What Have Darwinists Said That's True?

[Hela cells/lab pandemic]

Turnabout is fair play...So what have Darwinists ever said ( about biological evolution ? about species origins ? about abiogenesis ? about phylogenesis/ evolutionary ‘ family trees’ ? etcetera ) that is scientifically verifiable/ proven/ demonstrably true ????

I'll try to find the exact quote, but it seems to me that a scientist ( who was much critical of Darwinism / neo-Darwinism ) asked this very same question before an auditorium of fellow scientists. Reportedly, his colleagues offered no response ... Guess they. COULDN'T think of anything....

Surely, you staunch ( and oft times smug IMO ) defenders of Darwinian dogma can do better eh ?

Good luck with that

 

[angellous_evangellous]

:cover: .....:ignore:.....

 

[camanintx]

Darwin's Theory of Evolution said that if land vertebrates evolved from fish then there should be a transitional species displaying characteristics of both. And guess what, there is one.

What has the head of a crocodile and the gills of a fish?

 

[Sunstone]

The OP can't be serious, can it?

 

[Storm]

I've read references to "other theories of evolution" indicating that Darwinian evolution actually has legitimate challengers. Does anyone know what these other theories might be? Does punctuated equilibrium qualify?

 

[Valjean]

Darwin maintained that offspring in a single brood were not identical. He believed that those individuals in a brood/litter that chanced to have more beneficial characteristics, given the existing environment, would fare better. He speculated that these individuals that chanced to be born better adapted to the current environment might produce more offspring than their litter/nest mates. He concluded that the superior reproductive success of those with more adaptive traits would result in an increased incidence of these traits in the general population.

Why is any of this hard to understand or controversial?

 

[ChristineES]

Darwin was not an atheist. (I know this is off-topic but I felt moved to write it)

 

[Hela cells/lab pandemic]

Tiktaalik, of course. Pronounced tik-TAA-lik, this 375 million year old fossil splashed across headlines as soon as its discovery was announced in April of 2006. Unearthed in Arctic Canada by a team of researchers led by Neil Shubin, Edward Daeschler, and Farish Jenkins, Tiktaalik is technically a fish, complete with scales and gills — but it has the flattened head of a crocodile and unusual fins. Its fins have thin ray bones for paddling like most fishes', but they also have sturdy interior bones that would have allowed Tiktaalik to prop itself up in shallow water and use its limbs for support as most four-legged animals do. Those fins and a suite of other characteristics set Tiktaalik apart as something special; it has a combination of features that show the evolutionary transition between swimming fish and their descendents, the four-legged vertebrates — a clade which includes amphibians, dinosaurs, birds, mammals

So its technically a fish eh ? But it's head looks kinda like a crocodile according to some ? Ho hum. I know a fish whose head looks kinda like a horse . Ever heard of a seahorse ? Wonder if the early equines were aquatic ?

By the by.... a bat looks kinda like both a mouse and a bird ? So I guess by that ( cough cough ) logic, bats must be a transitional species somewhere between mice and chickadees huh ?

Marsupial wolves actually look a helluva a lot like wolves, can we therefore conclude by the same ( cough cough ) logic...that wolves and marsupial wolves are closely related in some pseudo-scientific/ Darwinian ‘ phylogenetic family tree’ ? If so , we would have about as good an argument as Darwinists do vis a vis Tiktaalik...Sound like a ' croc of **** to me

Any evolutionary biologist can smugly/ arbitrarily claim :

' Those fins and a suite of other characteristics set Tiktaalik apart as something special; it has a combination of features that SHOW the evolutionary transition between swimming fish and their descendents, the four-legged vertebrates ?

We know little or nothing about how ' Tiktaalik' lived....and absolutely nothing about its descendents....What if these creatures' and its descendents never even ventured near shallow water ( except when their bones were deposited there ) much less ever purposefully ventured onto land ? What if Tiktookik has absolutely NO Darwinian/ familial connection to four-legged vertebrates/ land animals at all ?

***
Nothing... I repeat NOTHING's been demonstrably proven true here ? We still do NOT know if four-legged vertebrates even evolved from fish, much less evolved in Darwinian fashion.

***

...BUT... Even assuming those scientists claims about how Tiktaalik moved in shallow water are correct , Many fish to this day use their fins much like feet in shallow water and some even move about on land in this fashion ( mud skippers for example ) that still doesn’t make mudskippers ' transitional species' somewhere between fish and land animals.

Really, was evolution Darwinian ? Or was it by design ? To this day...No one can prove either way...so we're still at square one

***
Let’s consider the frog ? Tadpoles have both gills and fins ? But these later become feet and lungs ? Is this evolutionary transition Darwinian in nature/ driven by random mutations ? Are tadpoles a ' transitional species ' ? Hardly....

tadpoles evolve from an aquatic creature, to one able to move about and breathe on land in a single life cycle. This happens , very much like clockwork. Doesn't sound random/ DarWinian...Sounds more like ID to me

To reiterate : Just because some evolutionary biologists says he’s found a transitional species which must be related to this or that .... doesn’t mean he's spouting pure gospel...might just as easily be PURE NONSENSE !

***

Show me a single ‘ phylogenetic family tree’ which has been drawn/ firmly established beyond repute ? ( Good luck with that

When it comes to those rather spurious Darwinian family trees/ transitional species...Even ' evolutionary biologists' never agree...Why ? Cause It's ALL just conjecture

Evolutionary biology is pseudoscience NOT SCIENCE ...END OF STOREY

 

[ChristineES]

I learned a long time ago not to argue The Theory of Evolution with people. I love science but I think from the little I studied about it, that it is full of holes. No one knows anything in the past for sure and there would be no way of knowing unless someone traveled in time to see it happen. People who believe totally in evolution seem to be so sure that they are right they seem no different to me than someone with very strong religious beliefs. It is a fruitless exercise to argue about it since it will always end up in a stalemate.

 

[Valjean]

Convergent evolution always produces similar designs to suite similar environmental conditions, Hela, no matter what the original was like.
Biology takes this into consideration and focuses on serial alterations in common anatomical structures.

 

[Valjean]

I learned a long time ago not to argue The Theory of Evolution with people. I love science but I think from the little I studied about it, that it is full of holes. No one knows anything in the past for sure and there would be no way of knowing unless someone traveled in time to see it happen. People who believe totally in evolution seem to be so sure that they are right they seem no different to me than someone with very strong religious beliefs. It is a fruitless exercise to argue about it since it will always end up in a stalemate.

Study it some more. You might fill in some of the holes.
A great deal more is known than the general public is aware of.

 

[Hela cells/lab pandemic]

Seyorni :

Darwin maintained that offspring in a single brood were not identical. He believed that those individuals in a brood/litter that chanced to have more beneficial characteristics, given the existing environment, would fare better. He speculated that these individuals that chanced to be born better adapted to the current environment might produce more offspring than their litter/nest mates. He concluded that the superior reproductive success of those with more adaptive traits would result in an increased incidence of these traits in the general population.

Why is any of this hard to understand or controversial?

Darwin did not invent the notion of natural selection...and even creationists would agree that the more fit a creature is , the more likely it will survive/ reproduce...BUT Darwin went on to claim that simple Natural Selection would suffice to give rise to completely novel species...that's where the controversy arises.

"

The mystery is not the Survival... rather the arrival of the fittest

'

Btw Darwin vacillated between atheism and belief in well ... I dont know what exactly, ( a godlike order/ organizer perhaps ?) ..There were likewise times when Darwin privately expressed disbelief in his own theory. He did so in letters to a colleague ( believe his name was Asa Grey ) but no time to check just now...

Gotta evolve/ fly

 

[Hela cells/lab pandemic]

Study it ( Darwinian evolution ) some more. You might fill in some of the holes.
A great deal more is known than the general public is aware of.

Au contraire THERE ARE A GREAT MANY MORE HOLES in evolutionary biologists supposedly neatly drawn phylogenetic family trees than the public is aware of...nothing but holes in fact

Seyorni :

Convergent evolution ALWAYS produces similar designs to suite similar environmental conditions

Always ? I think your spouting nonsense...BTW convergent evolution might also be explained by informational/ intelligence fields underpinning all of fleshly creation/ the cosmos...Rupert Sheldrake said something similar if memory seves...( see Morphic fields ) Think about the way that a single cell divides and differentiates to eventually become a human infant...Seems to be some very mysterious organizing principle/force at work here...which science can't begin to explain...Omniscience perhaps ?

***

And for the record, the environments of Australia/ Tasmania etc...don't much resemble the rest of the globe... You'd never mistake a kangaroo for a cow either , though they both thrive on grass...

 

[camanintx]

Show me a single ‘ phylogenetic family tree’ which has been drawn/ firmly established beyond repute ? ( Good luck with that

Since only a fraction of all organisms that have ever existed get fossilized and we have found only a minute fraction of the fossils that may exist, the fact that we can even draw phylogenetic trees, whether they are beyond repute or not, is itself evidence of evolution.

If all life was created in it's existing form then how can there be so much convergence in the fossils we have found? Can Creationism explain why creatures as diverse as whales and cows share so many similarities?

 

[Smoke]

I've read references to "other theories of evolution" indicating that Darwinian evolution actually has legitimate challengers. Does anyone know what these other theories might be? Does punctuated equilibrium qualify?

Punctuated equilibrium is a view about the rate at which organisms evolve, but it doesn't conflict at all with natural selection. I've read Gould, and I've read his detractors, and I've read his defenders, and honestly, I can't figure out where Eldredge and Gould have anything all that dramatic or convincing to say. Their view is still gradualist; they don't believe, for instance, that one day Homo erectus women started giving birth to Homo sapiens children. I think they're notorious chiefly because they were perceived as contradicting Darwin, but I don't think they do contradict him in any important way.

Bear in mind that natural selection and sexual selection are practically tautologies; there is no doubt at all that both occur. What Creationists really object to is the idea of speciation, that over time different species can develop from the same "parent" species. Of course, that's obvious, too, so they have to content themselves with muttering about "kinds," which they rarely define and which they never define in any coherent or convincing way.

Darwin was not an atheist. (I know this is off-topic but I felt moved to write it)

He was an agnostic.

 

[camanintx]

And for the record, the environments of Australia/ Tasmania etc...don't much resemble the rest of the globe... You'd never mistake a kangaroo for a cow either , though they both thrive on grass...

Only you would think that phylogeny can be based solely on dietary habits. If you are interested in the phylogeny of kangaroos, can I suggest a more detailed analysis.

 

[Storm]

Punctuated equilibrium is a view about the rate at which organisms evolve, but it doesn't conflict at all with natural selection. I've read Gould, and I've read his detractors, and I've read his defenders, and honestly, I can't figure out where Eldredge and Gould have anything all that dramatic or convincing to say. Their view is still gradualist; they don't believe, for instance, that one day Homo erectus women started giving birth to Homo sapiens children. I think they're notorious chiefly because they were perceived as contradicting Darwin, but I don't think they do contradict him in any important way.

Bear in mind that natural selection and sexual selection are practically tautologies; there is no doubt at all that both occur. What Creationists really object to is the idea of speciation, that over time different species can develop from the same "parent" species. Of course, that's obvious, too, so they have to content themselves with muttering about "kinds," which they rarely define and which they never define in any coherent or convincing way.

Thank you, Midnight. FTR, the references to alternative theories of evolution implied legitimate scientific theories, not creation "science." Unfortunately, they failed to mention what the alternatives were, and it's been nagging at me ever since.

 

[Random]

A great deal more is known than the general public is aware of.

Oh? Like what? How do YOU know?

 

[yossarian22]

What the hell have they said that is true? Who the hell knows?

They have offered a metric ton of accurate predictions based off their model. That's a helluvalot more than creationism or intelligent design has ever done.

 

[crystalonyx]

Evolution is just as "hard" a science as physics or chenistry, with as much evidence backing its theories as the aforementioned. To place evolution in some kind of scientific limbo is absurd.