hezekiah jones

Radorth:
"I was challenged, baited really, on a number of occasions to show what I have just shown."

What have you shown? That the combination of your two quotations represents the failure of evolution? Are you serious?

Oh - and do you actually think there is such a thing as "creation theory"?

Doubting Didymus

If that is what you were trying to show, then you have failed. What you have demonstrated is simply that Darwin did not get everything right the first time, and was frequently wrong.

This is not exactly news. There are no scientists who have never been wrong, and if there were, I would expect that they would be found to be partly wrong at some point in the future. That is how science works. There are a great many things that darwin wrote in his books that were glaring errors. This is GOOD NEWS. It means that, where once science was wrong, it has now moved closer to the truth.

Showing that Darwin was wrong does not refute evolution today, any more than showing that Newton got his maths wrong disproves gravity. All it means it that we know more today than we did two centuries ago. Surprise!

Monkeybot

Radorth,

I notice you took one line out of my post and expanded upon it. However, I do not think you were addressing the substance of my point, which was the PROCESS by which evolutionary theory has come to be. It is markedly different from what you call a "leap of faith."

What on earth are you talking about? Is this what you believe the sum total of the evidence is?

You're talking about abiogenesis, a distinctly different animal from evolution.

abiogenesis =! evolution.

Whether or not evolutionists speculate about origins has zilch to do with the correctness of evolutionary theory itself.

"Darwin's theory"? We can not only assume that Darwin was not 100% correct on everything, we can demonstrate it. This is not unremarkable. Others have noted that scientific theories are regularly revised, and Darwin is no exception to the rule. What is exceptional about Darwin was that he had no inkling of Mendel's theories on genetics, and yet, Mendel's totally independent work helped to buttress and further explain evolutionary theory. Even more remarkable was the fact that Alfred Russel Wallace, working in Indonesia, independently hit upon natural selection as a method by which new species emerged.

In other words -- no serious student of evolutionary theory would claim that Darwin was 100% correct about everything. In fact, I don't think anybody would claim that about any scientist. However, the main thrust of his ideas have stood the test of time. That's what's important, not the man who first published them.

GunnerJ

DNFTT.

Doubting Didymus

Overruled. Feed away.

pz

Yeah. How else will we get them fattened up and ripe?

Jobar

Radorth appears to be unable to see that something can be true without being True. We tell him over and over that evolutionary theory, like all other sciences, is always open to refinement, not some ultimate, absolute and unchanging perfection.

Look at it this way.
All men sometimes make mistakes.
Charles Darwin was a man.
Therefore, Charles Darwin sometimes made mistakes.

Radorth, you keep trying to make it appear that we view evolutionary theory as some sort of Scripture. How many times do we have to tell you, science is NOT absolute truth- it is a method by which we may *approach* such truth, by correcting any errors our theories contain. Over time, our knowledge may approach truth as a hyperbola approaches its asymptote, but it will never *quite* be perfect.

I for one am glad of this, as it means there will always be something new to discover.

pz

I would also add that some phenomena are so complex and so diverse that they cannot be encapsulated in a single, short, hard and fast rule. That's the case with biological evolution. Every species has its own unique history: some exhibit a pattern of gradual change, others zig and zag more abruptly. That one species follows one pattern and another follows some other pattern is not a demonstration of a contradiction.

lpetrich

And if the major features of Earth organisms are the result of design, then the logical conclusion is that multiple designers had been at work.

The multiple-design inference is often made about various human artifacts, such as who wrote this or that sample of handwriting.

So why do all the "Intelligent Design" theorists go blank all of a sudden when that is pointed out to them?

And I wonder how Radorth explains:

Biogeography. A designer that can create giant turtles and giant birds for some oceanic islands can surely also create giant rats for some such islands. But none have ever been known to exist. Why?

Predator-prey relationships. Predators have adaptations for finding and catching prey, while prey have adaptations for avoiding and resisting predators. This suggests a serious case of cross purposes.

Why molecular family trees so often agree with family trees found by traditional means.

Darwin's Beagle

Rad==
What is my point? Is there a reading comprehension problem here?

Rad==
quote from post by DB
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What Gould in his _Structure of Evolutionary Theory_ went through great pains to make clear is that stasis in the fossil record is data just as important as change. What the fossil record shows is that for a typical species there will be a prolonged period in which there is relatively little change, then in A SINGLE BEDDING PLANE, that species will go extinct and other very similar ones appear. Given the fact that a SINGLE BEDDING PLANE covers a period of time lasting THOUSANDS OF YEARS,
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You and Gould didn't read this apparently:


quote
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With one exception (gradual dwarfing in the oreodont Miniochoerus), we found that all of the Badlands mammals were static through millions of years,
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DB=
Yes, there is evidently a reading comprehension problem. It seems to lie with you. Let me lay it out for you more specifically.

Here again is my statement:

What Gould in his _Structure of Evolutionary Theory_ went through great pains to make clear is that stasis in the fossil record is data just as important as change. What the fossil record shows is that for a typical species there will be a prolonged period in which there is relatively little change, then in A SINGLE BEDDING PLANE, that species will go extinct and other very similar ones appear. Given the fact that a SINGLE BEDDING PLANE covers a period of time lasting THOUSANDS OF YEARS, which theory do you think the evidence supports better, descent with modification (ie evolutionary theory), or special creation?

You implied both Gould and I were wrong because "With one exception (gradual dwarfing in the oreodont Miniochoerus), we found that all of the Badlands mammals were static through millions of years, "

Er... THAT is the PROLONGED PERIOD IN WHICH THERE IS RELATIVELY LITTLE CHANGE. Your quote does not address the period of rapid speciation. Again the rapid speciation occurs within a single bedding plane that covers a period of thousands of years.

Rad==

quoting another post:

Evolutionary theory is based on reason and heaps of evidence

Rad==
Yeah, some large fireweed and some fish that cannot be got to mate with their evolutionary ancestors, we are told. That does not prove that some chemicals accidently mixed to make pond scum which became fish, mammals, etc.

DB=
You do realize this comes across as incoherent blithering ranting, don't you?

Rad==
They [evolutionists] are basically using lousy evidence to deny the possibility of creation, or creation plus evolution, and thus God.

DB=
This will come as a great surprise to Kenneth Miller, a devout catholic and an evolutionist.

Rad==
This is why they believe all sorts of unproven nonsense, and call pig's teeth "evidence." A true skeptic would say we don't know a damn thing.

DB=
Pig teeth ?? Are you trying to make reference to Nebraska Man. If so please show me where modern evolutionist use Nebraska Man for evidence supporting evolution. The fact is, if a true _Homo erectus_ fossil happened to be unearthed in North America, it would be a PROBLEM for evolutionary theory, not support.

A true skeptic MIGHT say we don't know a damn thing, only if that skeptic insists he's not sure whether he has a nose on his face.

Here is a brief list of data that most rational people find support descent with modification sufficiently strongly to reach a level approaching certainty:

FOSSIL RECORD
Most ancient fossils are bacteria dated to 3.5 billion years ago. These are fossilized bacteria-like cells. There is controversial evidence that the earliest life may have arisen 3.85 billion years ago.

The first single-celled eukaryotic (non-bacteria-like) fossils date back 2.1 billion years ago.

Evidence for multicellular life date back about 1.2 billion years ago. This consists of fossilized burrows of worm-like creatures.

About 650 million years ago there is a period of rapid evolution and the oldest fossils of multicellular sea-dwelling organisms appear.

About 450 million years ago sharks rule

About 400 million years ago fish-like amphibians appear.

About 300 million years ago primitive reptiles make their first appearance.

About 225 million years ago dinosaurs and mammal-like reptiles appear

Birds evolve about 150 million years ago.

Dinosaurs dominate the land animals but many species come into and out of existence until 65 million years ago when they all disappear.

This apparently opens up the door for mammals who flourish until present time.

COMPARATIVE ANATOMY

There are certain structures that show striking resemblance in form that is unrelated to their function. Among these are the bone sructure of the forelimb of humans, wolves, bats, birds, and seals. They all have a demonstrable humerus, radius, ulna, carpals, and phalange-like bones, yet the forelimb is used as an arm in humans, a leg in wolves, a wing in bats and birds, and a paddle in seals.

There are other structures that make sense ONLY as left-over remenants of descent with modification. Such structures include the haltere's of dipteran insects (ie, flies) which are structurally miniature wings incapable of adding lift and are either functionless or in some cases act as counter-balances to the beat of the forewing. Another example is the Panda's thumb. It is a enlarged wrist bone, not a phalange, like the thumb of humans and other apes.

EMBRYOLOGY

The development of many animals include structures that make sense ONLY as left-over remenants of descent with modification. These include gill slits in mammalian embryos, the notochord in most vertebrates, fetal teeth in baleenopteran whales.

MOLECULAR BIOLOGY

The close correlation between the similarity in structure of proteins and the DNA sequence of organisms and the relatedness of the organisms as determined by other means is highly significant. Then the presence of pseudo-genes makes sense ONLY as left over remenants of descent with modification.

And that is only a smattering of what we know. It is sufficient to convince the vast majority of people of the validity of descent with modification. I think it should convince EVERYBODY who looks at the data fairly.

There are some controversies in evolutionary theory. These controversies generally lie with the mechanism behind descent with modification. And there everyone agrees that the Darwinian mechanism of NATURAL SELECTION is VERY important. The controversy lies with exactly HOW important, and what OTHER mechanisms and what is their relative importance.

Regards

DB

Regards