The 867th Thread on Evolution: I counted

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Everyone keeps trying to explain it to me, but my one big issue with the theory of evolution is that it seems to require that species give birth to different species.

If this is so, then why do we not see this happening today? Why do wolves not give birth to dogs today? Why do lions not give birth to cats? Why do the great apes not give birth to human children?

And if they don’t do so today, then how can we say that they most certainly did do so, at some point in the past? 🤷

It is easier for me to believe that God made a miracle than to believe that species give birth to different species than themselves, because I have seen and experienced miracles, but I am not aware of any animal ever giving birth to something that was not of the same species as itself.
 
Everyone keeps trying to explain it to me, but my one big issue with the theory of evolution is that it seems to require that species give birth to different species.
No, that’s not part of it at all. Let’s say you have a population of wolves, not all wolves, but a few packs – and their environment changes to the point that they begin to adapt to it. Maybe the optimal jaw shape is different, maybe they start walking differently – the particulars don’t really matter. Each successive generation is selected for the more ideal traits, until all these wolves’ jaws are shorter, et cetera, et cetera. Enough of that, and you can’t really call them wolves any more. They’ve become so different they aren’t the same species; but other wolves still exist.
 
No, that’s not part of it at all. Let’s say you have a population of wolves, not all wolves, but a few packs – and their environment changes to the point that they begin to adapt to it. Maybe the optimal jaw shape is different, maybe they start walking differently – the particulars don’t really matter. Each successive generation is selected for the more ideal traits, until all these wolves’ jaws are shorter, et cetera, et cetera. Enough of that, and you can’t really call them wolves any more. They’ve become so different they aren’t the same species; but other wolves still exist.
Right. But at some point along this continuum, a wolf gave birth to a dog, right?
 
jm << If this is so, then why do we not see this happening today? Why do wolves not give birth to dogs today? Why do lions not give birth to cats? Why do the great apes not give birth to human children? >>

Wolves give birth to very slightly different kinds of wolves, over hundreds of millions of years, with thousands or millions of these wolves in a population, some of them slowly changing and becoming more and more dog-like. I should add: with humans being a major factor in their evolution by domesticating and breeding them about 14,000 years ago. Another thing to tack on: At the molecular level not much changed at all: The DNA makeup of wolves and dogs is almost identical (from the article below).

From Wolf to Woof: The Evolution of Dogs

Another set of these wild wolves began to slowly adapt to life back in the water, finally these, after millions of years of small changes, gave birth to whales about 50 million years ago. Between the wolf-like or cow-like Artiodactyls or Mesonychids and the whale, are the semi-whales with legs (ambulocetus). It just takes much time, populations, and reasons for change (more food in the water, etc), from my limited understanding how evolution works.

Whale Evolution from PBS Evolution
Origin of Whales from TalkOrigins

How do we know this transition happenend? Because they have the transitionals:

http://www.bringyou.to/apologetics/Ambulocetus.jpg

Q: Where was Ambulocetus found? A: Ambulocetus has been found in Pakistan, which would have been on the shores of the Tethys sea separating the European archipelago from Africa and Asia.
Q: How big was Ambulocetus? A: Ambulocetus was 3m long, which is bigger than many crocodiles.
Q: How do we know that Ambulocetus is an early form of whale? A: Ambulocetus’ teeth and skull structure shows that it is a whale. Many other fossils have been found showing early whales with varying sizes of leg and tail (e.g. Pakicetus, Rodhocetus, Dorudon, and the already well known Basilosaurus). The teeth of all of them, including those which were fully aquatic, are very similar, as are their ear structures. Whales separate their ears from the skull – they “float” in a region of fat. To get sound to the ear, modern whales have a partially hollow jaw that is filled with a special type of fat. When sound waves hit the jaw they are conducted through the fat to a thin bone connection to the ear from the back of the jaw. This thin bone connection has a characteristic “S” shape that is totally unique to the whales, and has proved to be so remarkable to paleontologists over the last two decades. Ambulocetus already had the S-shaped ear bone and had jaws that would have been packed with sound-conducting fat, despite the fact that they seemed to live mostly on land. This implies that the strange way of hearing had initially evolved not for hearing underwater, but for some other purpose (e.g. sensing prey on land).
Q: How do we know that Ambulocetus lived in water as well as on land? A: Its long body is shaped rather like an otter, with a broad flattened tail and paddle-like hands and feet. The back legs are very short and strong and would have been powerful in the water, but clumsy on land. All these features suggest that it was a good swimmer, and easily capable of moving on land as well.

As for ape-like creatures to humans, that too took millions of years (about 6-10 million years ago are our earliest ancestors I understand). No ape will give birth to a human, that would be a refutation of evolution.

Phil P
 
jm << Your “transitional” seems to be a fake of some kind. >>

Are you serious? You would take this kind of “conspiratorial” view toward evolution? Sorry to say, many Catholics and Christians do I guess. It’s all a fraud, it’s a lie, the scientists are all lying to us…

The whale transitionals have been well known since the 1980s-90s, been dug up, examined, and written up in major peer-reviewed journals (Science and Nature, among them), and there are now about 30-40 of these transitionals from what I understand, but here is a diagram with about 10 of them:

http://www.bringyou.to/apologetics/whaleevolution.gif

Ambulocetus natans (and the rest) is not a fraud. It is a “walking whale that swims” which is what the name means in Latin. They fit into the transitional whale sequence based on their bone structure, and where these fossils were found, and how old they are (c. 50 mya), etc. You’ll of course find “rebuttals” to these on the typical creationist sites (Answers In Genesis), but if you are really interested in the truth, I would check out the peer-reviewed journals they first appear in (Science or Nature). And books on the evolution of whales, discussing the fossil finds of the 1980s-90s

At the Water’s Edge by Carl Zimmer (1999), a popular account

The Emergence of Whales by J.G.M. Thewissen (1998), a technical account

There are many others. Thewissen and Phillip Gingerich are the two experts on the subject.

Phil P
 
jm << Your “transitional” seems to be a fake of some kind. >>

Are you serious? You would take this kind of “conspiratorial” view toward evolution? Sorry to say, many Catholics and Christians do I guess. It’s all a fraud, it’s a lie, the scientists are all lying to us…
I am not judging those that I have not seen, but I studied human anatomy for two years, and the arms on that thing are quite distinctly human.
 
ahimsa << one of the surviving groups of whales is named Mysticetes. Those atheistic Darwinists seek to deceive the public into believing that whales are mystical, peace-loving, tree-hugging victims of global warming >>

Ha ha very funny! 😃 Don’t get me started on global warming, I’m one of those who did a little research on it, and am coming to understand there is a scientific consensus about human-caused global warming, while there are (just like creationists) a few vocal skeptics.

As for the “human looking” arms/legs of Ambulocetus and other mammals, I should add that further proves evolution since we do have similar-looking appendages. The human arm, monkey arm, whale flipper, bat wing (all mammals) have the same type bone structure, but use these differently.

Homologous Structures: Evidence for Evolution

The forearms of a human, cat, whale, bat (picture below) are used for entirely different things (walking, grasping, swimming, flying) and yet they are composed of the exact same bones, just arranged differently and with slight alterations.



Phil P
 
Whats interesting about evolution is that even evolutionist generally agree that Darwin got chunks of it wrong…

Darwin did NOT take into account things like near spontaneous evolutionary changes. Sometimes this may be caused by swift environmental changes resulting in a change in the ecology of the surrounding areas. Sometimes cause by loss of habitat.

You change or die…

In extreme situations, you wont have the prodding along of species as Darwin understood it… It will almost be a jump from A->D

When many anti-evolution people argue against evolution, they argue almost always against Darwin’s understanding, not the prevailing view with does say there are many times in natural history when it did not go a->b->c->d, and just went a->d

With out a b, or a c, in fossil records, it looks very bad to someone that believes Darwinian evolution. But again, this is NOT the current accepted understanding… Darwin laid the ground work for current evolution theory, but his is far from accurate.

That being said…

As long as you believe that it is ultimately God that is guiding it, creating it, and using it as one of the infinite number of tools at his disposal, there is nothing wrong as far as the CC is concerned

In Christ
 
Everyone keeps trying to explain it to me, but my one big issue with the theory of evolution is that it seems to require that species give birth to different species.

If this is so, then why do we not see this happening today? Why do wolves not give birth to dogs today? Why do lions not give birth to cats? Why do the great apes not give birth to human children?

And if they don’t do so today, then how can we say that they most certainly did do so, at some point in the past? 🤷

It is easier for me to believe that God made a miracle than to believe that species give birth to different species than themselves, because I have seen and experienced miracles, but I am not aware of any animal ever giving birth to something that was not of the same species as itself.
That is exactly correct. Jesus Christ demonstrated by the miracles He performed how God works.

The Church rules on scientific matters all the time. On this subject, the Theory of Evolution as defined in secular textbooks exists as a Godless explanation. Everything happened on its own without divine intervention. The Church is against “… theories of evolution, including those of a neo-Darwinian provenance which explicitly deny to divine providence any truly causal role in the development of life in the universe.” Cardinal Ratzinger, from Human Persons Created in the Image of God, Part 64 (available online).

God bless,
Ed
 
ahimsa << one of the surviving groups of whales is named Mysticetes. Those atheistic Darwinists seek to deceive the public into believing that whales are mystical, peace-loving, tree-hugging victims of global warming >>

Ha ha very funny! 😃 Don’t get me started on global warming, I’m one of those who did a little research on it, and am coming to understand there is a scientific consensus about human-caused global warming, while there are (just like creationists) a few vocal skeptics.

As for the “human looking” arms/legs of Ambulocetus and other mammals, I should add that further proves evolution since we do have similar-looking appendages. The human arm, monkey arm, whale flipper, bat wing (all mammals) have the same type bone structure, but use these differently.

Homologous Structures: Evidence for Evolution

The forearms of a human, cat, whale, bat (picture below) are used for entirely different things (walking, grasping, swimming, flying) and yet they are composed of the exact same bones, just arranged differently and with slight alterations.

http://www.biologycorner.com/resources/homobones.jpg

Phil P
What a bunch of speculation. All creatures live under the same gravity, atmosphere and for those underwater, fresh and salt water conditions. God, who designed everything, built these creatures to exist on the same world, so no wonder there are similarities. Evolution is dogma that is dressed up with relationships that should be there by design.

Evolution, as written in textbooks, says that God was not involved in any way, shape or form. It may be possible that some limited form of evolution occurred but only because God made it so.

God bless,
Ed
 
There was only one Adam.

From Humani Generis, 1950 (available online):

“For the faithful cannot embrace the opinion which maintains that either after Adam there existed on this earth true men who did not take their natural generation from him as from the first parent of all, or that Adam represents a ceratain number of first parents. Now it is no way apparent how such an opinion can be reconciled with that which the sources of revealed truth and the documents of the Teaching Authority of the Church propose with regard to original sin which proceeds from a sin actually committed by an individual Adam and which through generation is passed on to all and is in everyone as his own.” From Part 37.

Ed do you have that Humani Generis quote on a macro? You quote it every 38 posts. ROFL>
 
What a bunch of speculation. All creatures live under the same gravity, atmosphere and for those underwater, fresh and salt water conditions. God, who designed everything, built these creatures to exist on the same world, so no wonder there are similarities. Evolution is dogma that is dressed up with relationships that should be there by design.

Evolution, as written in textbooks, says that God was not involved in any way, shape or form. It may be possible that some limited form of evolution occurred but only because God made it so.

God bless,
Ed
Its not speculation and you know that…New crop of questioners and Ed drags out his posts once again. And I’d really like to see a text book that said God wasn’t involved. But at least we have moved you to “some limited evolution” whatever that may personally mean to you…LOL…
 
All textbooks state that evolution occurred by purely natural, no God required, means. If some form of evolution occurred, then it happened only because God made it so. I do not believe in neo-Darwinian evolution as written in textbooks. That type of evolution is impossible.

God bless,
Ed
 
It is just as possible that different creatures look similar because the same Artist designed them, as that they had a common ancestor.

(They either had a common ancestor or a common Creator, for sure.)

Evolution (the common ancestor idea) is what’s left to explain the evidence when you reject the idea of a common Creator. But I once saw a rock that looked like a human brain - it had veins of different kinds of minerals “flowing” through it that looked a lot like the way the human brain is structured. Since I am reasonably certain that that particular rock does not share any common ancestors with humanity, it remains that both the rock and the human brain were created by the same Creator. (Unless you believe in wild and improbable coincidences - I don’t, though.) 🙂
 
It is just as possible that different creatures look similar because the same Artist designed them, as that they had a common ancestor.

(They either had a common ancestor or a common Creator, for sure.)
Is it necessarily an either/or proposition? Why couldn’t God have allowed his creation to adapt and change?
 
Evolution, as written in textbooks, says that God was not involved in any way, shape or form.
Either a direct citation from a textbook or a withdrawl of that claim. Which will it be, Ed? I’ll bet neither - you don’t have a citation (because one doesn’t exist) and you don’t have the guts to retract.

Peace

Tim
 
All textbooks state that evolution occurred by purely natural, no God required, means. If some form of evolution occurred, then it happened only because God made it so. I do not believe in neo-Darwinian evolution as written in textbooks. That type of evolution is impossible.

God bless,
Ed
Citation or withdrawl of claim, Ed. You continue to state this as if it is a fact. You know that it is false.

Peace

Tim
 
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