forms with someone at another Board and I am quite sure I got the upper hand. The fellow I was chatting with finally told me that it didn't matter if I was able to show every transitional step between one species and the next, he still wouldn't believe evolution. In other words he would not accept any facts as evidence if they were contrary to his religious views. Is this your position as well?

No; I'm not stuck in a box on this issue. I realize God has created things that we don't understand, and in ways we can't fathom, so I'm always open to learning something new. Logic tells me that He would endow his creations with the ability to change and adapt in order for species to survive. But, since He IS the Creator of all things, He would have no reason to endow His creations with the ability to morph into new species. Wouldn't be necessary.

[MorningGlory]

Conservative thinkers might believe that God had created all the animals in the world perfectly adapted to their own niches, but the same theists cannot think this of humans. Their theology insists that all human populations were reduced to a single family at the time of the Flood. Therefore, all the races of Man arose by evolutionary change and all those races with particular adaptations to heat, cold, high and low oxygen levels, disease, diet, and so on, necessarily evolved all these adaptations since the time of Noah. The only conclusion is that humans were adapted to their habitats through the action of evolution. I see no way around this conclusion.

It fits perfectly with Creation.....God created evolution too. Btw, I'm not sure why you refer to Creationists as 'Conservative thinkers'. What is your reasoning there?

[MorningGlory]

I think the terms "micro" and "macro" are rather silly. Evolution is evolution. There is no real distinction between micro and macro. Not sure where the terms originated but it is a concept that creationists like to use. It may be somewhat discriptive but I don't think it really means anything.

MG has suggested that there is some sort of DNA "stop code" that prevents one species from evolving into something else. My thoughts:

1. I'd like to see a cite to that.

2. Sounds like a fertile area for creation scientists (my apologys for the oxymoron) to research.

3. Since the designation of a species is really a human construct, a result of our desire to name and classify, at what point is this naturally occuring DNA stop code effective. How does the DNA stop code know of the distinction between species.

Finally, MG's suggstion that seeing a fossil showing the change from a fish to a horse might convince her only illustrates her lack of understanding. Her comment of the evolution of the horse is illustrative. The first in the horse line was smaller than my dog, had more toes/foot and, I think, different dentition but her claim is that "a horse is a horse". There is a whole series of whale fossils that show the movement of the blowhole, skeletal bones, etc. Then we have Tiktalaak (sp?), MG--google around that a bit. See if you can find some papers by Per Ahlberg.

Please address comments about me to me, jukia. Your usual sarcasm aside, the fish to horse comment was a joke (in case you missed that.) As to how the 'stop code', for want of a better term, knows of the distinction between species....it was put there by the One who created all of them, of course. I'd be willing to bet that my level of understanding concerning the world we live in, and how it came to be, is way more on track than yours....since you don't believe in God as the Creator you are simply missing the whole first act and still trying to do a review. I will google Tiktalaak as soon as I have time though.

[MorningGlory]

The fish to horse comment is sometimes made by creationists as a serious comment, that is why I took it that way.

Whether your understanding to the world we live in or mine is more accurate really depends on the facts. No, I do not believe in God as a creator, at least not in the literal Genesis way because the facts and evidence point elsewhere.

Again, the existence of a stop code, if there is one, would seem to be a fruitful area for creationist research. Anyone doing any?

Not sure but I intend to research this....it's very interesting. Surely some scientist, somewhere, is working on it. It's one of the biggest question marks going.

[MorningGlory]

You (Jukia) ask what stops speciation, this is a faulty question because nothing stops it because it never started. How can something stop what does not exist?

This is difficult to discus with you. Your personal belief is that God created all species in their present form so naturally you think animals are locked into the physical appearance they possessed at the beginning of creation. Certainly the Bible provides no hint that things happened otherwise; but, you only believe this to a point. You must acknowledge that evolution, what you prefer to call micro evolution, does in fact occur even though the Bible does not mention it. The proof lies in human beings themselves who can only have possessed the physical features of a single race in the first man and woman. The present diversity of human racial types proves that some mechanism exists to change human beings in their appearance; this mechanism is not mentioned in the Bible.

Judging from Biblical requirements the speed this mechanism works at must be quite rapid. The Flood would have eliminated all racial types that had arisen prior to Noah, and assuming that Noah's sons were the same race as he then it is likely Noah's grandchildren were all the same racial type as Noah. The Flood occured about 2300 BC (by Creationist rekoning) and considering that ancient Egyptian paintings and carvings depict full Negroid features and skin colour by 1290 BC in the reign Seti I, not much time is allowed for the races to evolve. There may be records depicting the different races even earlier than this (I haven't searched). By scientific rekoning 1000 years is not enough time for races to arise. It gets worse when one examines China. The Xia Dynasty began about 2100 BC (some authorities say 2200 BC) which gives Noah's descendants 200 years or less to migrate to China, evolve into Chinese and build a population large enough to start a dynasty.

There are logistical problems with the Biblical timeline. Even with continual and rapid outside immigration from Europe the continental United States population did not grow at such a rate as Noah's descendants. How did they in only a few hundred years repopulate the entire world and evolve into all the races? The logistics are impossible, but without question people did evolve. Given that racial types seem to have been what they are now for several thousand years why would humans evolve so rapidly in such a short time and then stop evolving? Either there is a stop mechanism, which you have denied, or the Biblical time frame is wrong and the races took much longer than just a couple hundred of years to evolve. The other possibility, the scientific one, is that the races took hundereds of thousands of years to evolve and that the cessation of human evolution is an illusion created by the short length of time we have been observing.

You seem to be saying that micro-evolution has to lead to speciation, which is false. Perhaps you should try telling me why it is that micro-evolution would logically lead to speciation.

One mico change may go unnoticed but what about 10,000 micro changes? At some point the organism you started with is going to look a lot different from its descendant. Create a number line and place Noah at the one position. Place Greenland's Eskimos at the other end of the number line and pick an arbitrary number representing the number of generations between Noah and his Eskimo descendant, say 100,000. Now if you examine any one point on the number line and then look at that individual's parents, grandparents, and great grandparents they will appear to be the same race, yet depending on the distance from Noah they may not look anything like Noah. Just for argument sake, let's say Noah looks Semitic. At what point on the number line will Noah's descendants no longer look Semitic?

This is the same logic that is used in speciation. There is no missing link between Noah and his Eskimo descendant and there is no missing link between apes and humans. Place our ape ancestor at one on a number line and place yourself at 900,000. This represents generations and not years remember, and it is just an arbitrary number I have chosen. Transitional forms are easy to understand. Have a look at position 200,000. The descendant of ape #1 no longer looks like its ancestor. There have been numerous small changes along the way, micro changes if you prefer. Position 200,000 might look like the famous Australopithecene Lucy. The closer we get to the 900,000 point the more human the descendant will appear, but there is no missing link. There is only one long unbroken line of transition. Lucy was an upright walking ape. Her brain was no larger than a chimp. She was an ape. She may not even be a human ancestor; she might have been a side branch, a cousin, but she represents a transitional form between typical apes and humans. Look at point 600,000. We might find a creature with facial features midway between Lucy and fully realized humans, with a brain capacity halfway between as well; such creatures have been found and others as well that would fit at different points on the number line, or one of its side branches.

That is how speciation works and that is what evolution reveals in the fossil record, but evolutionary theory can also be use to predict what we will find and that is where Tiktaalik come in; but let's leave that for another time.

I find fault with your reasoning....we can look at the earliest known examples of our species, Homo Sapiens Sapiens, at about 10,000 years ago more or less. They are indistinguishable from us.....there are NO differences other than height and that's a dietary thing. Okay, if man has not changed one iota in 10,000 or so years how long would it take for a tiny apelike primate to evolve into you? (And Neanderthalensis doesn't count because they have been proven to have been a separate species.) Well, lets multiply that 10,000 years by a hundred; now it's a million years. Well, there could have been minor adaptations in a million years. Let's multiply it by a hundred again and make it 100,000,000 years. We could realistically see significant changes in features and size in this amount of time. Of course, there are really no primate fossils that old, are there? Well, there's no point multiplying that by a hundred again because it would be 10,000,000,000 years and that's longer than the planet has existed. For us, modern man, to have evolved from a 'Lucy' as portrayed on that History Channel t.v. show would have taken way more time than is available! Remember, skin color, hair texture and specific features in humans are simply adaptations to environment. There is only one species of human alive today; the racial differences are superficial. Common sense always prevails, my friend. Man, the only creature to have dominion over the earth, the only creature to worship a Supreme Being and understand life after death, is a created being. In all the millions of years before man, not much happened. Yet, within 2 0r 3000 years after modern man made his presence known he was building the pyramids, making war, and building nations. We haven't changed....and we aren't going to change. We are just as God made us.

[Mealiosa]

It's amazing that God designed us to adapt so well to our environment.

God is great, yes?

Amen!