Homework assignment for proponents of ID

[dmp]

In the face of the extremely small statistical probability that life could have sprang up from a primordial ooze, I can only argue that it seems to have happened here.

I'd also like to point out that I am not arguing the origin of life on Earth, I am arguing the validity of evolutionary theory.

To me, it's hard to deny the proof behind evolutionary theory, especially when I look at the fossil record and see the similarities between dinosaurs and modern birds or the similarities between extinct hominids and us. Just compare the hand of a chimp to the hand of a man. Except for the extra hair on the chimp, they're identical.

To anyone I offended today, I apologize. I acknowledge that I'm new here. I've enjoyed today's discourse. This is the most intellectually stimulating forum conversation I've ever had.

If I've been too aggressive, I apoligise. I know it doesn't excuse me, but I'm used to other forums out there where it feels like the wild west.

...but there IS no fossil record which supports Evolution as many believe...It's just statistically improbably - by VAST odds for things to have happened as you believe them to.

It's fine to stick up for your cause - but just wait awhile before calling longer-tenured members 'idiots'.

 

[dmp]

Did Michael Jackson die?

That's worth some rep!!

 

[Hagbard Celine]

I meant "dummies" as in the hit book series "for dummies." Sorry I slipped up.

 

[Abbey Normal]

Good point. This is the old "if evolution's true, then wheres my tail?" argument. Evolution doesn't state that we evolved from present-day apes. It states that we, both humans and apes, evolved from a common ancestor. In other words, our species branched-off from a common ancestor and took different routes.

But why would any take a route that is clearly inferior as a species? Doesn't that go against a fundamental theory of evolution?

 

[Hagbard Celine]

The only statistical probability we have to use to determine the validity of evolution is the probability that occurs in heredity. If two animals with the same characteristics mate, they will produce offspring with the same traits most of the time statistically speaking. Now, if those animals move to an area where they are cordoned-off away from others of their kind, they will mate with each other in a gene-pool that was smaller and less diverse than the original pool they came from. Over time, they will produce offspring that do not even resemble those in the group they originally came from. And if left alone long enough or subjected to environmental conditions so completely different from those of their original group, they will produce a new species. This has been documented in insect species around the world, most notably cave insects.

 

[Hagbard Celine]

But why would any take a route that is clearly inferior as a species? Doesn't that go against a fundamental theory of evolution?

No, the ancestors that produced the apes we know today most likely lived in an environment that was different from the one our ancestors lived in. For example, because of certain aspects of our skeletal structure, we know that our ancestors lived mainly in tree canopies. To move down into the grassy savannahs, they would have had to learn to walk upright to see above the grass for predators and to see prey. They would have had to develop a sophisticated system of calls to communicate with each other when they couldn't see each other through the grass, thus developing a sophisticated voice box and a more sophisticated language center of the brain. Our ape cousins just took another path that worked for them. In other words, there are no blanket adaptations. They occur in small populations.

 

[Abbey Normal]

No, the ancestors that produced the apes we know today most likely lived in an environment that was different from the one our ancestors lived in. For example, because of certain aspects of our skeletal structure, we know that our ancestors lived mainly in tree canopies. To move down into the grassy savannahs, they would have had to learn to walk upright to see above the grass for predators and to see prey. They would have had to develop a sophisticated system of calls to communicate with each other when they couldn't see each other through the grass, thus developing a sophisticated voice box and a more sophisticated language center of the brain. Our ape cousins just took another path that worked for them. In other words, there are no blanket adaptations. They occur in small populations.

Hagbard, this reminds me of what I studied in college Anthropolgy, but it all sounds like unobservable, unprovable theory. I have to go back to my first question, which was, where is the scientific proof?

Good posts, though.

 

[archangel]

No, the ancestors that produced the apes we know today most likely lived in an environment that was different from the one our ancestors lived in. For example, because of certain aspects of our skeletal structure, we know that our ancestors lived mainly in tree canopies. To move down into the grassy savannahs, they would have had to learn to walk upright to see above the grass for predators and to see prey. They would have had to develop a sophisticated system of calls to communicate with each other when they couldn't see each other through the grass, thus developing a sophisticated voice box and a more sophisticated language center of the brain. Our ape cousins just took another path that worked for them. In other words, there are no blanket adaptations. They occur in small populations.

I saw this on the "Discovery" channel too! do we get credit for this?...lol

 

[Hagbard Celine]

What can I say Archangel, I minored in Anthropology.

Hagbard, this reminds me of what I studied in college Anthropolgy, but it all sounds like unobservable, unprovable theory. I have to go back to my first question, which was, where is the scientific proof?

The scientific evidence is in the bone structure. Our shoulder joints, like those of tree-dwelling simians, have a full range of motion for swinging through trees. But we also walk upright unlike tree dwellers, which means that we must have come down from the trees at some point and been in an environment that necessitated the need for bipedal movement.

If you're looking for fossil evidence, check out Lucy:

skull

 

[archangel]

What can I say Archangel, I minored in Anthropology.



The scientific evidence is in the bone structure. Our shoulder joints, like those of tree-dwelling simians, have a full range of motion for swinging through trees. But we also walk upright unlike tree dwellers, which means that we must have come down from the trees at some point and been in an environment that necessitated the need for bipedal movement.

If you're looking for fossil evidence, check out Lucy:

skull

watch the "Discovery" channel...you described in detail the exact format in the order it was presented...please tell us what was the name of the female ape that was presented as the missing link in this program...she was a little homely! oh yeah her name was Lucy! :rotflmao:

ie: your post#166

 

[Bonnie]

What can I say Archangel, I minored in Anthropology.



The scientific evidence is in the bone structure. Our shoulder joints, like those of tree-dwelling simians, have a full range of motion for swinging through trees. But we also walk upright unlike tree dwellers, which means that we must have come down from the trees at some point and been in an environment that necessitated the need for bipedal movement.

If you're looking for fossil evidence, check out Lucy:

skull

On November 20, 1986 Donald Johanson, Lucy's discoverer, lectured at the University of Missouri, Kansas City. After showing slides of Lucy, Johanson showed another slide of a knee-joint, and gave reasons why this fossil helped confirm Lucy as a pre-human ancestor. Johanson was then asked by Roy Holt: "How far away from Lucy did you find the knee?". Johanson replied that the knee-joint was found "60-70 metres lower in the strata, and 2-3 kilometres away." When asked, "Then why are you so sure it [the knee-joint] belonged to Lucy?" Johanson answered, "Anatomical similarity." (Tom Willis, " 'Lucy' Goes to College", CSA News, Cleveland MO, February 1987).

[To avoid any misunderstanding, it should be noted that the question was not how far away from Lucy her own knee joint was found, but rather how far away from Lucy was the knee joint found by Johanson the previous year. The discoveries and locations of both the original knee joint (1973) and Lucy (1974) are described in Donald C. Johanson and Maitland E. Edey, Lucy: The Beginnings of Humankind (1981) and in the April 1982 issue of the American Journal of Physical Anthropology. Johanson argues that the original knee-joint is of the same species as Lucy [australopithecus afarensis] because of anatomical similarity, and points to it as one of several evidences to claim that these creatures walked upright.]

However, one of the key questions that needs to be asked is: Is there any evidence that Lucy (or any australopithecine) walked upright in the manner of Homo sapiens, rather than in the manner of such creatures as living orangutans and spider monkeys, who also show a high degree of valgus? Stern and Sussman write in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology (60:279-313):

"In summary, the knee of the small Hadar hominid shares with other australopithecines a marked obliquity of the femoral shaft relative to the bicondylar plane, but in all other respects it falls either outside the range of modern human variation (Tardieu, 1979) or barely within it (our analysis). Since, aside from the degree of valgus, the knee of the small Hadar hominid possesses no modern trait to a pronounced degree, and since many of these traits may not serve to specify the precise nature of the bipedality that was practiced, we must agree with Tardieu that the overall structure of the knee is compatible with a significant degree of arboreal locomotion." (p.298)

The paper by Stern and Sussman also mentions that the hands and feet of Australopithecus afarensis are not at all like human hands and feet; rather, they have the long curved fingers and toes typical of arboreal primates. Not withstanding, the St. Louis Zoo features a life-size statue of Lucy with perfectly formed human hands and feet! Most evolutionists, and certainly Johanson, insist that the footprints that Mary Leaky uncovered in "3 million year old" strata in Latoli were made by Australopithecus afarensis, though these prints are indistinguishable from those of modern man.

[Note: The March 1996 issue of Discover magazine reports that two German scientists doing research on the Lucy pelvis believe "she" may have been a "he" after all.]

And even if the original knee-joint found by Johanson was from the same species as Lucy, (or should we now refer to the creature as "Lucifer"?) there are still more serious questions being raised about the australopithecines by evolutionists themselves. Dr. Charles Oxnard (University of Western Australia) completed the most sophisticated computer analysis of australopithecine fossils ever undertaken, and concluded that the australopithecines have nothing to do with the ancestry of man whatsoever, and are simply an extinct form of ape (Fossils, Teeth and Sex: New Perspectives on Human Evolution, University of Washington Press, 1987).
Oxnard still believes in evolution, but his belief is not because of the evidence, since there is no hard empirical evidence.


http://www.rae.org/lucy.html

 

[dmp]

The only statistical probability we have to use to determine the validity of evolution is the probability that occurs in heredity. If two animals with the same characteristics mate, they will produce offspring with the same traits most of the time statistically speaking. Now, if those animals move to an area where they are cordoned-off away from others of their kind, they will mate with each other in a gene-pool that was smaller and less diverse than the original pool they came from. Over time, they will produce offspring that do not even resemble those in the group they originally came from. And if left alone long enough or subjected to environmental conditions so completely different from those of their original group, they will produce a new species. This has been documented in insect species around the world, most notably cave insects.

...it's not micro evolution which I have a problem with - it's macro...how did this all start? Macro evolution states un-living chemicals formed into living organisms by 'chance'.

Because the foundations of Evolutions - the genesis of life - are impossible, the whole theory or most of the theories don't make sense to me.

 

[SpidermanTuba]

Hate to be the bearer of bad tidings, but seldom are universities the 'cutting edge' of anything not off the mainstream. They follow the trends.

Uhh, actually, the majority of cutting edge scientific work is done at our Universities - that's part of the entire purpose of a research institution. They don't just sit around publishing review articles.

 

[SpidermanTuba]

Here's the difference, evolution does have 'some' albeit, a small amount of physical evidence to back it up-fossils that show progression towards development. ID has none. At the same time the theory of ID explains some of the 'holes' in evolution, where the development skipped or did not evolve. Yet there is no a 'whiff' of physical evidence, perhaps never can be.

For me, it explains some of the jumps and dregs. For others, not.

Punctuated equilibrium explains the apparentlty rapid transitions we see in the fossil record.

 

[Harmageddon]

Originally posted by dmp:
...it's not micro evolution which I have a problem with - it's macro...how did this all start? Macro evolution states un-living chemicals formed into living organisms by 'chance'.

Because the foundations of Evolutions - the genesis of life - are impossible, the whole theory or most of the theories don't make sense to me.

All in all the theory of evolution is just that - a theory.
That means that although it is not fact, it is the closest modern science has come to unraveling the mysteries of life. The fact that we've not been able to fully grasp the first steps in the entire process does not restrain scientists to postulate new theories.

You should not so easily dismiss the whole theory as impossible.
Only if you have a better alternative that you could back with evidence you would have a scientific ground to do so.

I understand it is hard to come to grasps with such a vast idea as that of evolution, but a little faith can go a long way. Ultimately, evolution is a faith as well, since there is no empirical evidence of the step from anorganic material to functional organisms.

One thing though, I hear a lot that I cannot enjoy life as fully as someone that believes in creation instead of evolution. I believe this does not at all undermine the wonder one can feel when observing life on a daily basis.

Even though we've come to understand the processes that result in lightning, I am still in awe of it's raw power. The complexities of a single cell remain just as wonderful, maybe even more so, when you come to grasps with the intricate balance that is maintained within the cell. But that's just me.
The wannabe scientist.

 

[LuvRPgrl]

No, the ancestors that produced the apes we know today most likely lived in an environment that was different from the one our ancestors lived in. For example, because of certain aspects of our skeletal structure, we know that our ancestors lived mainly in tree canopies. To move down into the grassy savannahs, they would have had to learn to walk upright to see above the grass for predators and to see prey. They would have had to develop a sophisticated system of calls to communicate with each other when they couldn't see each other through the grass, thus developing a sophisticated voice box and a more sophisticated language center of the brain. Our ape cousins just took another path that worked for them. In other words, there are no blanket adaptations. They occur in small populations.

nice idea, wheres the beef? errr, proof.?

Why didnt the other animals start walking upright?
why has man learned to murder his own species in mass numbers, is that part of the survival of the fittest?

Why is it that ONLY sea mammals dont develope water breathing apparatus?

You think the single cell plant life and the single cell animal life both developed from the same single cell?

how do systems that are interdependent on each other develope? In other words, one couldnt exist without the other, did they both evolve at the same time?

How did something as complex as the HUMAN eye develope? was it a non functioning eye waiting to become functioning as soon as enough mutations occured?

why did the first single cell have dna to reproduce? Did it somehow "KNOW" it was gonna make more of the same?

Why are there always gaps in between evolutionary species? why didnt all the transistional species survive? why didnt at least some of those right next to the survivors in the chain survive? why is it always something "eventually" evolved into this or that? what happened to all the links in between?

why do cheerios have holes in them? why arent they called donutios?

 

[Harmageddon]

Originally posted by Abbey Normal:
Hagbard, this reminds me of what I studied in college Anthropolgy, but it all sounds like unobservable, unprovable theory. I have to go back to my first question, which was, where is the scientific proof?

Good posts, though.

The scientific proof is not yet there, but then science hasn't been around for a very long time yet.

Since evolution is a process that takes a very long time, it is of course mostly a matter of imagination that would lead you to conclude that everything is connected on a very long line.

There's a lake in Tanzania, called the Victoria Lake. Nowadays it is an example of manmade ecological disaster. A scientist set out a "baars" - which is a fish - in the lake, that proved to be way more succesful than all the other fish in the lake. This fish was a predator, and it didn't take long for their increasing numbers to make short work of everything else: his "fitness" was through the roof. So nowadays, instead of thousands of species of fish, there is only one, in the entire Vicotoria Lake. Which is manmade evolution. We're not very good at it.

Before hand, the Victoria Lake was home to thousands of species of fish.
And just like Darwin's finches of the Galapagos Islands, these fish were all alike, but a little different. They were genetically very similar and belongded to one distinct family of fish species, that were found nowhere else on earth: the CICLIDS.

They served as a prime example of evolution in progress, for a family of related fish, unique to the planet, had radiated from several "ancestral ciclids" to a variety in the thousands: there were small and large plant eating ciclids, small and large predator ciclids, algae eaters, bottom feeders, cleaning fish ciclids, the works. Whatever species of fish you would expect to find in a large ecosystem were all there. But instead of the usual, all the different roles of all the different species of fish, were played by ciclids.

And as we know now, not because they outcompeted every other fish either.

The Victoria Lake is a large lake that is not connected to any other large body of water. Therefore it could remain isolated for a long time, from events elsewhere. The lake was teeming with unique fish, that were all closely related in their genetic makeup and mostly general shape, and were to be found nowhere else on earth.

Thus, we can imagine an ancestral ciclid species over time radiated out (or evolved) to form thousands of subspecies of ciclids.

The thing is, both creation and evolution are imagined beliefs or theories.
Science assumes that when we have a theory, it will have to stand up to critical debate, and as the evidence is gathered to support or refute the theory, we get a little closer to the truth. So far, the evolutionary theory has been changed from Darwin's original theory, but the major framework has stood up to scrutiny. And believe me, there's enough scientists out there that have given their lives to disprove this theory.

For die-hard creationists, such hard labour is not worth the effort, for they know the truth. No matter if the evidence contradicts or supports their belief.

Although there are many people that don't take such a black and white stance on the subject of course and there is a wide range of opinion on this, form evolutionists that believe in a creator, to creationists that believe in micro- or macro-evolution.
We will get to the bottom of this.
It's just going to take time and imagination.

 

[Harmageddon]

Originally posted by LuvRPgrl:
idea, wheres the beef? errr, proof.?

There is none yet, it's a theory, not a fact. See previous post.

Originally posted by LuvRPgrl:
Why didnt the other animals start walking upright?
why has man learned to murder his own species in mass numbers, is that part of the survival of the fittest?

Did you ever see a bird?

Yep: caucasians are doing very well.
Take a look at ants for example: hills of the little buggers that battle one another in a good old fashioned epic melee battle.

Originally posted by LuvRPgrl:
Why is it that ONLY sea mammals dont develope water breathing apparatus?

Because fish and crustaceans and whatnot started out in the ocean and never got anywhere else, whereas sea mammals are thought to have gone back into the water after the first land mammals had come into existence. There is numerous evidence that leads us to conclude this is the case.

Originally posted by LuvRPgrl:
You think the single cell plant life and the single cell animal life both developed from the same single cell?

Science doesn't know exactly what happened.

Originally posted by LuvRPgrl:
how do systems that are interdependent on each other develope? In other words, one couldnt exist without the other, did they both evolve at the same time?

No they didn't evolve at the same time.
These interdependent systems have grown to be interdependent over time.
Let us start with the single cell: it is already a highly complex organism, with a core with DNA, a shell containing food-processing devices, building devices and so on, an this outer shell already has several proteins sticking out into the outside world, for communiction with other cells and information gathering purposes.

A multicellular organism consists of millions of these cells, that are all communicating with one another through these proteins. When one of them goes for a change, by accident, maybe nothing happens, maybe it dies, but maybe it gets to have a better food-processing capability, or something else.
This is communicated between the cells directly, by the use of hormones in higher order organisms indirectly; a way to reach thousands of cells at once.

That is how we think these things develop.

Originally posted by LuvRPgrl:
How did something as complex as the HUMAN eye develope? was it a non functioning eye waiting to become functioning as soon as enough mutations occured?

Nope, it is a gradual process that uses previous eye models as a template.
Take a look at a human fetus, a chicken fetus and a fish fetus. They are remarkably similar in appearance: they all have gills for example.
In the chicken and human these eventually disappear.

Originally posted by LuvRPgrl:
why did the first single cell have dna to reproduce? Did it somehow "KNOW" it was gonna make more of the same?

No, we don't think the cell KNEW it was going to go through a humongous copy/paste event. What we do know, is that DNA can copy itself, that proteins that are made from DNA can in turn instigate DNA to copy itself, we know proteins can instigate changes in other proteins by just drifting past.
Did the cell have to know?
Does a tree know?

Originally posted by LuvRPgrl:
Why are there always gaps in between evolutionary species? why didnt all the transistional species survive? why didnt at least some of those right next to the survivors in the chain survive? why is it always something "eventually" evolved into this or that? what happened to all the links in between?

There are not really only missing links in the picture.
Look at a rat. Does it look like us? Hardly.
But when you sedate one and cut open it's belly, you'd be surprised.

Originally posted by LuvRPgrl:
why do cheerios have holes in them? why arent they called donutios?

Good question. You should take it to the high court and sew the bastards for it. Emotional damages and so on, could get you a nice retirement bonus.