Evolution Pros and Cons

[questor]

I want to present some paragraphs for discussion from the website I linked:

Darwinism Refuted.com

Those of you who may have some expert knowledge of the subject are encouraged to speak to these critiques of Darwin's theory. Here is a an example:

In order for the fossil record to shed any light on the subject, we shall have to compare the hypotheses of the theory of evolution with fossil discoveries.

 

According to the theory of evolution, every species has emerged from a predecessor. One species which existed previously turned into something else over time, and all species have come into being in this way. According to the theory, this transformation proceeds gradually over millions of years.

 

If this were the case, then innumerable intermediate species should have lived during the immense period of time when these transformations were supposedly occurring. For instance, there should have lived in the past some half-fish/half-reptile creatures which had acquired some reptilian traits in addition to the fish traits they already had. Or there should have existed some reptile/bird creatures, which had acquired some avian traits in addition to the reptilian traits they already possessed. Evolutionists refer to these imaginary creatures, which they believe to have lived in the past, as "transitional forms."

 

If such animals had really existed, there would have been millions, even billions, of them. More importantly, the remains of these creatures should be present in the fossil record. The number of these transitional forms should have been even greater than that of present animal species, and their remains should be found all over the world. In The Origin of Species, Darwin accepted this fact and explained:

 

If my theory be true, numberless intermediate varieties, linking most closely all of the species of the same group together must assuredly have existed... Consequently evidence of their former existence could be found only amongst fossil remains.39

 

Even Darwin himself was aware of the absence of such transitional forms. He hoped that they would be found in the future. Despite his optimism, he realized that these missing intermediate forms were the biggest stumbling-block for his theory. That is why he wrote the following in the chapter of the The Origin of Species entitled "Difficulties on Theory":

 

…Why, if species have descended from other species by fine gradations, do we not everywhere see innumerable transitional forms? Why is not all nature in confusion, instead of the species being, as we see them, well defined?… But, as by this theory innumerable transitional forms must have existed, why do we not find them embedded in countless numbers in the crust of the earth?… But in the intermediate region, having intermediate conditions of life, why do we not now find closely-linking intermediate varieties? This difficulty for a long time quite confounded me.40

 

The only explanation Darwin could come up with to counter this objection was the argument that the fossil record uncovered so far was inadequate. He asserted that when the fossil record had been studied in detail, the missing links would be found.[>quote]

[questor]

Why don't those who don't wish to discuss this subject ply their talents elsewhere?

Instead of just criticizing a quote from the link, why not offer a scientific rebuttal? All I'm seeing here is the usual knee-jerk support for an unproved theory with no attempt to uncover the science in it. If the theory is correct so be it, if it incorrect or needs tweaking, so be it. I'm not pushing either way, I'm just discussing an opposing view. It seems that some here do not understand the difference in variance(skin color) and what it would take to change one species to another. I'm surprised at the virulence of the ad hominem attacks. This same type of attack would undoubtedly get me banned from the site. Anyone who does not wish to participate in the discussion doesn't have to. Instead of attacking me, why not offer a scientific rebuttal to the information presented?

[questor]

Here are some comments from scientists interested in evolution with the link at the end.

Comments and Quotations on Evolution

"The Darwinian theory of descent has not a single fact to confirm it in the realm of nature. It is not the result of scientific research, but purely the product of imagination."—Dr. Fleischman [Erlangen zoologist].

 

"It is almost invariably assumed that animals with bodies composed of a single cell represent the primitive animals from which all others derived. They are commonly supposed to have preceded all other animal types in their appearance. There is not the slightest basis for this assumption."—Austin Clark, The New Evolution (1930), pp. 235-236.

 

"Yet Gould and the American Museum people are hard to contradict when they say there are no transitional fossils. As a paleontologist myself, I am much occupied with the philosophical problems of identifying ancestral forms in the fossil record. You say that I should at least 'show a photo of the fossil from which each type of organism was derived.' I will lay it on the line-there is not one such fossil for which one could make a watertight argument." (Patterson, Colin, letter 10 April 1979, in Sunderland L.D., "Darwin's Enigma: Fossils and Other Problems," [1984], Master Book Publishers: El Cajon CA, Fourth Edition, 1988, p89) (emphasis supplied). Dr. Colin Patterson was, during his lifetime, the Senior Palaeontologist of the British Musem of Natural History, London, England.

 

If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ could not have been formed by numerous successive, slight modifications my theory absolutely would break down. Charles Darwin. Origin of Species, p.189 1st ed.

 

If my theory be true, numberless intermediate varieties, linking most closely all the species of the same group together must assuredly have existed … Consequently, evidence of their former existence could be found only amongst fossil remains.

Charles Darwin, Origin of Species, p. 179 1st ed.

 

If numerous species belonging to the same genera of families, have really started into life all at once, the fact would be fatal to the theory of descent with slow modification through natural selection. Charles Darwin Origin of Species, p. 302 (1st ed.).

 

A major problem in proving the theory has been the fossil record. This record has never revealed traces of Darwin’s hypothetical intermediate variants. Instead species appear and disappear abruptly, and this anomaly has fueled the creationish argument that each species was created by God. Mark Czarnecki, McLean’s January 19, 1981 p. 56

 

"When evolution is said to be a fact, not a theory, what is actually meant? That now-living things have descended from ancestors, with modification, over time? Or that the modifications came by chance, not by design? Or, in addition, that all living things ultimately had the same ancestor? Or, still further, that the `first living thing' had as its ancestor a nonliving thing? Context indicates that when evolution is asserted to be a fact, not a theory, the view actually being pushed includes that of common origin, ultimate inorganic ancestry, and modification through nonpurposive mechanisms: a set of beliefs that goes far beyond the mountain of fact that is actually there, which consists largely of fossils that demonstrate some sort of relationship and some sort of change over time." (Bauer H.H., "Scientific Literacy and the Myth of the Scientific Method," [1992], University of Illinois Press: Urbana and Chicago IL, 1994, p.65).

 

"The hypothesis that life has developed from inorganic matter is, at present, still an article of faith."—J.W.N. Sullivan, The Limitations of Science (1933), p. 95.

 

"Where are we when presented with the mystery of life? We find ourselves facing a granite wall which we have not even chipped . . We know virtually nothing of growth, nothing of life."—W. Kaempffert, "The Greatest Mystery of All: The Secret of Life," New York Times.

 

"The hold of the evolutionary paradigm [theoretical system] is so powerful that an idea which is more like a principle of medieval astrology than a serious twentieth century scientific theory has become a reality for evolutionary biologists."—Michael Denton, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis (1985), p. 306 [Australian molecular biologist].

 

"The particular truth is simply that we have no reliable evidence as to the evolutionary sequence . . One can find qualified professional arguments for any group being the descendant of almost any other."—J. Bonner, "Book Review," American Scientist, 49:1961, p. 240

link:http:http://www.creationdesign

 

I know that anything that speaks of creation to some of you cannot be mentally tolerated or considered. However, the quotes here are from scientists including Darwin himself. The truth will be served and if you have some recent evidence obviating some of the views. please post it.

[Galapagos]

If this were the case, then innumerable intermediate species should have lived during the immense period of time when these transformations were supposedly occurring. For instance, there should have lived in the past some half-fish/half-reptile creatures which had acquired some reptilian traits in addition to the fish traits they already had.

Tiktaalik - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

This one even has a song to go with it:

YouTube - Tiktaalik (Your Inner Fish) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9h1tR42QYA

Or there should have existed some reptile/bird creatures, which had acquired some avian traits in addition to the reptilian traits they already possessed. Evolutionists refer to these imaginary creatures, which they believe to have lived in the past, as "transitional forms."

Archaeopteryx - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/diapsids/birds/archaeopteryx.html

http://www.ucalgary.ca/~longrich/archaeopteryx.html

 

If such animals had really existed, there would have been millions, even billions, of them. More importantly, the remains of these creatures should be present in the fossil record. The number of these transitional forms should have been even greater than that of present animal species, and their remains should be found all over the world. ...

 

As many fossils as would be expected to be found have been found. The odds that a body will coincidentally be naturally preserved are incredibly small. An animal has to die in a place like the sediments built up on the perimeter of a lake in order to be fossilized.

 

Here are some comments from scientists interested in evolution with the link at the end.

 

Not one of those scientists are evolutionary biologists.

Project Steve | NCSE

Also, I point you to the National Center for Science Education's Project Steve. Project Steve is a satirical list of over 900 guys named "Steve" who accept the fact of evolution. It is intended to make the above lists compiled by creationists look silly, because real science is not done by lining up a bunch of scientists and getting them to sign a petition, it is done with evidence published and reviewed by scientific peers.

[Essay]

Why don't those who don't wish to discuss this subject ply their talents elsewhere?

Instead of just criticizing a quote from the link, why not offer a scientific rebuttal? All I'm seeing here is the usual knee-jerk support for an unproved theory with no attempt to uncover the science in it. If the theory is correct so be it, if it incorrect or needs tweaking, so be it. I'm not pushing either way, I'm just discussing an opposing view. It seems that some here do not understand the difference in variance(skin color) and what it would take to change one species to another. I'm surprised at the virulence of the ad hominem attacks. This same type of attack would undoubtedly get me banned from the site. Anyone who does not wish to participate in the discussion doesn't have to. Instead of attacking me, why not offer a scientific rebuttal to the information presented?

What are you talking about?

Is this your reply to me?

 

I put a lot of effort into reading through that link you provided and, while I didn't go into their problems with explaining entropy, I did make a valid (IMO) observation about the tactics of their argument (i.r.t. thermodynamics).

 

Did you think I was "criticizing a quote from the link?"

I wasn't ctiticizing the quotes (except for the Jeremy Rifkin ref.) as they are valid. I added the quotes in my reply to show what they were talking about.

It's just the way this site puts snippets of valid science together, and the erroneous conclusion that they draw, that draws my critique. Do you not think this is "a scientific rebuttal?"

 

...to your new point....

I will agree that skin color variation is very different from variance into a new species. These involve different mechanisms, though still within evolutionary parameters.

 

I'll agree also, "I'm not pushing either way, I'm just discussing an opposing view."

Will you agree that the refuter's website "missed the boat" on that particular thermodynamics argument? I haven't looked at the rest of the site yet. Perhaps others will pick some other section to critique. I am still looking forward to commenting on their sections about materialism, but must read them first.

 

~SA

[questor]

Quote:'' Tiktaalik is a transitional fossil; it is to tetrapods what Archaeopteryx is to birds. While neither may be ancestor to any living animal, they serve as proof that intermediates between very different types of vertebrates did once exist. '' This indicates that out of the thousands of fossils, two transitional were found? Is there any line of succession we can follow either backward or forward? The Project Steve proves nothing to me. You could have a million signatures on a subject and still be wrong. If evolution to you is variation in a species due to environmental factors, I say yes, they are readily observable. If evolution means all life descended from a primordial soup, I say give some hard evidence. Several of the quotes were from Darwin himself.

[Moontanman]

Quote:'' Tiktaalik is a transitional fossil; it is to tetrapods what Archaeopteryx is to birds. While neither may be ancestor to any living animal, they serve as proof that intermediates between very different types of vertebrates did once exist. '' This indicates that out of the thousands of fossils, two transitional were found? Is there any line of succession we can follow either backward or forward? The Project Steve proves nothing to me. You could have a million signatures on a subject and still be wrong. If evolution to you is variation in a species due to environmental factors, I say yes, they are readily observable. If evolution means all life descended from a primordial soup, I say give some hard evidence. Several of the quotes were from Darwin himself.

 

Questor, the fossils shown are hard evidence, how much harder do you need? Living specimens? It has already been explained that very few animals are ever fossilized, we have a great many transitional fossils considering how few animals are actually fossilized. The one mentioned just happens to be a obvious one. Actually almost all animals are transitional in some way as are all fossils. Just because a fossil isn't obviously half fish and half reptile doesn't mean it's not transitional in some way. If you are expecting to see an animal that has a front half of a lizard and a back half of a fish then you are wasting all of our times. Even a transitional animal will not be something that crazy. Such an animal would have problems surviving to start with and that not the way it works. Steps from fish to amphibians to reptiles to mammals or to dinosaurs were not clean clear steps, there were thousands of transitional steps most too small to see individually from species to species but the over all trend was from the water to the land. Lot of tiny baby steps not huge half one or the other steps.

[questor]

Moon, tell me why the fossil population of animals in a relatively small area, say Australia, can show such diversity since the environment is the same for all?

[Moontanman]

Moon, tell me why the fossil population of animals in a relatively small area, say Australia, can show such diversity since the environment is the same for all?

 

Questor, are you seriously suggesting that Australia is not a large area or that it's not a diverse ecosystem? Australia has everything from rain forests to desert scrub lands to salt pan deserts. Not many continents have the diversity of Australian habitats. Add to that the fact that Australia has been isolated for far longer than any other continent, I don't understand how austraila can be an example to support your argument.

[HydrogenBond]

Here is a good evolutionary test. The theory is random mutations leads to adaptions to the environment via selective advantage. To test this, we will start with mice and artificially induce random mutations. We can't use logic to plan the mutations, since that would prove genetics evolves using some rational schema.

 

What should happen, if the theory is correct, is not only the perpetuation of the mice sample, but better adaptation. If we mess up successive generations of mice, due to random mutations, it would show random will not work and the theory is wrong at least in part.

[Moontanman]

Here is a good evolutionary test. The theory is random mutations leads to adaptions to the environment via selective advantage. To test this, we will start with mice and artificially induce random mutations. We can't use logic to plan the mutations, since that would prove genetics evolves using some rational schema.

 

What should happen, if the theory is correct, is not only the perpetuation of the mice sample, but better adaptation. If we mess up successive generations of mice, due to random mutations, it would show random will not work and the theory is wrong at least in part.

 

Without some sort of environmental or other pressure your experiment would be moot, even with a fast reproducing animal like a mouse it might take many decades to see any significant mutations other than bad ones, the ratio of bad to good is quite high.

[questor]

Moon, let me put it another way. How do you explain such diversity in fossil strata? If the animals in the layer were all exposed to a similar environment, why wouldn't they develop similar traits? Why would some eat meat and others grass? Why would some grow wings and others grow horns? Do their genes have some kind of signal mechanism that says.. I need wings, let's grow some?

By the way, can you give an example of a succesful mutation that can be heritable?

[Moontanman]

Moon, let me put it another way. How do you explain such diversity in fossil strata? If the animals in the layer were all exposed to a similar environment, why wouldn't they develop similar traits? Why would some eat meat and others grass? Why would some grow wings and others grow horns? Do their genes have some kind of signal mechanism that says.. I need wings, let's grow some?

By the way, can you give an example of a successful mutation that can be heritable?

 

Animals in similar environments do indeed develop similar traits it's called convergent evolution, dolphins, and ichthyosaurs are examples of this. What you are talking about is divergent evolution, if all animals were vegetarian there would be far less animals. the divide between grass eaters and those that eat them started out way before the animals you see now came to be. Animals didn't just grow wings, there is no mechanism that says we need wings lets grow some, the wings were evolved over thousands of generations in small steps as were horns. such things usually start out as other things and are then slowly changed into other uses. As for successful mutations, there are people in the Mediterranean that have a mutation that makes then less susceptible to heart disease, others of European decent that are immune to aids. a moth in england that was white because it hid on the bark of white barked trees but with the advent of the industrial revolution the soot caused the trees to be black, the moths through predatory pressure changed their color to black, There a great many such examples, you don't have to look very far to find this information.

[Galapagos]

If you really want to understand evolution, posting a bunch of quotes from the first creationist website that shows up on google on an internet forum is not an effective way to do this.

 

Quote:'' Tiktaalik is a transitional fossil; it is to tetrapods what Archaeopteryx is to birds. While neither may be ancestor to any living animal, they serve as proof that intermediates between very different types of vertebrates did once exist. '' This indicates that out of the thousands of fossils, two transitional were found? Is there any line of succession we can follow either backward or forward?

You should try a scientific source or wikipedia before looking to creationist websites questor.

THere are a great many transitional forms found, those are just two historically significant ones:

List of transitional fossils - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Of course, most creationists at this point backpedal and then claim that they would need to see every single animal in a continuous gradation before they would accept this. Fortunately, with the help of DNA evidence, we can see how long ago lineages diverged and just how closely animals are related, and all of them share one common ancestor. Of course, all of this evidence is meaningless to creationists who already have their minds made up.

 

I also posted a summary of the transition in the lineage of elephants from a probing nose to the trunk over here, with several transitional fossils mentioned:

http://hypography.com/forums/biology/17480-discontinuities-in-evolution-data.html#post247324

 

The Project Steve proves nothing to me. You could have a million signatures on a subject and still be wrong.

That was the point. Science is not done by getting signatures. I now quote from the Project Steve page:

Creationists draw up these lists to try to convince the public that evolution is somehow being rejected by scientists, that it is a "theory in crisis." Not everyone realizes that this claim is unfounded. NCSE has been asked numerous times to compile a list of thousands of scientists affirming the validity of the theory of evolution. Although we easily could have done so, we have resisted. We did not wish to mislead the public into thinking that scientific issues are decided by who has the longer list of scientists!

 

You yourself just quoted one of these laughable lists. Had you actually read the project steve page, you would have seen that getting a bunch of signatures was not their point at all.

 

If evolution to you is variation in a species due to environmental factors, I say yes, they are readily observable. If evolution means all life descended from a primordial soup, I say give some hard evidence. Several of the quotes were from Darwin himself.

The quotes from Darwin were obviously out of context, and the pefectly adequate answer by Darwin ignored. The lack of transitional forms is only briefly mentioned in the chapter "Difficulties On Theory", and is dealt with more extensively in chapter 9 on "The Imperfection of the Geological Record". I now quote from the segment cherry-picked to show that he offers an explanation(bolded) that was also offered in this thread:

Literature.org - The Online Literature Library

On the absence or rarity of transitional varieties.—As natural selection acts solely by the preservation of profitable modifications, each new form will tend in a fully-stocked country to take the place of, and finally to exterminate, its own less improved parent or other less-favoured forms with which it comes into competition. Thus extinction and natural selection will, as we have seen, go hand in hand. Hence, if we look at each species as descended from some other unknown form, both the parent and all the transitional varieties will generally have been exterminated by the very process of formation and perfection of the new form.

 

But, as by this theory innumerable transitional forms must have existed, why do we not find them embedded in countless numbers in the crust of the earth? It will be much more convenient to discuss this question in the chapter on the Imperfection of the geological record; and I will here only state that I believe the answer mainly lies in the record being incomparably less perfect than is generally supposed; the imperfection of the record being chiefly due to organic beings not inhabiting profound depths of the sea, and to their remains being embedded and preserved to a future age only in masses of sediment sufficiently thick and extensive to withstand an enormous amount of future degradation; and such fossiliferous masses can be accumulated only where much sediment is deposited on the shallow bed of the sea, whilst it slowly subsides. These contingencies will concur only rarely, and after enormously long intervals. Whilst the bed of the sea is stationary or is rising, or when very little sediment is being deposited, there will be blanks in our geological history. The crust of the earth is a vast museum; but the natural collections have been made only at intervals of time immensely remote.

[...]

Lastly, looking not to any one time, but to all time, if my theory be true, numberless intermediate varieties, linking most closely all the species of the same group together, must assuredly have existed; but the very process of natural selection constantly tends, as has been so often remarked, to exterminate the parent forms and the intermediate links. Consequently evidence of their former existence could be found only amongst fossil remains, which are preserved, as we shall in a future chapter attempt to show, in an extremely imperfect and intermittent record.

 

Darwin gives the same explanation that is valid today. The odds that a body will fossilize are very low. If you doubt this, go kill a bunch of animals and try to have them preserved outside. You will find that only in certain rare naturally occurring scenarios will this happen. The fossil record looks exactly how evolutionary biologists and paleontologists would expect it to.

[questor]

Concerning the second law of thermodynamics, let's critique this quote:

"Evolutionary theory ignores this fundamental law of physics. The mechanism offered by evolution totally contradicts the second law. The theory of evolution says that disordered, dispersed, and lifeless atoms and molecules spontaneously came together over time, in a particular order, to form extremely complex molecules such as proteins, DNA, and RNA, whereupon millions of different living species with even more complex structures gradually emerged. According to the theory of evolution, this supposed process-which yields a more planned, more ordered, more complex and more organized structure at each stage-was formed all by itself under natural conditions. The law of entropy makes it clear that this so-called natural process utterly contradicts the laws of physics.

 

Evolutionist scientists are also aware of this fact. J. H. Rush states:

 

In the complex course of its evolution, life exhibits a remarkable contrast to the tendency expressed in the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Where the Second Law expresses an irreversible progression toward increased entropy and disorder, life evolves continually higher levels of order.365

 

The evolutionist author Roger Lewin expresses the thermodynamic impasse of evolution in an article in Science:

 

One problem biologists have faced is the apparent contradiction by evolution of the second law of thermodynamics. Systems should decay through time, giving less, not more, order.366

 

Another defender of the theory of evolution, George Stravropoulos, states the thermodynamic impossibility of the spontaneous formation of life and the impossibility of explaining the existence of complex living mechanisms by natural laws in the well-known evolutionist journal American Scientist:

 

Yet, under ordinary conditions, no complex organic molecule can ever form spontaneously, but will rather disintegrate, in agreement with the second law. Indeed, the more complex it is, the more unstable it will be, and the more assured, sooner or later, its disintegration. Photosynthesis and all life processes, and even life itself, cannot yet be understood in terms of thermodynamics or any other exact science, despite the use of confused or deliberately confusing language.367

 

As we have seen, the evolution claim is completely at odds with the laws of physics. The second law of thermodynamics constitutes an insurmountable obstacle for the scenario of evolution, in terms of both science and logic. Unable to offer any scientific and consistent explanation to overcome this obstacle, evolutionists can only do so in their imagination. ''

[Galapagos]

Here is a good evolutionary test. The theory is random mutations leads to adaptions to the environment via selective advantage. To test this, we will start with mice and artificially induce random mutations. We can't use logic to plan the mutations, since that would prove genetics evolves using some rational schema.

 

What should happen, if the theory is correct, is not only the perpetuation of the mice sample, but better adaptation. If we mess up successive generations of mice, due to random mutations, it would show random will not work and the theory is wrong at least in part.

 

No. Most random mutations either occurring naturally or induced will be deleterious, and if the population goes extinct when you blast it with radiation, this does not show that natural selection does not work. Natural selection not only requires variation, it also requires differential reproduction and heritability.

 

I don't think you understand how evolution by natural selection works:

 

1. Random variation (mutation, recombination etc)

 

2. Heredity(some variation must be passed on, cumulatively, to offspring)

 

3. Differential reproduction(some inherited variation must increase the fitness of its bearers)

 

 

If a random mutation which produces a trait occurs that increases fitness in the environment, the trait will increase in population as those with it reproduce/survive better than those without.

Mutation by itself is not enough.

[Galapagos]

Moon, let me put it another way. How do you explain such diversity in fossil strata? If the animals in the layer were all exposed to a similar environment, why wouldn't they develop similar traits? Why would some eat meat and others grass? Why would some grow wings and others grow horns? Do their genes have some kind of signal mechanism that says.. I need wings, let's grow some?

There are many ways to make a living on Earth. Organisms evolve to get the energy they need in any open ecological niche. If some aquatic organism is better at getting food near the surface and another faces extinction, perhaps the challenged organism will flatten out, and feed and find cover on the bottom. This is what evolved twice in the lineage of rays/ skates and unrelated flatfishes. This is an example of convergent evolution.

The rays flattened on the belly, but the flatfishes(like soles, halibut, and plaice) flatted by laying on one side. This has resulted in a very wasteful and imperfect design in flatfishes, where during development their face slowly moves to one side, with both eyes facing up. IT is worth mentioning that hese imperfections(such as the way our eyes are wired backwards) are quite difficult to square with the belief in magical creation by a perfect designer, but quite in line with the idea of gradual evolution adapting organisms to immediate environments.

By the way, can you give an example of a succesful mutation that can be heritable?

Darwin's finches - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

The case of the Galapagos Finches has been documented extensively. Peter and Rosemary Grant followed them through several draughts and watched the environment change the frequencies of beak shape in the population. There is also a segment on the wiki page about the molecular basis of the change.

This is one of a great many examples that could be brought up.