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

[Edgar]

Just the fact that somebody has to come up with the idea of "Punctuated Equilibrium " show how weak the fossil record really is.

Exactly. In The Panda’s Thumb, Gould (the co-inventor of PE) states that the lack of transitionals in the fossil record is “the trade secret of paleontology” and that the fossil record in general is an “embarrassment” to Darwin’s theory of gradualism. He also states that the fossil record is characterised by sudden appearance of fully-formed organisms and stasis (a lack of morphological change). I reckon a lot of his fellow-evo’s must have wiped him off their X-mas card lists after that.

 

[Edgar]

How can you interpret things that supposedly happen Billions of year ago?

Interpreting is the easy part - the hard part is trying to prove your interpretation is correct. All anyone can do is offer a theory that can never be tested. And what is an untestable theory but simply a story (ie, not science). So why even bother?

 

[Edgar]

Well they’d be wrong. Very wrong. If you know who has posted a nonsensical comment like that then please let me know. Just because polar bears are white does NOT mean we are descended from microbes.

I’ve come across that sort of comment quite often on other sites and also in the mass media.

 

[Edgar]

If you have any other proposals than evolution (apart from the literal reading of Genesis which I mentioned earlier) then bring them to the table. But as I also said, evolution and God are not mutually incompatible. Except if you’re a fundamentalist, in whicb case you can take your argument to your fellow Catholics

I favour a progressive creation model - evidenced by all those gaps in the fossil record - that describes a overall evolution that unfolded over millions-billions of years. But it’s not scientific, as it requires regular divine interventions. In effect, it’s a “God of the gaps” theory, writ large.

 

[o_mlly]

What is the process you think is going on when you have in successive generations, the appearance of white bears?

The poster does not recognize the evolutionist’s strained definition of a “specie” at least still includes successful interbreeding as in the “pizzly” or “grolar” bear.

Is the blonde wife of a brown/black haired man married to a different specie? No.

I predict that those atheists who come late to this thread and will not read the > 4,200 previous posts are trolling – for them it’s a tag team event. Same old erroneous arguments, same old ad hominems and no progress. But then that’s their goal.

 

[Wozza]

Wozza:

You’ll have to explain to me how this works, Edgar. You wanted to know how PE could be tested and I linked to a paper that did EXACTLY THAT. Did you not check the link? It explains what they were doing and briefly how they did it.

Thanks for the link, but I’ve learnt to take any claims made by evolutionary scientists with a very LARGE grain of salt. Any form of macroevolution - gradual or punctuated - is impossible to observe.

But to be fair, you didn’t ask if it could be observed. You asked if it could be tested. There are very many ways indeed in which one aspect of evolution can be tested against another.

 

[edwest]

When marketing a product, in this case, an ideology, then repetition is everything. Perhaps everyone in the US has heard of Coke and Pepsi but that has not stopped the repetition of the message: “Drink Coke (or Pepsi).”

 

[o_mlly]

When marketing a product, in this case, an ideology, then repetition is everything. Perhaps everyone in the US has heard of Coke and Pepsi but that has not stopped the repetition of the message: “Drink Coke (or Pepsi).”

Or the “Kool-Aid.”

 

[Wozza]

Wozza:

So we now know the process. Some people reject it on religious grounds, as you yourself have explained many times. Now that’s not a position I will argue against. The only posts I disagree with are the ones that post incorrect information.

You didn’t explain anything. What is the process you think is going on when you have in successive generations, the appearance of white bears? We see the converse today as the arctic and subarctic areas are warming up. This is not evolution but simply a change in the appearance of bears, governed by built-in genetic and epigenetic processes designed to do just that sort of thing. If you believe that there exists a process by which you arose from some ancestral bacterium, you have to describe it. You may be satisfied with simplistic, superficial generalities that explain nothing, but we should not be.

I’m sorry, Al. But I have to be blunt here. You are asking a nonsensical question. Well, at least as this thread is concerned. The thread is about evolution. If you don’t understand the process to the extent that you don’t understand why polar bears are white then you need to find other threads to spend your time.

If you want to reject that we evolved from unicellular organisms then you’ll need an argument as to how it happened as opposed to evolution. If your argument is religiously based, then you are in the wrong thread. It it isn’t then let me know what it is so I can compare it to evolution.

 

[Wozza]

Wozza:

Well they’d be wrong. Very wrong. If you know who has posted a nonsensical comment like that then please let me know. Just because polar bears are white does NOT mean we are descended from microbes.

I’ve come across that sort of comment quite often on other sites and also in the mass media.

It’s wrong wherever you find it. Point one out so we can ridicule it together.

 

[Wozza]

Wozza:

If you have any other proposals than evolution (apart from the literal reading of Genesis which I mentioned earlier) then bring them to the table. But as I also said, evolution and God are not mutually incompatible. Except if you’re a fundamentalist, in whicb case you can take your argument to your fellow Catholics

I favour a progressive creation model - evidenced by all those gaps in the fossil record - that describes a overall evolution that unfolded over millions-billions of years. But it’s not scientific, as it requires regular divine interventions. In effect, it’s a “God of the gaps” theory, writ large.

Regular divine interventions as opposed to what? I assume you would agree that God could have produced us in any way He chose. And that the evolutionary process could be the one He chose. Do we agree that that is a possibility?

 

[Wozza]

When marketing a product, in this case, an ideology, then repetition is everything. Perhaps everyone in the US has heard of Coke and Pepsi but that has not stopped the repetition of the message: “Drink Coke (or Pepsi).”

No-one is trying to convince you to believe anything. What is being done is that people are pointing out your errors when you post them.

If you want to believe that God created everything in a manner that is not compatible with evolution, then fine. But if you post something that is incorrect to back up that view then you might expect to be challenged on it.

 

[edwest]

From the title of this thread: “Why you should think…” This is advertising, pure and simple. I’ve written ad copy.

Why this subject deserves so many threads year after year points to an advertising program. For some unexplained reason, this matters? And how many young people are going into aerospace or electrical engineering and don’t know a thing about evolution? Aside from checking the “right” box during a quiz?

Opinion | Finding Design in Nature - The New York Times

 

[Wozza]

Aloysium:

What is the process you think is going on when you have in successive generations, the appearance of white bears?

The poster does not recognize the evolutionist’s strained definition of a “specie” at least still includes successful interbreeding as in the “pizzly” or “grolar” bear.

Is the blonde wife of a brown/black haired man married to a different specie? No.

I predict that those atheists who come late to this thread and will not read the > 4,200 previous posts are trolling – for them it’s a tag team event. Same old erroneous arguments, same old ad hominems and no progress. But then that’s their goal.

‘The poster’?

Anyway…evolution doesn’t necessarily produce a new species. I think you might have known that anyway. And specie is still coinage. The singular of species is still species.

 

[Edgar]

You may be satisfied with simplistic, superficial generalities that explain nothing, but we should not be.

The atheist, having come to the conclusion that there is no God, then comes to another conclusion - evolution must be true. Satisfied with this “knowledge”, he readily accepts evolutionary theory in general, and has no need to examine it’s core claims critically, as the overall theme is all that really matters. The evolutionary “science” is simply the icing on his a priori cake, however insipid it tastes to someone who does have a reason to examine it critically (such as a Christian).

 

[Wozza]

Aloysium:

You may be satisfied with simplistic, superficial generalities that explain nothing, but we should not be.

The atheist, having come to the conclusion that there is no God, then comes to another conclusion - evolution must be true. Satisfied with this “knowledge”, he readily accepts evolutionary theory in general, and has no need to examine it’s core claims critically, as the overall theme is all that really matters. The evolutionary “science” is simply the icing on his a priori cake, however insipid it tastes to someone who does have a reason to examine it critically (such as a Christian).

It’s Catholics who start these threads. Some of you seem obsessed with it. Check the posting history of some of the usual suspects and there’s hardly any other threads they post on. Your own recent history is a good example.

 

[Edgar]

But to be fair, you didn’t ask if it could be observed. You asked if it could be tested. There are very many ways indeed in which one aspect of evolution can be tested against another.

Fair enough. But PE was offered by Gould and Eldredge as an explanation for the gaps, sudden appearance and stasis evident in the fossil record - ie, stuff that occured millions-billions of years ago. So it impossible to test, as one cannot go back in time to see what actually happened.

 

[Techno2000]

Techno2000:

Wozza:

Edgar:

Wozza:

Just that extrapolating to that extent without any evidence would make one look silly. So no-one does it.

Oh but they do - I wish I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard an evolutionist say, “We can see evolution in action every day, so who can doubt that evolution is real”. What they are saying in effect is, “Since we can observe microevolution, we can assume macroevolution happens and so we can assume all life on earth evolved from a microbe.”

Well they’d be wrong. Very wrong. If you know who has posted a nonsensical comment like that then please let me know. Just because polar bears are white does NOT mean we are descended from microbes.

The fact that they are led some people to look for an answer as to why. Which leads to evolution. But the fact on its own cannot be used to extrapolate to the whole of biological existence.

If hypothetically the Amazon Jungle was to experience a north pole like climate change. Do you think evolution could transform this Jungle ecosystem into a new arctic ecosystem?

Any gradual changes in a given climate produce gradual changes within the ecosystem.

So, the Piranha would gradually morph into something like the Arctic char.And also the Piranha needs to eat, so all its food would have be transformed into cold water species,and they have eat too,so the entire food chain from top to bottom would have undergo a complete metamorphosis along with all the plants.

 

[edwest]

Yes, that would follow.

 

[Edgar]

Regular divine interventions as opposed to what?

As opposed to a contiguous process of biological evolution.

I assume you would agree that God could have produced us in any way He chose. And that the evolutionary process could be the one He chose. Do we agree that that is a possibility?

I agree that that is a possibility. However, a progressive creation model fits the fossil record much better than the Darwinist model.