McBell
Unbound
It is when it cannot be explained beyond "goddidit".
Your transference is showing.
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Can you give me an observable evidence that Evolution is true?
- Thread starter pro4life
- Start date
You are asking me to have faith in science which is a contradiction. It's not that I have an issue accepting vast concepts. I have no issue with accepting an eternal God who has created the universe from nothing while relying on no physical evidence to do so. However, evolution is not truth, it is scientific theory and in some ways it is fact, but not truth. We can observe genetics in action; descent with modification. Children obviously differ from their parents, but can this lead to new species...?
I have done lots of reading and have found no compelling evidence. So far discussion about nuclear decay may support large time scales, but there are still no fossils. Seems to me evolution is a theory of jumping to conclusions.
You make my point for me.
Bunyip
pro scapegoat
No, not at all. Sceince demands no faith whatsoever. I is evidential, testable and falsifyable.
Well no - evolution IS true, it is the truth. The theory of evolution is the explanatory theory that explains evolution. Evolution is a fact, the theory explains the fact.
Yes, and the emergence of new species hs been observed many times.
What? There are millions and millions of fossils, and nuclear decay is so reliable and accurate we time the races in the Olympic games with it.
What new species and what fossils?
Bunyip
pro scapegoat
Read back through the thread, a number of examples of observed specation have already been given.
As to what fossils - there are millions, google 'fossil'and you will find more examples than you could ever read.
Yerda
Veteran Member
The trouble of using a word like 'kinds' aside, yes I can. The fossil record is there in the ground.
JerryL
Well-Known Member
Has evolution ever been observed to occur? Specifically, are there observed cases of specation?
Yes. Some examples of new species which have risen within recorded history:
Seedless grapes (pretty self-explanatory)
Salmon (http://www.umass.edu/newsoffice/arc...1900salmon.html)
Goatsbeard ("Three species of wildflowers called goatsbeards were introduced to the United States from Europe shortly after the turn of the century. Within a few decades their populations expanded and began to encounter one another in the American West. Whenever mixed populations occurred, the specied interbred (hybridizing) producing sterile hybrid offspring. Suddenly, in the late forties two new species of goatsbeard appeared near Pullman, Washington. Although the new species were similar in appearance to the hybrids, they produced fertile offspring. The evolutionary process had created a separate species that could reproduce but not mate with the goatsbeard plants from which it had evolved.")
and Mosquitos (having a little trouble trakcing down that one, it was on ABC news's site recently (2-3 months ago) in an article on the effects of global warming. Let me offer some more to make up for it.
Two strains of Drosophila paulistorum developed hybrid sterility of male offspring between 1958 and 1963. Artificial selection induced strong intra-strain mating preferences. (Test for speciation: sterile offspring and lack of interbreeding affinity.) Dobzhansky, Th., and O. Pavlovsky, 1971. "An experimentally created incipient species of Drosophila", Nature 23:289-292
Rapid speciation of the Faeroe Island house mouse, which occurred in less than 250 years after man brought the creature to the island. (Test for speciation in this case is based on morphology. It is unlikely that forced breeding experiments have been performed with the parent stock.) Stanley, S., 1979. Macroevolution: Pattern and Process, San Francisco, W.H. Freeman and Company. p. 41
Formation of five new species of cichlid fishes which formed since they were isolated less than 4000 years ago from the parent stock, Lake Nagubago. (Test for speciation in this case is by morphology and lack of natural interbreeding. These fish have complex mating rituals and different coloration. While it might be possible that different species are inter-fertile, they cannot be convinced to mate.) Mayr, E., 1970. Populations, Species, and Evolution, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press. p. 348
page 22 of the February, 1989 issue of Scientific American. It's called "A Breed Apart." It tells about studies conducted on a fruit fly, Rhagoletis pomonella, that is a parasite of the hawthorn tree and its fruit, which is commonly called the thorn apple. About 150 years ago, some of these flies began infesting apple trees, as well. The flies feed an breed on either apples or thorn apples, but not both. There's enough evidence to convince the scientific investigators that they're witnessing speciation in action. Note that some of the investigators set out to prove that speciation was not happening; the evidence convinced them otherwise.
Sapiens
Polymathematician
The opposing voices have been heard for over 150 years, they continue to be heard, even today. The problem is that with each passing day the evidence for evolution continues to pile up and the evidence against it continues to shrivel up. Today we have multiple data streams all of which converge and clearly and cleanly support a single integrating theory, Darwinian Evolution. This theory is as close to truth as ever a scientific theory will be, it is as "truthy" as gravity.
McBell
Unbound
then you have poorly explained your "point".
So poorly, in fact, that it is suspected your point was so generic it was worthless.
Care to prove me wrong?
Sapiens
Polymathematician
Claim CB101:
Most mutations are harmful, so the overall effect of mutations is harmful.
Source:
Morris, Henry M. 1985. Scientific Creationism. Green Forest, AR: Master Books, pp. 55-57.
Watchtower Bible and Tract Society. 1985. Life--How Did It Get Here? Brooklyn, NY, pg. 100.
Response: CB101: Most mutations harmful?
Since there is no evidence of any supernatural causes why would they be considered. Supernatural causes all stem from Argument from ignorance - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Don't conflate naturalism with an acceptance of evolutionary theory. You'll find theists here who accept evolution.
NulliuSINverba
Active Member
Would you be so kind as to define "kinds?"
Sapiens
Polymathematician
Claim CH350:
The created kinds are distinct; evolution between them is impossible. "Creation of distinct kinds precludes transmutation between kinds" (Morris 1974, 216).
Source:
Morris, Henry M., 1974. Scientific Creationism, Green Forest, AR: Master Books, pp. 13, 216-218.
Response:
- Creationists have been unable to specify what the created kinds are. If kinds were distinct, it should be easy to distinguish between them. Instead, we find a nested hierarchy of similarities, with kinds within kinds within kinds. For example, the twelve-spotted ladybug could be placed in the twelve-spotted ladybug kind, the ladybug kind, the beetle kind, the insect kind, or any of dozens of other kinds of kind, depending on how inclusive the kind is. No matter where one sets the cutoff for how inclusive a kind is, there will be many groups just bordering on that cutoff. This pattern exactly matches the pattern expected of evolution. It does not match what creationism predicts.
- Fixity of kinds is based on the philosophy of Plato, not the Bible (Dewey 1910). Nowhere does the Bible say that kinds themselves cannot change and diversify. Reproduction "according to their kind" is entirely consistent with evolution, as long as it is recognized that kinds are not fixed.
- Although major changes from one kind to another do not normally happen, except gradually over hundreds of thousands of generations, a sudden origin of a new kind has been observed. A strain of cancerous human cells (called HeLa cells) have evolved to become a wild unicellular life form (Van Valen and Maiorana 1991).
- According to Morris, fungi were not part of the original creation. They were not among the categories listed in Genesis 1, and as decayers they would not have their form until after the Fall. Thus, Morris's own theology requires new kinds to originate after the creation.
- Dewey, John, 1910. The influence of Darwinism on philosophy. In The Influence of Darwin on Philosophy and Other Essays in Contemporary Thought, New York: Henry Holt & Co. Reprinted in Fisch, M.H. (ed.), 1951, Classic American Philosophers, New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.
- Van Valen, Leigh M. and Virginia C. Maiorana, 1991. HeLa, a new microbial species. Evolutionary Theory 10: 71-74.
NulliuSINverba
Active Member
That's totally inaccurate.
An atheist is one who remains unconvinced of the truth claims made by theists ... and evolution is merely the currently accepted scientific explanation for the mechanism behind speciation. There are Christians who accept evolution. Ask Kenneth R. Miller.
If atheism is a faith, then not collecting stamps is a hobby.
...
And if atheists have fewer misgivings about accepting evolution, it might be because (unlike the supernatural voodoo being pushed by the religious) the amount of evidence supporting it is not zero.
I think it's reasonable to say that naturalism and evolution are joined at the hip. I have never heard of a naturalist who did not agree with evolution.
I don't understand the purpose of your citations? There is evidence of supernatural causes, albeit a naturalist would reject them.
I don't see how hybrids and interbreeding can be called evolution of new species. Please explain, I am willing to learn.
I've never heard of a naturalist (at least in the modern, western world) who did not agree with atomic theory. That doesn't make atomic theory a naturalist-exclusive view. That's fallacious thinking because there are many theists who also agree with evolution. Acceptance of evolution is not naturalist-exclusive thinking. Take me for example. I accept evolution but do not consider myself to be a naturalist. There are in fact atheists that do not accept evolution (I've even seen one grace this discussion board before).
Midnight Rain
Well-Known Member
Then you are fooling yourself. Its not faith if its based on evidence and observation. If you don't find the current evidence conclusive then you need to remove whatever it is that is stopping you from accepting the evidence. Its pure bias at this point. Though it is clear that you don't want to accept evolution and you are going to fight tooth and nail not to accept it.