Why you should think that the Natural-Evolution of species is true

[edwest211]

In some cases, yes. But we’re told things sorta, kinda happen, ya know… and they leave it at that. As if nothing happened in the environment for millions of years… And then there are symbiotic relationships.

"There are three different types of symbiotic relationships: mutualism, commensalism, and parasitism.

Mutualism: both partners benefit. ...
Commensalism: only one species benefits while the other is neither helped nor harmed. ...
Parasitism: One organism (the parasite) gains, while the other (the host) suffers."

All you have to know is if it happened, it happened… or something.

 

[Techno2000]

If the answer is yes, then that would mean that the cosmic random mutation dice would have to throw winners for whole ecosystem.If the answer is no…then how is an organism’s ecosystem not going to be affected by the environmental change/pressure.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

You said, “A numeric calculation is not a necessary…”

MY RESPONSE. It is not necessary, but it is often used to back up a scientific theory.

Then that is no argument against evolution.

The lack of probability calculations to back up evolution shows the bankruptcy of the evolutionary hypothesis.

No, it just shows that evolution does not rely on probability calculations.

You said, “Show me the calculations and I will show you how the science of probability theory is misapplied.”

MY RESPONSE: Are you assuming , before even seeing my calculations, that I made a mistake?

I am challenging you to support your contention. Do you accept or not?

You said, “Irrelevant, since evolution does not posit that random mutations alone drove any significant evolutionary change.”

MY RESPONSE: True, evolution needs more…Chance alone cannot drive evolution.

Yes, and the additional something is called natural selection.

You said, “Just as observations of radium decay serve only to illustrate extremely minute decay, yet we confidently extrapolate to what will happen in 1600 years.”

MY RESPONSE: Radium decay is not a complex process like evolution is. While you can extrapolate numbers in radium decay, it is not that straightforward when it comes to evolution where there are more variable involved and more complex processes to account for.

My example was not meant to be “just like evolution.” It was only meant to prove that extrapolation does legitimately happen, your claim to the contrary not withstanding. So now your claim is simple extrapolations are science, but complex extrapolations are not science?

You might think, for example, that genetic mutation and natural selection are drivers of evolution. Well, they are.

Ah, so you do understand evolution after all!

And they might explain the development and survival of a certain property that you observe in your experiments, but they are hardly adequate to explain the origin of a species as a creature of nature.

This has been argued many times in this thread. It usually comes down to what is a different species. The usual definition is organisms that can not interbreed. But perhaps your definition is more extreme? What is your definition of a different species? (Not examples, but a definition.)

That a bat develop a thin skin flap might help it to fly. But how does that genetic mutation account for the concomitant growth of the fingers and the skeletal structure to enable its wing?

This is another flawed argument.Structures may evolve because they serve some other function, then be re-purposed to serve another function.

And they all have to grow together to give the bat an advantage.

That is exactly where you are wrong.

 

[edwest211]

Not convincing. Design is the best answer.

 

[mVitus]

Thank you for that humor.

 

[WileyC1949]

If one holds as true that God created the universe (in whichever way He chose) then it logically follows that He also created the science by which it runs. True science is therefore another revelation from God because it tells us HOW God did what He did.

Understand that the Bible is not a single book written as one specific time. It is a number of different books written over thousands of years. The first five books were various oral traditions that were rather badly put together in an attempt to make a continuous narrative. Poems were smashed into plays which were smashed into songs. This resulted in numerous contradictions found in the Bible. For example when Abraham sent Ishmael and his mother away the Bible first says that he was 14 years old, but just a page later it says he was an infant whom his mother set down to die. Each of these various genres had a style of their own and you have to allow for literary freedom of expression. Most likely the story of Adam & Eve was some sort of play told around tribal campfires. I am pretty certain that even the first people to hear the story did not actually believe that a serpent spoke to Eve, but as a literary device it makes perfect sense. Genesis 1 was a poem or song as can be seen with the rhythmical repetition of “Evening came and morning the x day” and “Then God said…”

The various meanings of the words also has to be taken into account. The Hebrew word used in Genesis 1 for “day” is “yom”. But unlike English which has between 900,000 and 1,200,000 words today’s Hebrew has only 30,000. There were far fewer thousand of years ago when the stories were written. So my point is that while English has words that describe shades of meaning of a single thing (think of how many ways you could say “red”), Hebrew words have many different meanings for the same word. In the case of “yom” it could also be literally translated as

• Period of light (as contrasted with the period of darkness),
• General term for time
• Point of time
• Sunrise to sunset
• Sunset to next sunset
• A year
• Time period of unspecified length.
• A long, but finite span of time - age, epoch, season

(from wikipedia)

Once you get away from treating everything specifically literally you might be able to see how Genesis 1 could actually be seen to agree with 5 different modern scientific theories. The Big Bang, a slowly forming Earth from a dust cloud, super-continents like Pangea, abiogenesis AND evolution.

I know this is a bit long and going in several directions but what is inspired in the Bible is its MESSAGE, but sometimes the message is hidden behind the words and you have to dig for it.

 

[WileyC1949]

“Catholics cannot believe in atheistic evolution”

This Pope and several of the past ones do. Evolution is not “atheistic”. It is a scientific theory and has nothing to do with atheism. It does not diminish God’s creative act one iota, but rather may point to HOW God did what He did. I certainly do not believe that evolution could have taken place without God’s plan.

 

[rom]

Rossum

You said, “Evolution is defined as ‘change in the genetic makeup of an interbreeding population over time.”

MY RESPONSE: There are at least two meanings of the word “evolution” as I see it. The first meaning, – the popular meaning, or the meaning that most people have in mind, – is that it is the process describing the descent of all living things from a simple, primitive form of life. This is the grand sweep of evolution that many people sometimes call “macro-evolution.” Let’s call this meaning Evolution 1. The second meaning is the meaning that you just gave, which is any change in the genetic makeup of an interbreeding population over time. I will call this more restricted meaning Evolution 2. Actually, I have little to disagree with you as long as we limit the meaning of the word to Evolution 2. Yes, there is evidence for Evolution 2. The problem is when we assert that the evidence we have for Evolution 2 (which is gradual, small-scale genetic change) is proof or evidence for Evolution 1. That would be a big jump. I have no time to discuss this in depth, so let me just refer you to a paper by Dr. Lee Spetner, A Scientific Critique of Evolution.

You said, “There are single celled protists that are light-sensitive …”

MY RESPONSE: Sensitivity to light is NOT vision, that is why it does not require a brain. For all you know the protist is not reacting to the light but to the minute temperature change it receives from the light source. Telling me that the eye developed from the protist is not good enough. The organism indeed has to develop into a fairly advanced stage before vision can develop. The problem is, how could natural selection drive the development of the eye if the organism gets no advantage from all the associated organs that are necessary for vision as long as vision itself did not exist ? That has not been answered.

You said, “Evolution is good at adding complexity.”

MY RESPONSE: Yes, as long as the organism is getting an advantage along the way. The problem is that it has to be very complex already before it receives any advantage to the genetic change. And the genetic changes required need to happen simultaneously, or at least rapidly, to have any advantageous effect. Such rapid and big changes would be game changers, and they occur as punctuation marks in the punctuated equilibrium model.

Rossum, you are a smart person and it has been a pleasure to discuss things with you. So I will let you have the last word on this and, after responding one last time and saying goodbye to LeafByNiggle, I will already drop out of this thread. I just don’t have all the time. But I will perhaps meet you again in another thread. Good luck and Peace

 

[rossum]

I can’t seem to get a clear cut answer on this: If an organism that has gone through the evolutionary process to become a new species, will also have to have its ecosystem/food chain go through a evolutionary process ?

Evolution follows the environment; it does not lead it. If the environment gets cooler then mutations for, say, longer hair will be beneficial and so those alleles will tend to spread in the population. The environment changes first, and then evolution works on the organisms living in that environment to make them more suited for the changed environment.

rossum

 

[rossum]

MY RESPONSE:

If you want to use the quoting mechanism here, highlight the part you want to quote and a “Quote” box should pop up. Hit that and the selected text should be quoted at the bottom of the page in the reply box.

Be careful to keep [quote …]
and
[/quote] on their own lines, otherwise the software won’t recognise them.

Sensitivity to light is NOT vision, that is why it does not require a brain.

But it is the start of vision. Every eye contains a part that is sensitive to light: the retina in tetrapods. Eye evolution started with simple light sensitivity. As I said, jellyfish have eyes and nerves connecting them, but no brain. There is an obvious series of small steps here, none of which is too large for evolution.

Sensing light or dark can be useful; a sudden change from light to dark might be the shadow of a large predator. Euglena has chloroplasts, so light sensing is useful for it to make the maximum use of photosynthesis.

Light sensing can be useful, as with plants, even in the absence of detailed vision.

rossum

 

[PickyPicky]

Evolution follows the environment; it does not lead it. If the environment gets cooler then mutations for, say, longer hair will be beneficial and so those alleles will tend to spread in the population. The environment changes first, and then evolution works on the organisms living in that environment to make them more suited for the changed environment

Although the mutation may precede the environmental change, presumably, and then be selected later?

 

[o_mlly]

Since evolution does have convincing data …

Begs the question. The data shown in previous posts claiming discovery of new species does not stand up to critical examination.

 

[rossum]

Although the mutation may precede the environmental change, presumably, and then be selected later?

Yes. Populations always have variations, so there will be individuals with, say, relatively longer hair and relatively shorter hair. Given those variations in the population then whatever direction the environment changes there will be some variants that become more beneficial, and some that become deleterious. If the climate cools then longer hair will be favoured and shorter hair disadvantaged compared to the present.

rossum

 

[o_mlly]

No, for “living fossils” the environment in which they lived didn’t change much, so they didn’t change much. A slower evolutionary path (like crocodiles) doesn’t disprove evolution in the slightest. It just shows that the organisms in the environment achieved a near-perfect competitive equilibrium.

Your logic is backwards. If I claim a unicorn exists then I have the burden of proof. Until proof is offered the claim does not need to be proven wrong. Prove macro-evolution. (I only offered “living fossils” to complete your incomplete list of things we have to examine.)

 

[rossum]

Begs the question. The data shown in previous posts claiming discovery of new species does not stand up to critical examination.

What is wrong with the data? In both the examples I provided the DNA was examined and the differences between the pairs of species found.

What, specifically, is wrong with the data? Please remember that conflicting with one possible interpretation of a particular sacred text does not constitute a valid scientific objection.

rossum

 

[o_mlly]

What is wrong with the data? In both the examples I provided the DNA was examined and the differences between the pairs of species found.

What, specifically, is wrong with the data? Please remember that conflicting with one possible interpretation of a particular sacred text does not constitute a valid scientific objection.

OK. Let’s do it again.
Start by defining terms, i.e. define “species” (Your prior definitions did not use DNA as a descriptor.)

 

[Bradskii]

rossum:

Evolution follows the environment; it does not lead it. If the environment gets cooler then mutations for, say, longer hair will be beneficial and so those alleles will tend to spread in the population. The environment changes first, and then evolution works on the organisms living in that environment to make them more suited for the changed environment

Although the mutation may precede the environmental change, presumably, and then be selected later?

A constant problem for some in this forum who don’t understand the process. Some of them actually seem bemused because they think some animals grow longer hair because it gets colder.

And others who claim that all changes are deleterious when one can only determine that by how the changes affect the organisms ability to survive if the environment changes. So growing longer hair cannot be called a positive or negative change unless we know what the environment is doing.

If it’s getting warmer, then it’s a negative change. If it’s getting colder, a positive one. At which point someone (hi Techno) will say ‘How did they know it was going to get colder?’

 

[buffalo]

The first five books were various oral traditions that were rather badly put together in an attempt to make a continuous narrative.

What? Source?

 

[buffalo]

I know this is a bit long and going in several directions but what is inspired in the Bible is its MESSAGE, but sometimes the message is hidden behind the words and you have to dig for it.

The Holy Spirit was sleeping for so long, and now we find out?

 

[Aloysium]

Why is evolution irrational? Are random mutations (which we can observe) irrational?
Why is natural selection irrational?

There are essentially two types of mutations:

• Those that follow the “program” that is the material aspect of the organizing principle that is any individual organism. This is what was created - a kind of being that expresses itself in the form of individual organisms, and undergoes what is referred to as microevolution. This would be part of what some consider the designed the genetic and epigenetic components in life that are involved in the flowering of life on earth.
• The physical aspect of the organism experiences random chemical reactions occurring outside its organizing principle, the soul if you like. Because the workings of the cell are information-in-action (the anatomy and physiology), any such activity occuring at the atomic level, due to matter’s inherent properties, is destructive to the overall order. A good deal of what is termed speciation occurs through gene deletion; stuff that happened within a progenitor no longer functions in the offspring. There is no cumulative process of DNA transformation caused by random physical factors that can explain diversity and the growth in complexity that is observed in nature.

As to natural selection:

• It is the shadow of the fact that things, in addition to existing as themselves, also exist as components in something greater. A tree is a tree and at the same time, a component of the ecosystem that is a forest and the earth. We can pull an organism out of its environment and this happens in nature when it does not fit within that greater whole. If it cannot survive, it cannot procreate. Those creatures that do fit and reproduce their kind of being, contain as part of their genome and associated cellular processes, the possibility of changing their physiology and also passing these changes on to their offspring.
• Natural selection is what one sees from a utilitarian perspective. Beyond this limited view, we know that nature is an expression of beauty and the tendency, within a hierarchy of increasingly psychosocially sophisticated animals, the capacity for love that characterizes mankind - Homo caritativus had we chosen correctly at our beginning.
• Although natural selection does not involve selection, it does select out those creatures who do not fit in, whose relationship with their environment does not provide them with the necessities of life. So in addition to the term describing the conservative tendency for the continuation of species who are in existence, natural selection speaks to destructive natural relationships, those responsible for the world-wide decline in species.
• What natural selection describes, is not a creative process.

Both random mutations and natural selection exist in the world, but as aspects of death. They work counter to creation. To suggest that these tendencies could somehow be responsible for the emergence of this garden planet is irrational.