Evolution taken on Faith

[Parsimony]

Is there even any hard-edged dividing line between what constitutes micro-evolution and macro-evolution from a purely scientific perspective?

 

[SkylarHunter]

If evolution is false, why is the fossil record laid out in such an insane precise way to make it look true? Why is there such a smooth transition of cetacean(marine mammals) having slightly more land based features as we look at older fossils?

Did God keep killing off this specific group of land creatures only to recreate slightly more aquatic creatures? And then kill those off only to recreate even more aquatic based creatures? And then killed those off only to recreate yet even more aquatic based creatures? And then rinse and repeated the process until we have modern whales? On top of that, for ***** and giggles, he left useless hind-legs hidden in the flesh of modern whales for us to find and trick us.

So far what I have learned from fossils without a shadow of a doubt is that some species existed in the past and now they don't exist anymore (I don't mind not having the chance to come face to face with a T-Rex).

As for fossils proving evolution, I don't see it that way, quite the contrary.
I've always heard that evolution is a gradual process with small changes happening over very long periods of time, which means we should find many intermediate fossil links, giving us evidence of the connections in the chain.
Many difference fossils have been found so far, and there are people who decide very quickly they were something's ancestor. When you look at most of them closely you see that even though the shape is occasionally similar, their sizes are dramatically different and there are no intermediate fossils between the two. If the process is gradual, where are the transition fossils?

When I discuss this with atheists they generally answer that those changes occurred suddenly, there were mutations of some kind. That leads me to another issue: is evolution a slow, gradual process like I've always learned, or is it fast and sudden which would explain the lack of intermediate fossils?

Another thing that puzzles me is how can someone say that two creatures are related if there are millions of years between them? If the time gap is that huge, how can anyone tell with any certainty that they are related? Isn't that just speculation?

Evolutionists have been searching for transitional fossils between apes and men for over 150 years but so far nothing conclusive was found. For example the Nebraska man, considered a missing link, was hailed by scientists as the oldest living man. He was completely reconstructed from one tooth. Later it was discovered that it was the tooth of an extinct pig.

The famous Lucy, discovered in Ethiopia, was supposed to be half ape and half man, yet walk upright. Lucy had a thumb-like big toe, shoulders and arms that indicated she spent a lot of time hanging in trees, and a totally ape-like scull. The bone that was used to determine that she walked upright, the femur, was crushed completely, so the evidence that she walked upright is speculative and inconclusive.

If you show me a puzzle with half a dozen missing pieces I can still see the picture, if you take away half of the pieces I might see something but I won't be able to identify the details, if you take away most of the pieces and leave me just a few I won't be able to tell anything. All I will have is a few pieces, no picture. And that's exactly how I see the fossils.

 

[Ouroboros]

Is there even any hard-edged dividing line between what constitutes micro-evolution and macro-evolution from a purely scientific perspective?

I don't think so. Let's see what people think. Maybe we should start a thread discussing what the difference is supposed to be.

 

[SkylarHunter]

Is there even any hard-edged dividing line between what constitutes micro-evolution and macro-evolution from a purely scientific perspective?

I would love to know the answer to that question.

 

[Jainarayan]

When I discuss this with atheists they generally answer that those changes occurred suddenly, there were mutations of some kind. That leads me to another issue: is evolution a slow, gradual process like I've always learned, or is it fast and sudden which would explain the lack of intermediate fossils?

Both. Slow and sudden are relative in geologic terms. Between 4 million and 8 million years ago the line that would become humans diverged from the line that would become chimpanzees and gorillas. It only took 2 million years for australopithecines (Lucy) to evolve into modern humans. That's the blink of an eye in geologic terms.

Another thing that puzzles me is how can someone say that two creatures are related if there are millions of years between them? If the time gap is that huge, how can anyone tell with any certainty that they are related? Isn't that just speculation?

The skull morphology sections of the Wiki article on Evolution of cetaceans - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia give a pretty clear picture of the changes and relationships.

Evolutionists have been searching for transitional fossils between apes and men for over 150 years but so far nothing conclusive was found. For example the Nebraska man, considered a missing link, was hailed by scientists as the oldest living man. He was completely reconstructed from one tooth. Later it was discovered that it was the tooth of an extinct pig.

That's the beauty of science... it's not afraid to question or correct itself.

 

[Jainarayan]

Is there even any hard-edged dividing line between what constitutes micro-evolution and macro-evolution from a purely scientific perspective?

Yes, there is. Microevolution and macroevolution have nothing to do with time. Macroevolution refers to changes that occur above the level of species (genus, family, class, order, phylum). Microevolution is change that occurs within a species or population. They are simply descriptions of the changes that occur how, not when they occur in taxonomic categories. An example of macroevolution is the modification of dinosaur scales into feathers across a number of dinosaur genera. Microevolution is represented by Darwin's finches example.

 

[Ouroboros]

The pace of evolution in the fossil record: The pace of evolution

We observe examples of both slow, steady change and rapid, periodic change in the fossil record. Both happen. But scientists are trying to determine which pace is more typical of evolution and how each sort of evolutionary change happens.

So yes, we do have some evidence of progressive, gradual change in the fossil record.

 

[Twilight Hue]

Is there even any hard-edged dividing line between what constitutes micro-evolution and macro-evolution from a purely scientific perspective?

I would love to know the answer to that question.

I really wish Painted Wolf was here.

 

[AndromedaRXJ]

So far what I have learned from fossils without a shadow of a doubt is that some species existed in the past and now they don't exist anymore (I don't mind not having the chance to come face to face with a T-Rex).

In other words, you know without a shadow of a doubt is that some species existed at one time, but didn't exist at another(later) time. But that later time, an almost identical but slightly different population existed. But they didn't exist at an even later time. But you still know without a shadow of a doubt that at that later time, an even more slightly different population existed.

29+ Evidences for Macroevolution: Part 1

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/images/jaws1.gif

There's a sequential change of certain jaw bones in early synapsids slowly changing into the modern middle ear bones of mammals.

What are the chances that synapsids had this feature where these jaw bones were slowly developing into the middle ear bones. Then died out only to be replaced by the earlier therapsids where those certain bones were even more closer to being like the middle-ear bones of mammals. Then those died out only for the cycle to repeat numerous times, until eventually by some odd chance, mammals appeared with fully developed middle ear bones?

As for fossils proving evolution, I don't see it that way, quite the contrary.

How do you not see the fossil record having such sequential changes as proof?

When you look at most of them closely you see that even though the shape is occasionally similar, their sizes are dramatically different and there are no intermediate fossils between the two. If the process is gradual, where are the transition fossils?

You know what, how about you define a transitional fossil. What is one to you?

That leads me to another issue: is evolution a slow, gradual process like I've always learned, or is it fast and sudden which would explain the lack of intermediate fossils?

In general, it goes slow, but evolution doesn't go at a fixed unvarying speed. There's no universal constant that we'd call "The Speed of Evolution" that would be analogous to light speed.

Evolution can go really fast under certain circumstances. High selective pressure with a near extinction event can speed it up.

Also, creatures with shorter life spans and/or shorter generations evolve faster than creatures with longer generations as it means more mutations are happening over time within the population.

Another thing that puzzles me is how can someone say that two creatures are related if there are millions of years between them? If the time gap is that huge, how can anyone tell with any certainty that they are related? Isn't that just speculation?

With extant creatures? Easy. Genetices; ERV markers, pseudo genes etc...

If it's a prehistoric creature dating millions of years back compared to an extant creature, we just look at the morphology. The prehistoric creature will generally be more basic and the extant creature will have features reminiscent of the prehistoric creature, but more complex or advanced.

Evolutionists have been searching for transitional fossils between apes and men for over 150 years but so far nothing conclusive was found.

You don't think homo erectus or homo habilis looks smack dead in between a modern human and a basal hominid?

Homo erectus - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_habilis

If you show me a puzzle with half a dozen missing pieces I can still see the picture, if you take away half of the pieces I might see something but I won't be able to identify the details, if you take away most of the pieces and leave me just a few I won't be able to tell anything. All I will have is a few pieces, no picture. And that's exactly how I see the fossils.

The thing about fossils and creatures is that they have bilateral symmetry. So a lot can be missing as long as it's a bone that comes in a paired set with another bone and, hopefully, the other one isn't missing.

An entire right arm could be missing, but as long as we have the left one, we know that the right one is equal and opposite.

Fossils, at first glance, can seem very incomplete. It can be missing an entire left humerus, an entire right radius, a left femur that's broken in half with one half missing, all of the right leg missing from the knee down, and a couple of ribs missing, and maybe there's a big hole in one side of the skull and a missing eye socket, but the other side of the face is fine.

Since it's got almost all of at least one of each, it's practically a complete skeleton once it's modeled into a computer.

 

[johnhanks]

Is there even any hard-edged dividing line between what constitutes micro-evolution and macro-evolution from a purely scientific perspective?

Absolutely not, any more than there's a sharp dividing line between a long walk and a short walk. It merely suits creationists' purposes to present the two as distinct processes (one of which they admit to be possible, the other they must deny).

In reality, there is just one essential process of evolutionary change - modification of populations' gene pools between generations.

When two populations' gene pools have diverged to the extent of reducing their offsprings' fertility, we may call them different subspecies: this is usually classed as microevolution, and observed examples are numerous.
When two populations' gene pools have diverged to the extent that they cannot interbreed to produce fertile offspringat all, we call this speciation: this is sometimes called micro, sometimes macroevolution, and we have plenty of observed examples.
Greater degrees of divergence than this will separate genera, families, orders* etc, and are generally classed (by those who insist on making a distinction) as macroevolution. Inevitably, they take much longer than a human lifetime to occur, and can be observed only by changes in the fossil record - which has, contrary to the claims of SkylarHunter, preserved numerous such transitions for us.

* We should bear in mind that these are entirely human-made categories and that natural populations are under no compulsion to fit into such neatly separated boxes: just look at beetle classification to see how inadequate the boxes labelled genus, family and order are to accommodate such diversity.

 

[averageJOE]

If the process is gradual, where are the transition fossils?

Gotta love the "crocco-duck" question! Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort would be proud!

 

[Ouroboros]

So far what I have learned from fossils without a shadow of a doubt is that some species existed in the past and now they don't exist anymore (I don't mind not having the chance to come face to face with a T-Rex).

"Some species" is a understatement if any.

There are literally hundreds of thousands of fossils right now.

Berkeley has a codified database with just part of what exists, and they're up on 400,000 and counting.

There's a floor at the Natural Museum New York that is filled with untagged fossils. No one has time to do it.

The number of trilobite fossils are so abundant that you can by rocks with them in it and use as door stops.

As for fossils proving evolution, I don't see it that way, quite the contrary.
I've always heard that evolution is a gradual process with small changes happening over very long periods of time, which means we should find many intermediate fossil links, giving us evidence of the connections in the chain.
Many difference fossils have been found so far, and there are people who decide very quickly they were something's ancestor. When you look at most of them closely you see that even though the shape is occasionally similar, their sizes are dramatically different and there are no intermediate fossils between the two. If the process is gradual, where are the transition fossils?

Similar shape? The analysis is about a 1,000 times deeper than just giving it a quick glance and say, "hmm.. kind'a similar, must be the same."

There is a large amount of features on bones and skulls that are analyzed. The zygomatic arch, suborbital constriction, dental arch, types of teeth, sutures, and so, so much more. You can tell muscle attachments from bones. You can tell if the being was bipedal or not. You have no idea.

When I discuss this with atheists they generally answer that those changes occurred suddenly, there were mutations of some kind. That leads me to another issue: is evolution a slow, gradual process like I've always learned, or is it fast and sudden which would explain the lack of intermediate fossils?

There are intermediate fossils. There is not a lack of it. Just making statements that something is missing when its now will not make it missing.

Another thing that puzzles me is how can someone say that two creatures are related if there are millions of years between them? If the time gap is that huge, how can anyone tell with any certainty that they are related? Isn't that just speculation?

Because they've found many thousand fossils of homonids from the past million years. And you can look at the changes of the bones placed in order of date.

Evolutionists have been searching for transitional fossils between apes and men for over 150 years but so far nothing conclusive was found. For example the Nebraska man, considered a missing link, was hailed by scientists as the oldest living man. He was completely reconstructed from one tooth. Later it was discovered that it was the tooth of an extinct pig.

There are several thousand fossils of genus Homo right now. And they all tell a story. Not all of them are in our ancestral line, but some are. The ones that aren't are of a different species of Homo. Interesting, isn't it? If they're not kind-a humans with ape-features that are not our ancestors, then it must mean there existed other species of humans! Your pick. (My pick: both is true)

The famous Lucy, discovered in Ethiopia, was supposed to be half ape and half man, yet walk upright. Lucy had a thumb-like big toe, shoulders and arms that indicated she spent a lot of time hanging in trees, and a totally ape-like scull. The bone that was used to determine that she walked upright, the femur, was crushed completely, so the evidence that she walked upright is speculative and inconclusive.

I think there are something like close to 10 Australopithecus found. It's not just based on Lucy, but on other specimen.

If you show me a puzzle with half a dozen missing pieces I can still see the picture, if you take away half of the pieces I might see something but I won't be able to identify the details, if you take away most of the pieces and leave me just a few I won't be able to tell anything. All I will have is a few pieces, no picture. And that's exactly how I see the fossils.

The situation now is that we have a lot of pieces.

Not only that, we also have genetic evidence for our shared ancestry with the apes. Not just fossils. Unique genetic mutations that we only share with chimps. Many of them. That we could only get by being relatives.