yguy

Your source for this information, please.

Oolon Colluphid

Wrong way round, old chap.

There is plenty of evidence for human evolution, that we are but a twig on the immense bush of life. (Just ask, if you doubt this!) Therefore, there was not a ‘first man and woman’, because there was no point at which these cumulative generation-to-generation changes produced ‘men and women’. If there were an Adam, he had a mum and dad, and they were the same species as he was. (Was Adam H sapiens? Archaic or more modern? H ergaster? H habilis? A afarensis? One could argue that Adam should be called Luca! )

So unless just a pair of hominids found themselves on an island somewhere, and bred for long enough to produce a separate species, we’re talking an interbreeding population, or populations, right down the line. And even then, these isolated individuals were originally members of another species. Thus, no ‘Adam and Eve’.

On top of this, there are plenty of myths involving ‘first people’.

So, there is no reason to think that Adam and Eve were real people -- were anything other than mythical. Therefore, you have it the wrong way around. It is up to you to demonstrate that there really was an Adam and an Eve.

TTFN, DT

Oolon Colluphid

Well, there wasn’t an Adam and an Eve. There was, however, a long line of hominids, hominoids, primates, mammals, vertebrates, chordates... eukaryotes... things that use DNA. Which one’s Adam? And how do you presume to know anything about his physiology?
No, not predictably at all, you little Lamarckian you!

Care to explain how the fall managed to invert the human retina -- to little obvious disadvantage! -- did so in all vertebrates as well, but didn’t affect cephalopods?

Wanna tell us how the fall re-routed the laryngeal nerve under the aorta -- again, to no noticeable disadvantage to its owners?

Why might the fall give us a coccyx?

TTFN, DT

yguy

That there are mountains of empirical data I don't question. It has yet to be demonstrated that this data supports the idea that man evolved from ape-like creatures, or that one species can evolve into another. Macroevolution has never been observed. Mutations are almost always degenerative, and offspring from inter-species pairings almost always sterile.

Of course that would be the easy part anyway. The hard part is explaining the appearance of bisexual reproduction.

No it isn't, because I have made no assertion here to that effect. Ipetrich HAS made an assertion to the contrary, and he has no way to back it up.

KnightWhoSaysNi

yguy, have you had a chance to read this post in the forum yet? It provides overwhelming evidence that humans and chimps shared a common ancestor. As Winace puts it, it's a "truly powerful and damning smoking gun."

We would all be extremely impressed if you think you can refute the evidence or provide an alternative explanation that's superior to common ancestry.

Mageth

The hard part is explaining the appearance of bisexual reproduction.

That's not that hard to explain. Bisexuals swing both ways, after all.

(I think the term you were looking for was sexual reproduction).

Oolon Colluphid

No, “it has yet to be demonstrated to you...”. The mountains of empirical data all support the idea. I conclude therefore, either that while you know of the data’s existence you have no idea what the data is; or else that you do have some idea about it, but that nothing you could ever be shown would sway you from your beliefs. If the former, we’ll happily oblige, and explain anything you want. If the latter, why should we waste our time?
This is simply not true. Speciation has been observed, as even AiG admit: “In fact, rapid speciation is an important part of the creation model” (in their Arguments we think creationists should NOT use). So perhaps you could tell us what exactly a ‘kind’ is, so we can try to see if they really are immutable.
Can you even define it?

Macroevolution, insofar as the term is useful ( @ DD), is a long-term process, so it is unreasonable to expect to see it happen in your garden or whatever. But just suppose, for a moment, that evolution is correct. What would we be able to observe, do you think? What might we find in organisms’ genes, say, or the fossil record, if evolution is right? Might we find shared homologies, defunct genes, and fossils with characteristics intermediate between (now) separate groups?

Is that not a reasonable expectation? Because that’s just what we do find. Other than as a result of evolution, why might birds have non-functioning genes for making teeth and complete fibulas with separate tarsals, which no bird has, but which evolution suggests their ancestors had? Why teeth genes if you don’t have teeth?

Yep. Almost always. But there’s a bugger of a lot of them. And even a tiny percentage of a very large number is a significant number too -- it ain’t zero, that’s for sure. And natural selection works by only keeping any improvement, not all the cock-ups.
I’m not sure I understand this point. That is exactly what evolution predicts, in fact it is the main bit of one of the most common definitions of ‘species’! What’s strange is that interspecific hybrids are possible at all. Oh, and they’re not always sterile: leopons and ligers can be perfectly fertile.

There is in nature, as evolution predicts, a continuum ranging from completely interbreeding populations through gradual separation (development -- evolution, in fact -- of reproductive barriers) into local variations, races, subspecies, closely-related species that can still interbreed with varying degrees of success, to fully, utterly and completely separate species. The funny thing is, where hybrids are possible at all, it is between species thought to be closely related. You will get nothing from a sheep-lion cross, but you can get healthy offspring from sheep-goat hybrids, and from lion-tiger hybrids. Why should that be?
Nice try pal. The assertion that there was no Adam and Eve has been backed up, by reference to the fact of evolution. Because of evolution, it is not possible that there was an Adam and Eve. Why are you arguing about evolution with me, if not disputing my backing up of the assertion?!

Therefore:

(a) demonstrate that there actually was an Adam

or

(b) demonstrate that the ‘mountains of evidence’ do not demonstrate evolution (you could start by demonstrating that you know what the mountains contain!)

or

(c) retract these nonsensical assertions.

TTFN, Oolon

Principia

So, your point is?

I guess it is also pretty safe to say that no one in recent days has observed either your God or his Son.

EDIT: can't use no double negatives.

BioBeing

Does God, then, lack the attributes of intelligent design? I mean, if WE are so improbable that we must have been designed, how is it that God was not designed? Who designed God? And who designed the superGod who designed God? Why not worship the superGod. But then, he must have had a designer too... And so it goes.

yguy

Oh, please. It has yet to be demonstrated to some on this board who likely consider evolution an accomplished fact that anything can be known with absolute certainty. Somehow all that circumspect groveling before the Probability Boogeyman turns into fanatical, fundyish certainty when this becomes the topic for debate.

You don't know that. YOu only know that lots of people think it does. You haven't done the research yourself, but have put your faith in the accuracy of the perceptions of those who have.

Why should it? Should Copernicus have accepted all the evidence that abounded for th Ptolomaic system?

Up to you, cowboy.

Thank you, I stand corrected on that point.

We know that, while lions can interbreed with tigers, even if such pairings do bear fertile offspring occasionally, it evidently doesn't happen often enough to keep the new species viable. Therefore, I would define a "kind" as X such that if X breeds with Y, any offspring are too few to sustain the species. From this it follows that to prove conclusively that X has evolved into Y, it must be shown that a pairing results in offspring incapable of sustaining themselves as a species over time; AND, of course, that Y is a direct descendant of X. Now I can already hear you complaining that this is an impossible standard to meet, but I don't see how else it can be shown to be substantially correct in the same sense that Newton's laws have been.

Why NOT teeth genes if you don't have teeth? Why do we have a coccyx that isn't good for anything? A design flaw?

The Probability Boogeyman's gonna getcha for that blaspemy.

Which means that it hasn't been backed up at all, because evolution is not a proven fact, except to its adherents in the same sense that to thumpers it's a proven fact that everything was created in six days.

Finally, let me add that even if one "kind" can evolve into another, my main objection is the idea tha Man evolved from lower primates, as the proclivities of Homo Sapiens have been at least as devolutionary as they have been evolutionary. There are still cultures extant which have yet to invent the wheel, because they are enmeshed in their environment the way animals are. If they share a common ancestry with Einstein and Newton, how is it that they appear to lack this creative spark? How is it that during the Renaissnce, there were cultures in which ritual cannabalism was taken for granted? How is it that Holland, after nurturing its own degeneracy for decades, is in danger of coming under sharia law?