Why giraffe can't come from the evolution

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I look at evolution this way… Even if somehow, it is definatively proven that evolution is a completely random process with no external intelligent design involved this does not erase intelligent design from reality.

Basically, all this would do is move intelligent design up a level since the intelligent designer would now be needed to design an environment where random evolution could exist. and I am sure this argument could go on a couple more levels if you wanted to word smith things, but I don’t see any point.
 
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maesoph:
… Even if somehow, it is definatively proven that evolution is a completely random process …
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it is not random it is deterministic

there is probably more randomness involved with conception
 
abc’s article << “The Tallest Tale is the textbook version of giraffe evolution – a bit of a stretch.” So began an article by Stephen Jay Gould. (ref: “The Tallest Tale” by Stephen Jay Gould, Natural History, May 1996) >>

We know what Stephen Jay Gould thinks of creationists citing his work:

“Since we proposed punctuated equilibria to explain trends, it is infuriating to be quoted again and again by creationists – whether through design or stupidity, I do not know – as admitting that the fossil record includes no transitional forms. Transitional forms are generally lacking at the species level, but they are abundant between larger groups. Yet a pamphlet entitled ‘Harvard Scientists Agree Evolution Is a Hoax’ states: ‘The facts of punctuated equilibrium which Gould and Eldredge…are forcing Darwinists to swallow fit the picture that Bryan insisted on, and which God has revealed to us in the Bible.’” – Stephen Jay Gould, "Evolution as Fact and Theory" (May 1981 reprinted in Hen’s Teeth and Horse’s Toes, page 260)

The absolutely wrong way to learn what Stephen Jay Gould thinks is to read quotations of him from creationist web sites. The right way is to get yourself to a library and find his many books, or browse and print out articles from this unofficial site, The Stephen Jay Gould Archive.

We also know what real scientists think of the reliability of that Of Pandas and People’s book, and See Here, and especially See Here (Of Pandas and People book is cited in abc’s article, the book is filled with errors).

Total waste of time arguing with abc on this issue until he gets himself an education on the topic. Might take a few years. :whacky:

Phil P
 
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abcdefg:
Why giraffe can’t come from the evolution of shorter species(supposedly “samotherium”)

First read this article whyevolution.com/giraffe.html

Then consider this:

There is a height different between the highest point of bush and the the lowest leaf of a high tree…
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This is false. period.
 
Michael << Hey guys, Mockery isn’t needed here. If you cannot refute it nicely (both sides) >>

In case you didn’t notice, the “nice strategy” wasn’t working, after 4.5 billion posts. Maybe my approach of “More Data, Less Charity” will work? Nope that didn’t work either.

We are left with the Mocking Strategy or the Outrageous Sarcasm Strategies or the simple You Are Wrong Or Stupid Or Both Strategies. Tried those, don’t work either.

Maybe a radical combination of the Nice, Mocking, and Sarcastic Strategies.

Phil P
 
Here we go again. I often wonder what the uncommitted CAF reader thinks of these evolution threads. Do they see tham as obvious wins for one side or the other, or do they just ignore them? Probably the latter.

So abcdefg has moved on to the giraffe. Ten years ago it might have been the whale, however in the mid-nineties transitional fossils of whales were found so whales were off the creationists’ list. It will always be possible for creationists to pick some species for which there is not a good fossil record, bats are another favourite as you may have noticed. Yes there are gaps in the fossil record, no these gaps do not imply that evolution is wrong. PhilVaz in post #2 gave a lot of good information on the evolution of giraffes. What Stephen Gould was talking about was a discussion within evolution about the details of how the giraffe evolved its long neck; it gives no reason to doubt that the giraffe’s neck did evolve.
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abcdefg:
Why giraffe can’t come from the evolution of shorter species
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Let’s assume for the moment that giraffes didn’t evolve. If they didn’t evolve then they must have been created. That means that there have been long necked animals of the giraffe-kind all the way back to creation week when all the different kinds of animals were created. If that is so then there should be fossils of long necked giraffes all the way back to the Cambrian period. Where are those fossil giraffes? If you cannot show any then I will not accept creationism. I only accept something if there is evidence to support it. Where is your evidence of Cambrian giraffes? We are only too eager to produce our evidence for evolution yet you cannot produce any on your side. Fossils of Cambrian giraffes would blow a huge hole in the theory of evolution. According to creationism there should be some, where are they?

rossum
 
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PhilVaz:
Michael << Hey guys, Mockery isn’t needed here. If you cannot refute it nicely (both sides) >>

In case you didn’t notice, the “nice strategy” wasn’t working, after 4.5 billion posts. Maybe my approach of “More Data, Less Charity” will work? Nope that didn’t work either.

We are left with the Mocking Strategy or the Outrageous Sarcasm Strategies or the simple You Are Wrong Or Stupid Or Both Strategies. Tried those, don’t work either.

Maybe a radical combination of the Nice, Mocking, and Sarcastic Strategies.

Phil P
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What was it? Seven times seventy? Man, i gotta hold up a mirror too, y’know. But take a break if it is making you wrathful. Or just copy and paste a charitable answer from a previous effort.

I admire your attempts to reconcile faith and science.
 
Michael << Or just copy and paste a charitable answer from a previous effort. I admire your attempts to reconcile faith and science. >>

I’ve tossed the Kitchen sink at him: data, links, charity, anger, wrath, outrage, sarcasm, the works. 😃 :mad: :rolleyes: :eek:

Now rossum brings up another point: what we need are long-necked giraff fossils in the Cambrian period rocks (c. 570 million years ago), the best we got is short-neck type giraffs in the early Miocene (c. 23.8 to 5.3 mya) then modern long-neck Giraffa in the Pliocene (c. 5.3 to 1.8 mya). The dates for those here. No giraff type animals in anything before the Miocene in fact. The Artiodactyls (first cloven hoofed animals) date back to the Eocene (54.8 to 33.7 mya).

I predict the next thread abc will create will be on the evolution of birds from dinosaurs since a small minority of scientists still dispute that. Or maybe the Bombardier Beetle is next.

We’ve covered bats, pumpkins, humans, and now giraffs. There’s gotta be something abc can find that did not evolve. :rolleyes:

Phil P
 
I realize that this post is straying somewhat but I couldn’t help but ask this while you good folks were here already.

As a life-long protestant I was shocked to come to the realization that Catholics could reconcile evolution with their faith. As a fundamentalist Baptist, evolution was an “evil, Satanic conception” propagated by secular atheists.

I have always been a creationist in that regard, but have no support for that belief. It was simply an expected belief based on a literal reading of Genesis. I always assumed that you couldn’t be a Christian (orthodox) and believe in “evolution”. Probably part of the problem is simply good education.

My point being - do you Catholics find it hard to reconcile your Catholic faith with scientific evidences for evolution? As a protestant the merging of evolution with Christian belief was unthinkable.

I’m not arguing for creationism or evolution. I was intrigued by reading this thread, especially considering how heated the debates can get. Forgive me if this seems like a silly request.

Peace…
 
ahim << My point being - do you Catholics find it hard to reconcile your Catholic faith with scientific evidences for evolution? As a protestant the merging of evolution with Christian belief was unthinkable. >>

There have been the theological difficulties we have discussed in here: original sin, death before the Fall, where and when and who is Adam/Eve, God and randomness, how to interpret Genesis, etc. Those have been discussed somewhat, and the modern Popes have touched on these.

Maybe one thing you can say is these are “mysteries” just like the whole predestination / free will, and Problem of Evil will be mysteries and tough problems to resolve. HOWEVER, the scientific arguments against evolution (e.g. Kolbe Center, AnswersInGenesis, Kent Hovind DrDino) are very lame as you’ve noticed. :eek: :rolleyes:

Best current book on this whole topic: Perspectives on an Evolving Creation by evangelical scientists, an article based on this book

Adam, Eve, and the Hominid Fossil Record

Phil P
 
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ahimsaman72:
My point being - do you Catholics find it hard to reconcile your Catholic faith with scientific evidences for evolution? As a protestant the merging of evolution with Christian belief was unthinkable.

I’m not arguing for creationism or evolution. I was intrigued by reading this thread, especially considering how heated the debates can get. Forgive me if this seems like a silly request.

Peace…
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I will only speak from myself although if you read many of these posts, you will find similar positions from many different posters. I don’t have the slightest problem accepting evolution and my faith is probably stronger now than ever in my life.

Truth cannot contradict truth. There is so much evidence for evolution that to ignore it would not be reasonable for me. There are things I don’t understand, but so what?

That said, you can be a good Catholic and reject evolution. I personally have absolutely no problem if you are a young-earth creationist if that is important to your faith. The only problem I have is when those of us who do accept the science are labeled as either athiests or some what lesser Catholics than those that don’t.

Peace

Tim
 
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ahimsaman72:
…
My point being - do you Catholics find it hard to reconcile your Catholic faith with scientific evidences for evolution? As a protestant the merging of evolution with Christian belief was unthinkable…
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Well, as is apparent from these threads some of us do and some of us don’t. 😉

As you’ve probably read from Phil’s posts above, the Church in Her wisdom (and even you as a Protestant must admit that you don’t get to be the world’s largest and longest lived organization without doing something right) has taken the position that scientific matters are best left to scientists. She has further taken the position that faith and reason cannot be in conflict. We are free to accept evolution, 6-day creation, or turtles all the way down as long as it doesn’t conflict with several points of doctrine. And that is the detail where the devil lives. :eek:

Apart from certain… ahem… cranks there are folks here with serious philosophical questions. Personally I think that they have been well answered.

Let me ask you something. Do you, as a Baptist, feel that holding to a literal creation in the face of contrary physical evidence hurts your church as in casting it in an unfavorable light to outsiders or discouraging current/potetnial members who have a scientific bent? After all the Catholic Church is still taking flak over that Galileo thing so I can’t imagine what evolution is going to do to churches that can’t accommodate it.

Correct me if I’m wrong but as far as I know the vast majority of Christians, with the exception of certain literalists sects such as yours, have little or no problem with evolution.

Let me ask you one more thing. How is a literal creation any more appropriate/Godlike (for lack of a better word) than a 15 billion year process? Or is it simply at matter of “that’s what the words say so that’s what happened”?

No disrespect. I’m just curious. We really didn’t have Protestants where I grew up so I don’t know a whole lot about them.
 
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steveandersen:
Let me ask you one more thing. How is a literal creation any more appropriate/Godlike (for lack of a better word) than a 15 billion year process? Or is it simply at matter of “that’s what the words say so that’s what happened”?

No disrespect. I’m just curious. We really didn’t have Protestants where I grew up so I don’t know a whole lot about them.
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If I may interject, my in-laws are fundamentalists, and I have argued this for a loooooong time with them. It is my experience with them that since they take a sola-scriptura view on everything, anything that could contradict their literal interpretation of the bible directly attacks their source of faith.

I guess a good way to put it is that if the Bible is wrong on anything contained within it, their faith is utterly destroyed. My father-in-law said something to the effect of ‘If the Bible is wrong on this, then I can’t be a Christian’. It really opened my eyes to how they view their faith & the world. 😦
 
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thistle:
The three sites simply show one photo in each picture. Are you seriously trying to tell us that these pictures are your hard scientific evidence that the tops of all bushes are lower than the lowest branches of all trees??? Give us a break. You really are looney tunes!!
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It’s your turn, now show me a fully grown tree have leaves lower than a fully grown bush.

young trees(for example 1 year old) are shorter than fully grown bush but you should compare that with young bush and young giraffes
 
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Orogeny:
Are you suggesting, based on the article you linked to, that Stephen J. Gould did not accept evolution? Do you know why SJG argued the way he did?

Peace

Tim
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To show even evolutionists find this is absurd.
 
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Hitetlen:
Actually, no. The poor suckers are still most vulnerable when they drink. They have to spread their legs quite far apart, because their necks are still trying to “catch up” with their legs.
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Zebras will have an edge if they have longer legs. and according to ET their legs are already longer than those in ancient times, why they don’t develop a neck proportionally to that of a giraffe?
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Hitetlen:
But of course they can, they are just lagging (maybe legging, haha) a little bit behind. Moreover, they are nature’s attempt to build the Tower of Babel, and soon (in about 15.7 million years, give or take a few millions) they will reach heaven. Then we can all climb up on their necks and verify everything for ourselves. How wonderful it will be!
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I hope so, I like giraffes and don’t like to see them starve. but why the extention of necks happened in ancient times?
 
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steveandersen:
it is not random it is deterministic

there is probably more randomness involved with conception
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One word for you: Lamarckism
 
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