Evidence For And Against Evolution

[YoursTrue]

When did Gould say that? You need to drop the "basic truth" claim. If you cannot support a claim you should treat it as a lie. I am starting to think that you may have a bit of a reading comprehension problem.

Gould said that Haeckel's theory was taught in the NYC school system as true. Maybe you don't like the word true. And now that I'm looking at it a bit more, I see that Haeckel also believed in eugenics, which some believe could have been one of the basics for the Third Reich's master race idea.

 

[Subduction Zone]

OK, let me explain it back to you as I understand or don't your words. So you say there are about 100 mutations in my DNA from my parents. (Only 100?) I look similar but then again different from my parents. So if I were a student in your class, here's what I would take away: Every human born to a human is because of a process of genetic mutation. On the other hand, so far humans are born to humans. In observable time.

You are conflating mixing existing genes, which causes you to look different with the mutations which are by definition "new information".

And yes, humans are born to humans and always will be. A change of kinds is a creationist strawman. You seem to forget, you are still an ape, you are still a primate, you are still a mammal etc. and so on.

 

[Subduction Zone]

I don't think I said that, I was going with another poster's example. OK now you brought me into change of kind. So you are saying there is no change of kind in evolution?

Nope, that is a creationist strawman. Why do you think that there is a change of kinds?

 

[Subduction Zone]

Gould said that Haeckel's theory was taught in the NYC school system as true. Maybe you don't like the word true. And now that I'm looking at it a bit more, I see that Haeckel also believed in eugenics, which some believe could have been one of the basics for the Third Reich's master race idea.

You need to quote and link. The internet is vast, if he made that claim you should be able to find it from a reliable source.

And yes, a lot of Haeckel's work was refuted. Why bother with him? Do you understand yet that though he was wrong about recapitulation that his drawings, which were fairly accurate, are still evidence for evolution? I explained to you what he did wrong. You still had pharyngeal arches (gill slits for the layman) when you were an embryo.

 

[YoursTrue]

You are conflating mixing existing genes, which causes you to look different with the mutations which are by definition "new information".

And yes, humans are born to humans and always will be. A change of kinds is a creationist strawman. You seem to forget, you are still an ape, you are still a primate, you are still a mammal etc. and so on.

First of all, I don't understand what you mean in your first paragraph. Second of all, I don't agree that you are an ape. I can agree you are a mammal, but unless I have to pass a test, all mammals are not apes. All apes are mammals, however. All humans are mammals. But they are not apes and apes are not humans.

 

[YoursTrue]

You need to quote and link. The internet is vast, if he made that claim you should be able to find it from a reliable source.

And yes, a lot of Haeckel's work was refuted. Why bother with him? Do you understand yet that though he was wrong about recapitulation that his drawings, which were fairly accurate, are still evidence for evolution? I explained to you what he did wrong. You still had pharyngeal arches (gill slits for the layman) when you were an embryo.

I understand that a human embryo is always human with...human genes. I do not understand or believe that the human embryo passes through all previous stages of evolution in the womb. Or whatever stages you determine it passes through. Let me put it this way. If you say the slits are pharyngeal arches, does that mean à fish eventually changed into a human?

 

[Subduction Zone]

I understand that a human embryo is always human with...human genes. I do not understand or believe that the human embryo passes through all previous stages of evolution in the womb. Or whatever stages you determine it passes through. Let me put it this way. If you say the slits are pharyngeal arches, does that mean à fish eventually changed into a human?

No one has claimed that. So why even bring it up? In answer to your question you have ancestors that were fish. The fish themselves did not "change into humans". If you like you could even say that you are still a fish. But since your gills were lost many generations ago you would drown in water if you tried to breathe it, just as a modern day fish without gills would drown. The lesson being, do not take things too literally.

 

[Subduction Zone]

First of all, I don't understand what you mean in your first paragraph. Second of all, I don't agree that you are an ape. I can agree you are a mammal, but unless I have to pass a test, all mammals are not apes. All apes are mammals, however. All humans are mammals. But they are not apes and apes are not humans.

Just as all humans are mammals, all humans are apes too. You have a faulty definition of apes. Linnaeus, the creationists that started what became the modern classification of animals, was the first to realize that people were apes. It bothered him greatly. This was long before Darwin. Now we know that without a doubt that people are apes. Technically we are great apes along with the chimpanzees and bonobos (our closes relatives) the gorillas (our next closest relatives) and the orangutans (our next closest relatives).

Here is a list of Great Ape traits:

"

• a brain that is larger and more complex than other primates
• distinctive molar teeth in the lower jaw which have a ‘Y5’ pattern (five cusps or raised bumps arranged in a Y-shape)
• a shoulder and arm structure that enables the arms to freely rotate around the shoulder
• a ribcage that forms a wide but shallow chest
• an appendix
• no external tail"

You probably have all of those traits.

 

[exchemist]

I don't recall learning in my classes that what we are taught can change. I also believed what they taught (at the time) was rock bottom solid. Also, we had to know the answers in order to pass tests. This was, of course, in high school biology and chemistry, although I did take college biology but did not pursue any further courses since I was an arts major. I am (was, really) more interested in the arts than science until this type of discussion started.

Yes I suppose you may have been the victim of unimaginative, test-orientated teaching. What a shame.

I suppose it is true, thinking back, that most of what I learned about the evolution of scientific theories came in the 6th form, when we were beginning to be exposed to things such as relativity and quantum theory, both of which are recent examples of overturning of earlier theories of course.

But my son did learn, at about the age of 14, about the basic scientific method, which makes it clear that theories are built to account for and predict observations and change when new observations are found that do not fit.

It can be summed up in the line: "In science, all 'truth' is provisional".

But you are by no means the first I have come across on these forums who talks in terms of this mythical beast, scientific truth. It is evidently a widespread failing of our educational systems not to get the point across.

 

[exchemist]

I understand that a human embryo is always human with...human genes. I do not understand or believe that the human embryo passes through all previous stages of evolution in the womb. Or whatever stages you determine it passes through. Let me put it this way. If you say the slits are pharyngeal arches, does that mean à fish eventually changed into a human?

An embryo does actually seem to climb its own evolutionary tree during development, as @Subduction Zone has described. This is a matter of observed, easily verifiable fact, not belief. However this is not inconsistent with it being, all the time, human. That is the point.

We humans are eukaryotes, we are chordates (vertebrates), we are tetrapods, we are apes....and we are Homo sapiens. In fact, the study of embryos is one of the several independent lines of evidence in favour of the theory of evolution: Evolutionary Embryology - Developmental Biology - NCBI Bookshelf

You can disbelieve the theory, but the fact of these resemblances cannot be disputed. And, if you have any scientific curiosity, it cries out for an explanation.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

I don't recall learning in my classes that what we are taught can change

3 options:
- you didn't pay attention
- you did learn it, but have just forgotten it and this knowledge over time was replaced in your brain by creationist propaganda
- your school teacher was extremely bad

I also believed what they taught (at the time) was rock bottom solid.

And because you believed that, it must be true? Has it occured to you that maybe you are just wrong, or that your teachers failed to explain it properly?

Here you are conversing with plenty of people who are telling you exactly that: science doesn't deal in "truth" and theories (explanatory models of reality) are only ever tentative / provisional.

Why do you keep arguing this point? Why don't you just accept that scientific theories are always provisional? You don't even need to take our word on it, you can EASILY look this up for yourself.

In fact, how can you even miss this fact, when most likely you KNOW of theories in the past that got disproven and replaced by better ones? Like how Einstein's relativity "replaced" or "improved" Newtonian physics? Or how heliocentrism took over from geocentrism? Surely you are aware of such things, right?

I don't understand why you so stubbornly refuse to correct the mistakes in your understanding of science.

Also, we had to know the answers in order to pass tests.

Yes. To pass science exams, you need to be knowledgable concerning the science of the time in which you are taking the test. Why do you think this is a problem?

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

So then, do you or do you not believe there are "rock bottom never-changing truths" as far as evolution goes. You can say you are still an ape, I do not agree to that classification.

You can disagree all you want, but it won't change the facts.
Humans are great apes, primates, mammals, tetrapods, vertebrates, eukaryotes, animalia.

These aren't arbitrary labels.
It is literally impossible to come up with a definition of "mammal" which includes all mammals yet excludes humans, without arbitrarily adding "but not humans". And the same goes for the other labels.

Any generic definition you can come up with that defines what a "mammal" is - humans will qualify.
Because we ARE mammals. And apes.

Meanwhile, that little bit of genetic difference makes a whole lot of difference in organisms

Yes. Not sure why you started that with "meanwhile". Did anybody claim otherwise?

And makes sense that humans are rather different brain-wise from what they are said to evolve from. Can you show genetic changing within a set of organisms, eventually, quickly or slowly producing a different form (such as from gorilla to human) in "real time"?

Humans share ancestors with gorilla's, which were neither human NORE gorilla's. Gorilla's don't evolve into humans. See, this is the kind of nonsense you start stating when you have no clue on how evolution works.

If we observe a gorilla population turning into homo sapiens, then quite ironically: evolution as currently understood would be falsified.

As an example, when doctors insert a stent in someone's vein they know what they're doing "real time." Can you show real-time changes in evolution within the genetic framework as it happens? (No, I'll answer that for you. If you have a different opinion, you might want to explain it a bit. -- thanks. Remember I said "real-time," not DNA from fossils compared with other fossils with DNA.)

What, exactly, do you mean by "within the genetic framework as it happens"?
Be very specific here.

I have a feeling that this is yet another question rooted in ignorance of how evolution works. Akin to arguing against gravity because hammers float in the international space station.

 

[Subduction Zone]

You can disagree all you want, but it won't change the facts.
Humans are great apes, primates, mammals, tetrapods, vertebrates, eukaryotes, animalia.

These aren't arbitrary labels.
It is literally impossible to come up with a definition of "mammal" which includes all mammals yet excludes humans, without arbitrarily adding "but not humans". And the same goes for the other labels.

Any generic definition you can come up with that defines what a "mammal" is - humans will qualify.
Because we ARE mammals. And apes.



Yes. Not sure why you started that with "meanwhile". Did anybody claim otherwise?




Humans share ancestors with gorilla's, which were neither human NORE gorilla's. Gorilla's don't evolve into humans. See, this is the kind of nonsense you start stating when you have no clue on how evolution works.

If we observe a gorilla population turning into homo sapiens, then quite ironically: evolution as currently understood would be falsified.



What, exactly, do you mean by "within the genetic framework as it happens"?
Be very specific here.

I have a feeling that this is yet another question rooted in ignorance of how evolution works. Akin to arguing against gravity because hammers float in the international space station.

He still seems to have a creationist mindset on the concept of evolution. He wants us to show him the equivalent of a gorilla changing into a human or worse. I am sure that if I showed him some "real time" evolution he would say "but it is still a (your choice of animal here)." To which we would reply " Of course it is. " He wants to see a change of kind even after it was explained that there is no change of kind in evolution.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

I'm willing to listen. Where are the real time genetic changes that happen by themselves without human intervention and cause another species to come into being?

Speciation isn't triggered by a handfull of mutations overnight. It takes many many mutations over many many generations.

ps: every newborn comes with a set of mutations. In humans, the mutationrate is about 50-60 per newborn.
These are past on to offspring. From there, some might spread to the genome and achieve fixation or not. For speciation to occur, plenty of such mutations are required to achieve fixation.

Your question exposed yet another round of ignorance.

It's like asking to get a list of the exact phonetic and written changes that occured in Latin over the past 2000 years to make it turn into French.

It's quite obvious that this can't be done. Yet, this isn't in any way a good enough reason to then deny that French is derived from Latin. And the same goes for biological evolution.

No, we can't give you an exact list of all the mutations that occured over the past 7 million years when our ancestors split off from the common ancestors with chimps.

Are you saying that tall or short, blonde or brown haired groups are evidence of evolution????? Frankly, if you really think that a population of brown-skinned people is a different species from lighter skinned persons and provide evidence for evolution, that's a problem in your thinking or some scientists' thinking.

I didn't read the post you are responding to, but I'm quite confident in saying that there is no way that @Subduction Zone would say that skin colour makes up for a different species.

But yes, the different ethnicities of humans, actually ARE evidence for evolution. It fits the expectations of the process. For thousands of years, human populations around the world have been genetically isolated from one another. Meaning that they have been on their own evolutionary path for quite some time, without any significant exchange of genetic material.

This is exactly why you can pretty accurately tell where someone's ancestors come from geographically, based purely on their appearance.

It's actually very easy:

==> from asia

==> left from africa, right from europe

==> the americas

==> australia

This is the result of genetic isolation.
Today, this isolation is broken due to increasing globalisation, trade, travel, immigration etc.

If the isolation would have been kept in place for another couple hundred thousand or even millions of years, and all populations survived, we'ld pretty much inevitably end up with different species of humans.

 

[Polymath257]

I don't recall learning in my classes that what we are taught can change. I also believed what they taught (at the time) was rock bottom solid. Also, we had to know the answers in order to pass tests. This was, of course, in high school biology and chemistry, although I did take college biology but did not pursue any further courses since I was an arts major. I am (was, really) more interested in the arts than science until this type of discussion started.

Hm....so they taught you that there were 9 planets and said that is a number that would stay fixed forever? There was no possibility of discovery of a tenth planet?

I call garbage. You misunderstood what you were taught.

 

[exchemist]

I am not saying or thinking that the idea is that a single dog physically evolves slowly, very slowly into a cat. Yes, I am still wondering about populations. So I shall look at the line of supposed successive forms of evolution again. But, before I do, is there any evidence that an organism changed as in real-time (with x-rays, ultrasound observances) producing a different population. Or showing the DNA actual changes from one form to another, slowly or quickly?

There is evidence in real time of organisms developing traits that were not there before. Anybody who has undergone chemotherapy for cancer knows how that happens. And there are certainly real-time examples of populations of organisms doing the same, e.g. Richard Lenski's well-known experiment, in which glucose-metabolising bacteria evolved to metabolise something that they could not originally (citrate). And then, in larger organisms, there is the example of the peppered moth.

But it should be fairly obvious that demanding "real-time" evidence is not reasonable to expect for larger changes, since the process is fairly slow compared to the duration of observations by modern humanity. We have perfectly good theories in other branches of science that do not depend on real-time observation. Nobody has ever seen, in real-time, a glacier gouge out a U-shaped valley, with truncated spurs, a trough end and a misfit stream running down it. We don't treat the theory explaining these features of glaciated landscapes as somehow suspect because of that.

I suppose you might, if you think it was all sculpted by God like that. But then that is useless as a scientific explanation, since it predicts nothing.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

I'm willing to listen. Where are the real time genetic changes that happen by themselves without human intervention and cause another species to come into being? Are you saying that tall or short, blonde or brown haired groups are evidence of evolution????? Frankly, if you really think that a population of brown-skinned people is a different species from lighter skinned persons and provide evidence for evolution, that's a problem in your thinking or some scientists' thinking.

I can't believe you keep claiming to have studied this and then keep demanding us to give you an education on it.

 

[tas8831]

Gould said that Haeckel's theory was taught in the NYC school system as true.

Citation please.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Citation please.

I asked for the same. He has yet to comply.

 

[tas8831]

I understand that a human embryo is always human with...human genes.

Then you should be able to tell us what this is an embryo of:

I do not understand or believe that the human embryo passes through all previous stages of evolution in the womb. Or whatever stages you determine it passes through. Let me put it this way. If you say the slits are pharyngeal arches, does that mean à fish eventually changed into a human?

No, it means that a human and a fish share a common ancestor and that both human and fish embryos go through a stage in which they have (for all intents and purposes) identical structures that in fish go on to become gills and in humans go on the become structures in the face and neck.