Nat

"Well, it isn't at all likely that my dog:

...
-- receives/gives love"

You sure you've actually ever had a dog? The best examples of unconditional love I have ever seen is between dogs and their human families.

pangloss

I don't know, maybe Rousseau should ask chimps and other animals that have the ability to 'reason' yet cannot engage in 'language'...

Oh - were you going to supply some of the uncontrived, etc. evidence FOR creation at some point?

pangloss

Creationists love math, so would mathematical deductions do?

"Natural Seletion as the process of accumulating genetic information in adaptive evolution." 1961. Kimura, M. Genetical Research 2: 127-40.

A few pertinent quotes:

"...natural selection is a mechanism by which new genetic information can be created. Indeed, this is the only mechanism known in natural science which can create it."

"It may be pertinent to note here that the remarkable property of natural selection in realizing events which otherwise can occur only with infinitisimal probability was first grasped by Muller (1929)."

"It was estimated (in this paper) that the total amount of genetic iinformation accumulated since the beginning of the Cambrian epoch (500 million years) may be of the order of 10^8 bits, if evolution has proceeded at the standard rate."


Since 'complexity' requires new information, according to creationists, it would appear that the conundrum of 'Where did the new information come from?' has been addressed and brushed aside or garbled and covered-up by anti-evolutionists.

[ August 29, 2002: Message edited by: pangloss ]</p>

Jack the Bodiless

I really don't see why so many creationists think this is a problem. It's very basic stuff: random mutation creates variation, then natural selection operates to eliminate harmful variations and propagate beneficial ones.

The only explanation I can think of for raising this issue is a mental short-circuit caused by religious faith. "Because evolution is false", this process does not happen, therefore there's some sort of problem here for evolutionists.
Evolution by random mutation and natural selection is the EXPLANATION.

However:
Is this a shift of position? No longer asking for an explanation, but asking for evidence instead?

The evidence includes (among other things) observation of evolution in action, evidence of the common descent of organisms from shared ancestors in the past (fossils, genetic similarities, structural similarities), the correlation of observed mutation rates with the observed extent of difference between species to estimate the time of divergence (and correlating that with the model of the "Tree of Life" from the fossil record), and so forth.

What, exactly, is the phenomenon for which evidence is requested? The fact of evolution, or the fact of common descent?

MrDarwin

I don't know about best evidence, but here's an example from my own research while I was in grad school:

I was studying the relationship of a rather odd species of plant in genus X to another group of plants in genus Z. They occur in the same area and it seemed that they were related; however, species A, the only member of genus X, is bat-pollinated, with large greenish flowers with purplish speckles, and an odd fragrance. The flowers open in the evening. But it seemed to be related to genus Z, represented in my research by species B, except that species of genus Z are hummingbird-pollinated, and have smaller tubular red or orange flowers, without any fragrance; the flowers open in the morning. No intermediates are known between species A and species B. They also bloom at different times of the year.

As part of my studies, I crossed these two species and got hybrid seedlings. The hybrids were perfectly intermediate--except that now they was not optimally adapted for either bat or hummingbird polliation (the flowers were too long to fit a hummingbird's bill, and too narrow for a bat to fit its head into.) It even flowered in between the times that the parents flowered.

Interestingly enough, the hybrids were fertile, and the characteristics in question segregated in a predictable Mendelian fashion. (In part due to my research, another botanist later placed species A into the other genus.)

My research showed that the differences between the species were genetic (and in fact were due to a fairly small number of genes). Because it has already well documented by geneticists and plant breeders that random mutations occur in plants that can change the size, shape, and color of flowers, as well as when they bloom, the simplest explanation is that the genetic differences between these species had arisen by mutation, resulting in two different species from a common ancestor, which no longer interbred because they had different pollinators and flowered at different times of the year.

Now, how would you explain my observations?

Valentine Pontifex

Vanderzyden's answer can be reworked in a much more concise way:

He will accept evolution when evolutionists can explain everything about biological world.

In other words there is no evidence that will convince him. We cannot demonstrate the existance of electrons, protrons, and neutrons by the standard he asks for evolution.

If it looks like a duck, flies like a duck, quacks like a duck, but one cannot explain everything about the duck then it is a cat!
(With apologies to <a href="http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/countries/us/synops/022.html" target="_blank">Londo Mollari and Vir Cotto</a>.)

MrDarwin

Was it randman who, when asked what kind of evidence he would accept for evolution, replied: convincing evidence?

RufusAtticus

Evolution is science, as such it's accuracy cannot be determined by emotion, philosophy, politics, or religion.

Jack the Bodiless

I wonder if he applies this consistently?

Vanderzyden, here is a new challenge for you:

Please refute, by the use of non-scientific disciplines only, the theory that the Earth is flat.

I am particularly interested in your philosophical justification that the Earth is spherical.

MrDarwin

I really need to stop killing these threads by posting actual data from the real world.