How many times must we argue the same EvC thread over and over? Especially since we keep saying the same damned things? How many threads must we do this in before we all decide that continuing the argument has no purpose since:
1) Aegeri knows way more than any creationist who has yet posted and has repeatedly demostrated it by pwning their arguments.
<!--QuoteBegin--Epidemic+Oct 15 2003, 05:11 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Epidemic @ Oct 15 2003, 05:11 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> I did some google searching on toenails. About all I can come up with is XXX fetish sites, lots of stuff on ingrown toenails, and lots of stuff on foot fungi. Yummy.
EpidemicDark Force GorgeJoin Date: 2003-06-29Member: 17781Members
Yeah, you dont associate toenails with sex but that doesnt write them off as not being a part of the sexual selectiion. Toenails can be very sharp, and if you kick hard enough, you can make someone bleed <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->
<!--QuoteBegin--Z.X. Bogglesteinsky+Oct 15 2003, 05:28 AM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Z.X. Bogglesteinsky @ Oct 15 2003, 05:28 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Puctuated Equilibrium does not remove the need for transitional fossils, it simply explain why they might not be found. It must be the only scientific theory that explains why evidence for it cannot be found. It is still, however, only a theory that some random guy thought up in the 1970's <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> I had to go read up a little on this, but it looks like "punctuated equilibrium" is just a term for the trends in evolution that we see with advancement happening in sudden jumps.
It is in fact backed up by evidence. Here's a quote from the site I found that explains it.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->PE sometimes is claimed to be a theory resting upon the lack of evidence rather than upon evidence. This is a curious, but false claim, since Eldredge and Gould spent a significant portion of their original work examining two separate lines of evidence (one involving pulmonate gastropods, the other one involving Phacopsid trilobites) demonstrating the issues behind PE (1972). Similarly, discussion of actual paleontological evidence consumes a significant proportion of pages in Gould and Eldredge 1977. This also answers those who claimed that E&G said that PE was unverifiable.
PE is essentially and exclusively directed to questions at the level of speciation and processes affecting species. The basis of PE is the neontological theory of peripatric speciation. The criteria by which "punctuations" are recognized by Gould and Eldredge involve temporal issues and geographic issues. PE is not expected to be as useful at lower or higher levels of change. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
(source - <a href='http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/punc-eq.html#errors' target='_blank'>http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/punc-eq.html#errors</a> . I don't claim to have read Eldredge and Gould ("some random guy"), but I imagine that if you wanted to dispute what the above quote says, you'd have to go dig up the original work.)
I'll also note, as always, that there is some experimental evidence backing this stuff up in the form of computer simulation, and the results you see in the simulation are easily explainable. (I refer here to Genesaver - <a href='http://www.leadtogold.com/software/genesaver/index2.html' target='_blank'>http://www.leadtogold.com/software/genesav...ver/index2.html</a> .) In this particular simulation, evolution almost always happens in sudden leaps and bounds, because it takes a lot of time for the one lucky gene to emerge that happens to do something useful. It might take hours, but once that gene shows up, BANG - those that have it overwhelm those that don't in a matter of minutes. You also see speciation (hope I'm using the word right here) fairly quickly because creatures tend to diverge in order to fill different evolutionary gaps, and it doesn't take long for them to be sufficiently different that their offspring isn't viable. (In Genesaver, two creatures of the same color can technically always reproduce; however, herbivore-carnivore pairings never yield anything useful that I've seen, because their neural nets are wired for different goals and don't complement each other at all.)
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->beetles dont fossilse you fool, they get trapped in amber. Their exoskeleton might be preserved in mud though.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That was my point boggle, perhaps before shouting 'fool' you should make sure you actually understand the point I was making first.
Considering your complete ignorance about this I don't think you have the right to call anyone a fool. And incidently, getting trapped in amber is actually pretty rare, most insect fossils are in fact imprints or impressions. Again, who is the fool boggle?
I'm thinking of just ignoring you, it seems you never learn anything and usually fail to contribute anything of worth to these threads. If you want to make pointless arguments like you have been, expect people to just ignore you in these debates.
<!--QuoteBegin--Aegeri+Oct 15 2003, 07:25 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Aegeri @ Oct 15 2003, 07:25 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> <!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->beetles dont fossilse you fool, they get trapped in amber. Their exoskeleton might be preserved in mud though.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That was my point boggle, perhaps before shouting 'fool' you should make sure you actually understand the point I was making first.
Considering your complete ignorance about this I don't think you have the right to call anyone a fool.
And incidently, getting trapped in amber is actually pretty rare, most insect fossils are in fact imprints or impressions. Again, who is the fool boggle?
I'm thinking of just ignoring you boggle, you never learn anything and usually never contribute anything of worth to these threads. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I just can't stand people who argue in circles, arguments should be Argument A, Counterpoint B, Supportive Point B Counterpoint C. Not Argument A, Counterpoint B, Argument A, Counterpoint C, Argument A, other person asks if the person propounding Argument A is on drugs and leaves in frustration.
Creationists like to look upon the universe like a pocket watch.
Suppose you walk down the beach and find a pocket watch laying on the beach amongst the sand. You open it up and look at all its many pieces and components. While it may be possible for all these components to "accidentally" come together, it is much more likely to think it was created. Such is the way with the universe. Such an elaborate design cannot possibly be accidentally created. The moon, the stars, the sun, the life on earth.. all must be part of some plan, right?
However, I assure you, the universe is not a pocket watch. The only reason we know the pocket watch is assembled by someone else is because we have something to reference it to. The universe can't possibly be compared to anything else since this is all we know. As tempting as it is to ball up everything unknown together and say it was created by God, it is about as folly as assuming the gods were angry when a lightning storm came around in the stone age.
I've always viewed the whole universe thingy more like having a bottomless bag of cats-eye marbles of almost unlimited type. Ours is like a specific pattern of cats-eye; if you keep looking through the endless pile you'd eventually find one. It's intricate, it fits within very tight guidelines, but in such a large array of possibilities it was bound to come up and if you keep looking you might find even more <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
Creation of the universe has almost nothign to do with emergence of new species. Don't confuse creationists with theists, and don't confuse evolutionists with atheists. I can very easily believe that the universe at large was created and is guided in some fashion by some larger power, but that's a far cry from saying that life on our planet is essentially static (unevolving).
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Don't confuse creationists with theists<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Um, isn't it a prerequisite that you have to be a thiest to believe in creationism? I mean the premise is that you believe God created humans as they are without evolution. How can you believe that and not believe in God?
coilAmateur pirate. Professional monkey. All pance.Join Date: 2002-04-12Member: 424Members, NS1 Playtester, Contributor
edited October 2003
Proof of evolution? I'll just copy/paste what I wrote in the last E/C thread, though it didn't appear to have changed anyone's mind. Not that I expect to. /: Minor adjustments, mostly the same. Quoted questions are from Boggle.
<i>Example 1:</i> The peppered moth, native to Great Britain, is white with black spots and well camouflaged against lichens (a dominant feature of its natural habitat). Around the Industrial Revolution, a new subspecies began appearing primarily in areas downwind of coal-burning factories. Within about 50 years, this subspecies - with dark gray or black coloration - comprised 98% of the peppered moth population in Great Britain. They were most prevalent in industrial areas, while the original white-and-black subspecies could still be found in more rural areas.
Cleaner-burning modern-day fuels and Clean Air laws have lessened the amount of soot in urban Britain, and the prevalence of the dark peppered moth subspecies has declined as well (some scientists believe it may be completely gone in a few decades). [<a href='http://www.millerandlevine.com/km/evol/Moths/moths.html' target='_blank'>source</a> for previous example]
Changes in environment like this are the driving force of natural selection and evolution: the more fit animal survives and reproduces, and the species changes. This particular example isn't evidence for speciation, but it *is* evidence for the alteration of a species over time.
<i>Example 2:</i> Species of animal are differentiated by the fact that two animals of different species cannot produce fertile offspring (and generally cannot produce offspring at all). All variety of domestic dog are a single species, and can theoretically produce viable offspring (we won't talk about a great dane father and chihuahua mother - physical and genetic limitations are different). Conversely, a horse and a donkey can breed, but their offspring is a mule, which is infertile. Attempting to cross a horse and, say, a cow, would result in no offspring at all.
Sub-species are defined as two fairly distinct, frequestly geographically separate groups of animals that can nevertheless reproduce together. They are in essense a "midpoint" between a single species and two discreet species. I forget the name of the animal, but there is a mouse which exists as four subspecies. Two (call them NE and SE) exist on the east side of the Rocky Mountains, while the others (call them NW and SW) live on the west side of the range. The ranges of the NE and NW mice overlap, but the mountains completely separate the SE and SW mice from one another.
Of these mouse subspecies: 1) Those on the same side of the mountains can interbreed (NE with SE, NW with SW). 2) The NE and NW, who share some territory, can interbreed. 3) The SE and SW, who have been geographically separated for an unknown amount of time, <i>can no longer interbreed and produce viable offspring.</i> This is speciation in action.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Is humankind as we now experiance it merly an intermediate satge leading to a more complex and intelligent life-form?<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Possibly. Personally, I believe humanity has in some ways removed itself from many of the pressures of natural selection. However, there is no doubt that humans continue to grow taller, and our brains continue to grow larger. Selection does act in other instances as well. The recessive gene that causes sickle-cell anemia also gives its carrier resistance to malaria. While it is fatal if a person carries two recessive genes (aa), the sickle cell gene is extremely common in Africa because carriers (Aa, rather than AA or aa) are resistant to malaria and therefore live long enough to reproduce.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->If humans are the product of random mutations, sifted by the process of natural selection, how can we be sure this statement is true?<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Evolution does not produce inferior organisms. Mutation is random; natural selection is by definition NOT random. While mutation may produce inferior "versions," these organisms are less likely to survive and pass their genes on. In some cases, evolution reverses (whales and snakes, for instance, gained and then lost their legs), but this is to the evolutionary *advantage* of the organism, and is not a recession.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->How can natural processes, operating by blind chance, generate complex, functioning mechanisms, let alone intelligent human beings, out of random particles?<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> The eye is the classic argument both for and against evolution. The eyes of flatworms are the best explanation, in my opinion. Flatworms do not have true eyes; they have "eyespots" which are nothing more than light-sensitive cells. The precursor to the human eye was probably a similar construction. The simple fact is that given enough time, ANY advantage - no matter how minute - multiplies to importance. A creature with eyespots and an instinct to seek dark places (flatworms will remain stationary when in shadow but move when in the light - until they're in shadow again. shadow = hidden = safety) will be more likely to survive and pass its genes on. And if a random mutation produces an even better eyespot - perhaps more cells, or more sensitive cells - that organism will now be better at hiding than its ancestors. Bit by bit, a complex organ develops. Remember the sheer TIME scale involved.
One last example: Whales lost their legs when they returned to the sea. Growing a limb takes energy, and limbs produce drag against the water. Any whale that was born with smaller-than-normal legs had more energy to spend on other things and needed less effort to move through the water. The end result: legless whales. Some whales still have hip bones, and whale fossils have been found with leg bones.
coilAmateur pirate. Professional monkey. All pance.Join Date: 2002-04-12Member: 424Members, NS1 Playtester, Contributor
A not-so-brief comment on speciation:
The formation of a new species is a combination of geographic isolation and genetic change. A major mutation within a large population - the "elephant from a fish egg" - would not survive to pass its genes on. The change is too great, too fast, and the changed organism has no partner with which to mate.
Evolution like this *can* happen with asexually reproducing organisms like bacteria. Most <i>E. coil</i> bacteria are susceptible to penicillin. Scientists might try to find a resistant strain by exposing a batch of bacteria to radiation (a mutation-inducer) and then allowing the bacteria to grow on a petri dish laced with penicillin. If a single bacterium - by luck - happened to develop a mutation that gave it tolerance for penicillin, it would be able to divide and reproduce while the rest perished. More often, this kind of treatment is given to cells that scientists are directly altering - mixing the bacteria with DNA for a penicillin-resistance gene, and then growing them with penicillin to see if any bacteria took up the new DNA.
For sexually reproducing organisms, the affair is more complicated because two organisms are required. This is why evolution of sexually reproducing animals takes a VERY long time ,while bacteria can evolve resistances to drugs within decades, years, or even months or days (bacteria populations can also reproduce as often as doubling every 20 minutes). Hence above, I said that evolution generally involves both genetic drift *and* geographic isolation. A whole species can change over time, since small differences - blue vs. brown eyes, for instance - do not bar an animal from reproducing. Over time, a beneficial mutation will become present in every member of the population, because those animals with the mutation left more offspring behind. When enough of these small mutations accumulate, the result is a species that cannot reproduce with its former self. You still only have one species, but it is a new species. Now, what happens if you take a species and geographically divide it into two groups - say an earthquake opens a canyon that splits its territory in half? The two groups, now isolated, continue to evolve but no longer intermingle. Different selective pressures on either side result in different mutations being more beneficial, and therefore in different evolutionary paths. Over time, the single species evolves in two separate directions into two new species.
A classic example of this scenario is Darwin's famous finches. Charles Darwin traveled many places, but his most famous stop was the Galapagos Islands. On it he found an extremely large number of finch species, each with a beak that was designed for a certain kind of food - large, hard beaks for breaking heavy nuts, more conservative beaks for more easily acquired seeds, long thin beaks for reaching under bark for insects, etc. The remarkable fact was that as far as Darwin could tell, these were all originated from a single, similar species that existed on the mainland. A small population - a flock, say - had made it out to the islands (perhaps blown there by a storm) and begun reproducing. Spreading to all of the islands and falling into different niches depending on available food and existing competition, the now geographically isolated finches drifted apart, eventually becoming distinct species (note: small populations accelerate evolution, because any single member of the population contributes a larger percentage of offspring than it would in a large population).
Another example of evolution on the Galapagos is the giant tortoises. Before man reached them, two niches on the Galapagos were empty: small ground predator (e.g. rats) and large ground predator (e.g. jaguar). The absence of large predators meant that turtles could grow to enormous size (larger size was probably more attractive to a potential mate, and thus larger animals reproduced more often and left more offspring) without worrying about becoming worthwhile prey. The lack of small predators meant that their eggs were safe from animals like rats. When humans arrived on the islands, however, rats were introduced (having stowed aboard the ships), and the humans themselves hunted the tortoises for food. Luckily, the tortoises avoided the fate of the Dodo bird, which can "thank" human hunters and rat egg-thieves (dodos were ground-nesting) for its extinction.
<!--QuoteBegin--coil+Oct 16 2003, 02:07 AM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (coil @ Oct 16 2003, 02:07 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> <i>Example 1:</i> A species of moth living in Europe exists in two varieties. One is white with black splotches, a phenotype which corresponds to a dominant allele of a particular gene. The recessive variant is black with white splotches. These moths inhabit birch forests. Because the black moths are much more visible against the white birch bark, the moth population used to contain approximately 80% white months and 20% black moths.
I say "used to" because this figure was reached prior to the Industrial Revolution in Europe. When coal-fired production plants popped up in the vicinity of the forests where the moths lived, smoke from their furnaces dusted the trees with soot, turning the white trees ash-gray or black. In a few years, the moth population had reversed its percentages: the black moths, better camouflaged on the soot-covered trees, comprised 80% of the moth population.
Changes in environment like this are the driving force of natural selection and evolution: the more fit animal survives and reproduces, and the species changes. This particular example isn't evidence for speciation, but it *is* evidence for the alteration of a species over time.
<!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> Please Coil - not the moth fraud. There are heaps of other useable examples - why pick the one in a million that was a proven fallacy?
coilAmateur pirate. Professional monkey. All pance.Join Date: 2002-04-12Member: 424Members, NS1 Playtester, Contributor
edited October 2003
Forgot one thing: the fossil record.
The fossil record is HORRIFICALLY spotty... a fraction of a percent of all animals that die become preserved as fossils. I'll try to put it in perspective.
The white-tail deer is the most plentiful big-game animal in North America, with a population currently estimated at 13 million (<a href='http://www.bowhunting.net/naspecies/whitetail.htm' target='_blank'>source</a>). This is an overpopulation due to a lack of large predators (wolves and mountain lions), so let's cut it to 2/3 - about 8 million deer in North America. A white-tailed deer is warm-blooded and about five feet tall/long.
The average hadrosaur (duck-billed dinosaur) was about 30 feet long. Given that mass increases as the cube of length, a 30-foot hadrosaur probably weighed about 216 times what a deer weighs. We're not sure if dinosaurs were warm-blooded or cold-blooded, but we'll be conservative and say they were warm-blooded, and therefore a 30-foot hadrosaur consumes about 216 times as much food as a 5-foot deer. So we'll divide 8 million by 200 (rounding) to account for available food, and we get an estimated hadrosaur population of 40,000 in North America (personally, I think it would be larger, but we'll go with it).
Warm-blooded predators generally coexist with their prey at a ration of about 3-5 predators per 100 prey (based on African savannah populations). Cold-blooded predators, requiring less energy and therefore less prey, generally number 15-20 per 100 prey animals. Again, we'll go with the warm-blooded assumption, meaning that we'd have four large predatory dinosaurs for every one hundred hadrosaurs (most large predators were also in the 30-foot range, so the comparison holds up). Given our population of 40,000 hadrosaurs, that gives us a scant 1,600 large predators.
(Side note: there are many other species of prey animal alive in North America today, and there were many additional prey species back then as well. There are more predators as well, but we'll keep this simple.)
Europe is fairly close in size to the continental US and most of Canada south of the arctic circle (the white-tail's range), so let's take this demonstration across the pond. Assuming a similar number of prey/predators in Europe, one could surmise that at any given time, there were 1,600 Spinosaurus alive in Europe. Assume that a Spinosaurus lives for... oh, say 20 years (probably a generous estimate). Spinosaurus lived for an estimated 15 million years at the end of the Cretaceous period (90-75mya) - with a 20-year life span, approximately 750,000 generations. That means that approximately 1,200,000,000 Spinosaurs lived and died in Europe. ________
What's the freakin point, you ask?
Simple, really. Of those 1.2 billion Spinosaurs, <i>paleontologists have only found a single skeleton.</i> One skeleton to represent a species of 1.2 billion (Tragically, this skeleton was destroyed in the Allied bombing of Munich during WW2). Of the entire earth's human population today, 5 would be preserved as fossils.
So I fully agree that the fossil record doesn't support the theory of gradual change over time. :-D
However, the fossil record after a major extinction generally features a huge variety of species, and over time the number dwindles. This *does* support the theory of natural selection -- available niches after a large-scale extinction mean MANY opportunities for new species. Over time, the less successful species die out, and only the more successful remain.
<i>Note: these numbers are likely inaccurate, but in most cases err on the conservative side. For instance, hadrosaurs likely weighed 2-3 tons or 5,000 lbs, only 25 times the weight of a deer. This would increase our hadrosaur population to 400,000; our predator population to 16,000; and the total number of Spinosaurs to twelve billion. Given that my argument is conservatively inaccurate by a full order of magnitude, I think my point stands up.</i>
coilAmateur pirate. Professional monkey. All pance.Join Date: 2002-04-12Member: 424Members, NS1 Playtester, Contributor
edited October 2003
<!--QuoteBegin--Marine01+Oct 16 2003, 03:42 AM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Marine01 @ Oct 16 2003, 03:42 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Please Coil - not the moth fraud. There are heaps of other useable examples - why pick the one in a million that was a proven fallacy? <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Fraud? I wasn't aware. I haven't "looked into" moths in a long time. ^^ Anyway, my other examples are still quite true.
[edit]Checked into it, and it appears the peppered moth "fraud" is actually quite true (i.e. not a fraud). Look <a href='http://www.millerandlevine.com/km/evol/Moths/moths.html' target='_blank'>here</a> for a nice, simple examination of the story. Here is an excerpt: <!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->...in 1998, Michael E. N. Majerus of the Department of Genetics at the University of Cambridge carefully re-examined Kettlewell's studies, as well as many others that have since appeared. What he reported, first of all, was that Kettlewell's experiments, indicating that moth survival depends upon color-related camouflage, were generally correct: "Differential bird predation of the typica and carbonaria forms, in habitats affected by industrial pollution to different degrees, is the primary influence on the evolution of melanism in the peppered moth."
...However, Majerus also discovered that many of Kettlewell's experiments didn't really test the elements of the story as well as they should have...
These criticisms have led some critics of evolution to charge that the peppered moth story is "faked," or is "known to be wrong."
Neither is true. In fact, the basic elements of the peppered moth story are quite correct. The population of dark moths rose and fell in parallel to industrial pollution, and the percentage of dark moths in the population was clearly highest in regions of the countryside that were most polluted. As Majerus, the principal scientific critic of Kettlewell's work wrote, "<i>My view of the rise and fall of the melanic form of the peppered moth is that differential bird predation in more or less polluted regions, together with migration, are primarily responsible, almost to the exclusion of other factors</i>."<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<i>(edited: changed link and quote to a website with a more thorough, complete argument.)</i>
What I meant, and I'll give you that I didnt go into any detail, is that the original famous experiment was falsified. Peppered moths nearly never rest on tree trunks during the daylight, they were specially bred specimens that were so lethargic they had to be warmed up on a car bonnet etc.
And just to make Aegeri's day complete - another AIG article
If you can get past the horrific bias and general overbearing nature of the author, he actually has something decent to say
It appears that there will never be a time when people with greater scientific knowledge will accept what less educated people have to say. I am therefore removing myself from this discussion. I can see that i will never convince anybody, mainly becaus i dropped biology at GCSE, and so am not qualified to voive my opinions. I will say this last thing. I believe that Evolution, dispite all the "evidence" supporting it, is just another way for man to distance himself from God, and that is the reason this world is in the mess it is. thank you, Mr Darwin, for ruining my life.
Good day to you all, and may you reach a conclusion
God could be acting through evolution. The story of creation has, and always will be very metaphoric. It was never to be taken literally.
Wouldnt god after all go for a more intricate form of creation rather then willing things into existence?
Believing in god and accepting the scientific merits of evolution are hardly mutually exclusive. You dont have to be "Educated" to be participating in a discussion about evolution. Everything I wrote I drew from my general knowledge. I accept evolution because it is both logical and reasonable that life strives towards improvement. Whether this is a divine drive or a natural biological constant remains to be seen.
And just a point. When you said to prove it in humans, I can point to some historical evidence.
Africa. I remember watching this on television sometime. Although the people there are the same species as us, their genes differ slightly. It goes something like
ATACGGCTTATGGCAGTCCTAGGCTTGAGGC
While those outside africa, Asians and Europeans have genes that go like
ATACGGCTAATGGCAGTCCTAGGCTTGAGGC
Notice the difference is only a single base pair. I'll put them near each other to make the difference more evident.
Although not a seperate species, it is those that left africa that have the extra "A" gene. Also, if evolution didnt occur with humans, why then are there so many "Flavours" of humanity? We have asians, Africans, Europeans, Native Americans, even Aborigines. Though racial differences are insiginificantly small from a genetic perspective, evolution does cover the diversification of humanity. Europeans are white because of weaker sunshine, they dont need to produce as much melanin in their skin. Native americans are descended from Asians that migrated there in the last ice age when a land bridge connected america with siberia. A mere 10,000 years prompted a change in skin colour to deal with American climate. It may also be noted that Native americans are resistant to syphilis and it was eventually spread to non-resistant europeans (If I'm wrong, do please correct me).
And what almost everyone neglects to take into consideration is that evolution is like continental drift. The effect is so gradual over a human timescale as to be unnoticable. 100,000 years is but the blink of an eye and we have barely changed from our ancestors. We use our brains differently and we are weaker, but genetically speaking we are barely any different. In another million years, some major changes might take place. You would still recognise humans for humans, but with some subtle changes. In 10 million years, you might not recognise humans at all.
You can argue all you like about how I can prove evolution in lower life forms but cant in higher life forms till the cows come home. Humans reproduce in the same manner. We share many charecteristics. Apes have been proven to be genetically related to us. The evidence points to evolution. We evolved from apes. Apes evolved from chimps. Chimps evolved from a more primitive monkey. That monkey evolved from some kind of possum-like creature that evolved from some kind of mouse that evolved from the animal that was half mammal, half reptile, that evolved from the pre-permian herbivore that managed to survive the permian extinction, that evolved from fish that evolved from lower life forms still.
It all goes back to the original organic soup. Not only did life form independently many times over, but there were many versions of life. Remember that when the organic soup was coming around, earth was also being bombarded by meteorites. It was a damn hostile place. The organisms that lazed about doing nothing were eliminated entirely. Only the ones that clung to life tooth and nail survived, and only the life that adapted to changing environments survived that rough and tough time.
Their success lives on today. Only the most adaptible and flexible species will survive any major event. Bacteria are the most flexible and the most adaptible, and thus survive despite attempts to destroy them using antibodies and such. Mans time will end, just as the dinosaurs time ended and just as surely as 95% of all life died in the permian extinction.
<!--QuoteBegin--Cronos+Oct 16 2003, 02:02 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Cronos @ Oct 16 2003, 02:02 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Boggle, you miss a couple things.
God could be acting through evolution. The story of creation has, and always will be very metaphoric. It was never to be taken literally. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> completely. i dont think he is, but he may be
the bible never says that evolution didnt happen, it doesnt say how god created humans, it just says why. The bible hardly says how anything happened, because that is not as important as the why. A boy goes into the kitchen and sees the kettle steaming. He asks his dad (a scientist) why the kettle is boiling. "well, so, the electricity passing through the element causes it to theat up, and this heat is transferred to the water, causing it to boil." the son is not satisfied, so he goes to his mum in the lounge and asks her. "the kettle is boiling because i am making us all a cup of tea" Finally the boy gets the answer he wants. Not the how, but the why.
<!--QuoteBegin--Z.X. Bogglesteinsky+Oct 16 2003, 03:22 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Z.X. Bogglesteinsky @ Oct 16 2003, 03:22 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> <!--QuoteBegin--Cronos+Oct 16 2003, 02:02 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Cronos @ Oct 16 2003, 02:02 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Boggle, you miss a couple things.
God could be acting through evolution. The story of creation has, and always will be very metaphoric. It was never to be taken literally. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> completely. i dont think he is, but he may be
the bible never says that evolution didnt happen, it doesnt say how god created humans, it just says why. The bible hardly says how anything happened, because that is not as important as the why. A boy goes into the kitchen and sees the kettle steaming. He asks his dad (a scientist) why the kettle is boiling. "well, so, the electricity passing through the element causes it to theat up, and this heat is transferred to the water, causing it to boil." the son is not satisfied, so he goes to his mum in the lounge and asks her. "the kettle is boiling because i am making us all a cup of tea" Finally the boy gets the answer he wants. Not the how, but the why. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> Frankly, as a child I always wanted to know how as well as why. I'm still the same way. Actually, I'd rather know how something happens before I know why. I think it helps me see the situation clearer.
Coil, that was very well done. You get serious bonus points for using Dinosaurs in your example.
First of all, if you accept that the bible was correct in its entirety, you are accepting the story of Noah and the Ark and Moses parting the Red Sea, and Jesus walking on water, and Adam and Eve.. ALL of which have zero proof of ever happening. No matter how impossible it might sound, or how little evidence there is, you're blindly accepting it to be true, which is being either very loyal or very stupid.
Hopefully, if you aren't that stupid, you have questioned these stories, as it is natural for anyone to do. So how can these stories be true? Only loose interpretations can be used to show they are true. So why not expand these loose interpretations to include evolution?
What's so darn hard to believe about evolution? Creationists argue about the little proof evolutionists have about their theory, when ironically, they have no proof of their own!
To quote southpark, "If irony were strawberries, we'd all be drinking a lot of smoothies right now."
Another pointless religion versus science thread. As far as I'm concerned, they should be banned from the acceptable topic list, as it is impossible for anyone to agree and the discussions just become name calling crap (yes you boggle - calling people "fools" because you do not agree with them ever again in here will be a guaranteed ticket to read-only). The name calling is why this is now closed.
Folks, <b>enough with the religious topics</b>. They are, quite simply, not discussions, and no one is going to convince a person of science when he already believes that an invisible immortal man lives in the sky and runs the whole world with magical powers and mind control. Nor is anyone going to convince someone that believes in the scientific method that said invisible man exists.
<i>It is completely pointless to "discuss".</i> So stop it.
Comments
1) Aegeri knows way more than any creationist who has yet posted and has repeatedly demostrated it by pwning their arguments.
2) Both sides keep saying the same thing.
3) No one here is likely to change their mind.
Seriously people this is like EvC #4, give it up.
I did some google searching on toenails. About all I can come up with is XXX fetish sites, lots of stuff on ingrown toenails, and lots of stuff on foot fungi. Yummy.
Toenails can be very sharp, and if you kick hard enough, you can make someone bleed <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->
I had to go read up a little on this, but it looks like "punctuated equilibrium" is just a term for the trends in evolution that we see with advancement happening in sudden jumps.
It is in fact backed up by evidence. Here's a quote from the site I found that explains it.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->PE sometimes is claimed to be a theory resting upon the lack of evidence rather than upon evidence. This is a curious, but false claim, since Eldredge and Gould spent a significant portion of their original work examining two separate lines of evidence (one involving pulmonate gastropods, the other one involving Phacopsid trilobites) demonstrating the issues behind PE (1972). Similarly, discussion of actual paleontological evidence consumes a significant proportion of pages in Gould and Eldredge 1977. This also answers those who claimed that E&G said that PE was unverifiable.
PE is essentially and exclusively directed to questions at the level of speciation and processes affecting species. The basis of PE is the neontological theory of peripatric speciation. The criteria by which "punctuations" are recognized by Gould and Eldredge involve temporal issues and geographic issues. PE is not expected to be as useful at lower or higher levels of change. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
(source - <a href='http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/punc-eq.html#errors' target='_blank'>http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/punc-eq.html#errors</a> . I don't claim to have read Eldredge and Gould ("some random guy"), but I imagine that if you wanted to dispute what the above quote says, you'd have to go dig up the original work.)
I'll also note, as always, that there is some experimental evidence backing this stuff up in the form of computer simulation, and the results you see in the simulation are easily explainable. (I refer here to Genesaver - <a href='http://www.leadtogold.com/software/genesaver/index2.html' target='_blank'>http://www.leadtogold.com/software/genesav...ver/index2.html</a> .) In this particular simulation, evolution almost always happens in sudden leaps and bounds, because it takes a lot of time for the one lucky gene to emerge that happens to do something useful. It might take hours, but once that gene shows up, BANG - those that have it overwhelm those that don't in a matter of minutes. You also see speciation (hope I'm using the word right here) fairly quickly because creatures tend to diverge in order to fill different evolutionary gaps, and it doesn't take long for them to be sufficiently different that their offspring isn't viable. (In Genesaver, two creatures of the same color can technically always reproduce; however, herbivore-carnivore pairings never yield anything useful that I've seen, because their neural nets are wired for different goals and don't complement each other at all.)
That was my point boggle, perhaps before shouting 'fool' you should make sure you actually understand the point I was making first.
Considering your complete ignorance about this I don't think you have the right to call anyone a fool.
And incidently, getting trapped in amber is actually pretty rare, most insect fossils are in fact imprints or impressions. Again, who is the fool boggle?
I'm thinking of just ignoring you, it seems you never learn anything and usually fail to contribute anything of worth to these threads. If you want to make pointless arguments like you have been, expect people to just ignore you in these debates.
That was my point boggle, perhaps before shouting 'fool' you should make sure you actually understand the point I was making first.
Considering your complete ignorance about this I don't think you have the right to call anyone a fool.
And incidently, getting trapped in amber is actually pretty rare, most insect fossils are in fact imprints or impressions. Again, who is the fool boggle?
I'm thinking of just ignoring you boggle, you never learn anything and usually never contribute anything of worth to these threads. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I just can't stand people who argue in circles, arguments should be Argument A, Counterpoint B, Supportive Point B Counterpoint C. Not Argument A, Counterpoint B, Argument A, Counterpoint C, Argument A, other person asks if the person propounding Argument A is on drugs and leaves in frustration.
Suppose you walk down the beach and find a pocket watch laying on the beach amongst the sand. You open it up and look at all its many pieces and components. While it may be possible for all these components to "accidentally" come together, it is much more likely to think it was created. Such is the way with the universe. Such an elaborate design cannot possibly be accidentally created. The moon, the stars, the sun, the life on earth.. all must be part of some plan, right?
However, I assure you, the universe is not a pocket watch. The only reason we know the pocket watch is assembled by someone else is because we have something to reference it to. The universe can't possibly be compared to anything else since this is all we know. As tempting as it is to ball up everything unknown together and say it was created by God, it is about as folly as assuming the gods were angry when a lightning storm came around in the stone age.
*edit* dr.d.. lmao */edit*
Um, isn't it a prerequisite that you have to be a thiest to believe in creationism? I mean the premise is that you believe God created humans as they are without evolution. How can you believe that and not believe in God?
<i>Example 1:</i> The peppered moth, native to Great Britain, is white with black spots and well camouflaged against lichens (a dominant feature of its natural habitat). Around the Industrial Revolution, a new subspecies began appearing primarily in areas downwind of coal-burning factories. Within about 50 years, this subspecies - with dark gray or black coloration - comprised 98% of the peppered moth population in Great Britain. They were most prevalent in industrial areas, while the original white-and-black subspecies could still be found in more rural areas.
Cleaner-burning modern-day fuels and Clean Air laws have lessened the amount of soot in urban Britain, and the prevalence of the dark peppered moth subspecies has declined as well (some scientists believe it may be completely gone in a few decades). [<a href='http://www.millerandlevine.com/km/evol/Moths/moths.html' target='_blank'>source</a> for previous example]
Changes in environment like this are the driving force of natural selection and evolution: the more fit animal survives and reproduces, and the species changes. This particular example isn't evidence for speciation, but it *is* evidence for the alteration of a species over time.
<i>Example 2:</i> Species of animal are differentiated by the fact that two animals of different species cannot produce fertile offspring (and generally cannot produce offspring at all). All variety of domestic dog are a single species, and can theoretically produce viable offspring (we won't talk about a great dane father and chihuahua mother - physical and genetic limitations are different). Conversely, a horse and a donkey can breed, but their offspring is a mule, which is infertile. Attempting to cross a horse and, say, a cow, would result in no offspring at all.
Sub-species are defined as two fairly distinct, frequestly geographically separate groups of animals that can nevertheless reproduce together. They are in essense a "midpoint" between a single species and two discreet species. I forget the name of the animal, but there is a mouse which exists as four subspecies. Two (call them NE and SE) exist on the east side of the Rocky Mountains, while the others (call them NW and SW) live on the west side of the range. The ranges of the NE and NW mice overlap, but the mountains completely separate the SE and SW mice from one another.
Of these mouse subspecies:
1) Those on the same side of the mountains can interbreed (NE with SE, NW with SW).
2) The NE and NW, who share some territory, can interbreed.
3) The SE and SW, who have been geographically separated for an unknown amount of time, <i>can no longer interbreed and produce viable offspring.</i> This is speciation in action.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Is humankind as we now experiance it merly an intermediate satge leading to a more complex and intelligent life-form?<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Possibly. Personally, I believe humanity has in some ways removed itself from many of the pressures of natural selection. However, there is no doubt that humans continue to grow taller, and our brains continue to grow larger. Selection does act in other instances as well. The recessive gene that causes sickle-cell anemia also gives its carrier resistance to malaria. While it is fatal if a person carries two recessive genes (aa), the sickle cell gene is extremely common in Africa because carriers (Aa, rather than AA or aa) are resistant to malaria and therefore live long enough to reproduce.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->If humans are the product of random mutations, sifted by the process of natural selection, how can we be sure this statement is true?<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Evolution does not produce inferior organisms. Mutation is random; natural selection is by definition NOT random. While mutation may produce inferior "versions," these organisms are less likely to survive and pass their genes on. In some cases, evolution reverses (whales and snakes, for instance, gained and then lost their legs), but this is to the evolutionary *advantage* of the organism, and is not a recession.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->How can natural processes, operating by blind chance, generate complex, functioning mechanisms, let alone intelligent human beings, out of random particles?<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The eye is the classic argument both for and against evolution. The eyes of flatworms are the best explanation, in my opinion. Flatworms do not have true eyes; they have "eyespots" which are nothing more than light-sensitive cells. The precursor to the human eye was probably a similar construction. The simple fact is that given enough time, ANY advantage - no matter how minute - multiplies to importance. A creature with eyespots and an instinct to seek dark places (flatworms will remain stationary when in shadow but move when in the light - until they're in shadow again. shadow = hidden = safety) will be more likely to survive and pass its genes on. And if a random mutation produces an even better eyespot - perhaps more cells, or more sensitive cells - that organism will now be better at hiding than its ancestors. Bit by bit, a complex organ develops. Remember the sheer TIME scale involved.
One last example: Whales lost their legs when they returned to the sea. Growing a limb takes energy, and limbs produce drag against the water. Any whale that was born with smaller-than-normal legs had more energy to spend on other things and needed less effort to move through the water. The end result: legless whales. Some whales still have hip bones, and whale fossils have been found with leg bones.
The formation of a new species is a combination of geographic isolation and genetic change. A major mutation within a large population - the "elephant from a fish egg" - would not survive to pass its genes on. The change is too great, too fast, and the changed organism has no partner with which to mate.
Evolution like this *can* happen with asexually reproducing organisms like bacteria. Most <i>E. coil</i> bacteria are susceptible to penicillin. Scientists might try to find a resistant strain by exposing a batch of bacteria to radiation (a mutation-inducer) and then allowing the bacteria to grow on a petri dish laced with penicillin. If a single bacterium - by luck - happened to develop a mutation that gave it tolerance for penicillin, it would be able to divide and reproduce while the rest perished. More often, this kind of treatment is given to cells that scientists are directly altering - mixing the bacteria with DNA for a penicillin-resistance gene, and then growing them with penicillin to see if any bacteria took up the new DNA.
For sexually reproducing organisms, the affair is more complicated because two organisms are required. This is why evolution of sexually reproducing animals takes a VERY long time ,while bacteria can evolve resistances to drugs within decades, years, or even months or days (bacteria populations can also reproduce as often as doubling every 20 minutes). Hence above, I said that evolution generally involves both genetic drift *and* geographic isolation. A whole species can change over time, since small differences - blue vs. brown eyes, for instance - do not bar an animal from reproducing. Over time, a beneficial mutation will become present in every member of the population, because those animals with the mutation left more offspring behind. When enough of these small mutations accumulate, the result is a species that cannot reproduce with its former self. You still only have one species, but it is a new species. Now, what happens if you take a species and geographically divide it into two groups - say an earthquake opens a canyon that splits its territory in half? The two groups, now isolated, continue to evolve but no longer intermingle. Different selective pressures on either side result in different mutations being more beneficial, and therefore in different evolutionary paths. Over time, the single species evolves in two separate directions into two new species.
A classic example of this scenario is Darwin's famous finches. Charles Darwin traveled many places, but his most famous stop was the Galapagos Islands. On it he found an extremely large number of finch species, each with a beak that was designed for a certain kind of food - large, hard beaks for breaking heavy nuts, more conservative beaks for more easily acquired seeds, long thin beaks for reaching under bark for insects, etc. The remarkable fact was that as far as Darwin could tell, these were all originated from a single, similar species that existed on the mainland. A small population - a flock, say - had made it out to the islands (perhaps blown there by a storm) and begun reproducing. Spreading to all of the islands and falling into different niches depending on available food and existing competition, the now geographically isolated finches drifted apart, eventually becoming distinct species (note: small populations accelerate evolution, because any single member of the population contributes a larger percentage of offspring than it would in a large population).
Another example of evolution on the Galapagos is the giant tortoises. Before man reached them, two niches on the Galapagos were empty: small ground predator (e.g. rats) and large ground predator (e.g. jaguar). The absence of large predators meant that turtles could grow to enormous size (larger size was probably more attractive to a potential mate, and thus larger animals reproduced more often and left more offspring) without worrying about becoming worthwhile prey. The lack of small predators meant that their eggs were safe from animals like rats. When humans arrived on the islands, however, rats were introduced (having stowed aboard the ships), and the humans themselves hunted the tortoises for food. Luckily, the tortoises avoided the fate of the Dodo bird, which can "thank" human hunters and rat egg-thieves (dodos were ground-nesting) for its extinction.
dernit, why do mods/admins always say what I want to say?
I say "used to" because this figure was reached prior to the Industrial Revolution in Europe. When coal-fired production plants popped up in the vicinity of the forests where the moths lived, smoke from their furnaces dusted the trees with soot, turning the white trees ash-gray or black. In a few years, the moth population had reversed its percentages: the black moths, better camouflaged on the soot-covered trees, comprised 80% of the moth population.
Changes in environment like this are the driving force of natural selection and evolution: the more fit animal survives and reproduces, and the species changes. This particular example isn't evidence for speciation, but it *is* evidence for the alteration of a species over time.
<!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Please Coil - not the moth fraud. There are heaps of other useable examples - why pick the one in a million that was a proven fallacy?
The fossil record is HORRIFICALLY spotty... a fraction of a percent of all animals that die become preserved as fossils. I'll try to put it in perspective.
The white-tail deer is the most plentiful big-game animal in North America, with a population currently estimated at 13 million (<a href='http://www.bowhunting.net/naspecies/whitetail.htm' target='_blank'>source</a>). This is an overpopulation due to a lack of large predators (wolves and mountain lions), so let's cut it to 2/3 - about 8 million deer in North America. A white-tailed deer is warm-blooded and about five feet tall/long.
The average hadrosaur (duck-billed dinosaur) was about 30 feet long. Given that mass increases as the cube of length, a 30-foot hadrosaur probably weighed about 216 times what a deer weighs. We're not sure if dinosaurs were warm-blooded or cold-blooded, but we'll be conservative and say they were warm-blooded, and therefore a 30-foot hadrosaur consumes about 216 times as much food as a 5-foot deer. So we'll divide 8 million by 200 (rounding) to account for available food, and we get an estimated hadrosaur population of 40,000 in North America (personally, I think it would be larger, but we'll go with it).
Warm-blooded predators generally coexist with their prey at a ration of about 3-5 predators per 100 prey (based on African savannah populations). Cold-blooded predators, requiring less energy and therefore less prey, generally number 15-20 per 100 prey animals. Again, we'll go with the warm-blooded assumption, meaning that we'd have four large predatory dinosaurs for every one hundred hadrosaurs (most large predators were also in the 30-foot range, so the comparison holds up). Given our population of 40,000 hadrosaurs, that gives us a scant 1,600 large predators.
(Side note: there are many other species of prey animal alive in North America today, and there were many additional prey species back then as well. There are more predators as well, but we'll keep this simple.)
Europe is fairly close in size to the continental US and most of Canada south of the arctic circle (the white-tail's range), so let's take this demonstration across the pond. Assuming a similar number of prey/predators in Europe, one could surmise that at any given time, there were 1,600 Spinosaurus alive in Europe. Assume that a Spinosaurus lives for... oh, say 20 years (probably a generous estimate). Spinosaurus lived for an estimated 15 million years at the end of the Cretaceous period (90-75mya) - with a 20-year life span, approximately 750,000 generations. That means that approximately 1,200,000,000 Spinosaurs lived and died in Europe.
________
What's the freakin point, you ask?
Simple, really. Of those 1.2 billion Spinosaurs, <i>paleontologists have only found a single skeleton.</i> One skeleton to represent a species of 1.2 billion (Tragically, this skeleton was destroyed in the Allied bombing of Munich during WW2). Of the entire earth's human population today, 5 would be preserved as fossils.
So I fully agree that the fossil record doesn't support the theory of gradual change over time. :-D
However, the fossil record after a major extinction generally features a huge variety of species, and over time the number dwindles. This *does* support the theory of natural selection -- available niches after a large-scale extinction mean MANY opportunities for new species. Over time, the less successful species die out, and only the more successful remain.
<i>Note: these numbers are likely inaccurate, but in most cases err on the conservative side. For instance, hadrosaurs likely weighed 2-3 tons or 5,000 lbs, only 25 times the weight of a deer. This would increase our hadrosaur population to 400,000; our predator population to 16,000; and the total number of Spinosaurs to twelve billion. Given that my argument is conservatively inaccurate by a full order of magnitude, I think my point stands up.</i>
Fraud? I wasn't aware. I haven't "looked into" moths in a long time. ^^ Anyway, my other examples are still quite true.
[edit]Checked into it, and it appears the peppered moth "fraud" is actually quite true (i.e. not a fraud). Look <a href='http://www.millerandlevine.com/km/evol/Moths/moths.html' target='_blank'>here</a> for a nice, simple examination of the story. Here is an excerpt:
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->...in 1998, Michael E. N. Majerus of the Department of Genetics at the University of Cambridge carefully re-examined Kettlewell's studies, as well as many others that have since appeared. What he reported, first of all, was that Kettlewell's experiments, indicating that moth survival depends upon color-related camouflage, were generally correct: "Differential bird predation of the typica and carbonaria forms, in habitats affected by industrial pollution to different degrees, is the primary influence on the evolution of melanism in the peppered moth."
...However, Majerus also discovered that many of Kettlewell's experiments didn't really test the elements of the story as well as they should have...
These criticisms have led some critics of evolution to charge that the peppered moth story is "faked," or is "known to be wrong."
Neither is true. In fact, the basic elements of the peppered moth story are quite correct. The population of dark moths rose and fell in parallel to industrial pollution, and the percentage of dark moths in the population was clearly highest in regions of the countryside that were most polluted. As Majerus, the principal scientific critic of Kettlewell's work wrote, "<i>My view of the rise and fall of the melanic form of the peppered moth is that differential bird predation in more or less polluted regions, together with migration, are primarily responsible, almost to the exclusion of other factors</i>."<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<i>(edited: changed link and quote to a website with a more thorough, complete argument.)</i>
And just to make Aegeri's day complete - another AIG article
If you can get past the horrific bias and general overbearing nature of the author, he actually has something decent to say
<a href='http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v21/i3/moths.asp' target='_blank'>Good bye Peppered Moths</a>
Good day to you all, and may you reach a conclusion
God could be acting through evolution. The story of creation has, and always will be very metaphoric. It was never to be taken literally.
Wouldnt god after all go for a more intricate form of creation rather then willing things into existence?
Believing in god and accepting the scientific merits of evolution are hardly mutually exclusive. You dont have to be "Educated" to be participating in a discussion about evolution. Everything I wrote I drew from my general knowledge. I accept evolution because it is both logical and reasonable that life strives towards improvement. Whether this is a divine drive or a natural biological constant remains to be seen.
And just a point. When you said to prove it in humans, I can point to some historical evidence.
Africa. I remember watching this on television sometime. Although the people there are the same species as us, their genes differ slightly. It goes something like
ATACGGCTTATGGCAGTCCTAGGCTTGAGGC
While those outside africa, Asians and Europeans have genes that go like
ATACGGCTAATGGCAGTCCTAGGCTTGAGGC
Notice the difference is only a single base pair. I'll put them near each other to make the difference more evident.
ATACGGCTTATGGCAGTCCTAGGCTTGAGGC
ATACGGCTAATGGCAGTCCTAGGCTTGAGGC
Although not a seperate species, it is those that left africa that have the extra "A" gene. Also, if evolution didnt occur with humans, why then are there so many "Flavours" of humanity? We have asians, Africans, Europeans, Native Americans, even Aborigines. Though racial differences are insiginificantly small from a genetic perspective, evolution does cover the diversification of humanity. Europeans are white because of weaker sunshine, they dont need to produce as much melanin in their skin. Native americans are descended from Asians that migrated there in the last ice age when a land bridge connected america with siberia. A mere 10,000 years prompted a change in skin colour to deal with American climate. It may also be noted that Native americans are resistant to syphilis and it was eventually spread to non-resistant europeans (If I'm wrong, do please correct me).
And what almost everyone neglects to take into consideration is that evolution is like continental drift. The effect is so gradual over a human timescale as to be unnoticable. 100,000 years is but the blink of an eye and we have barely changed from our ancestors. We use our brains differently and we are weaker, but genetically speaking we are barely any different. In another million years, some major changes might take place. You would still recognise humans for humans, but with some subtle changes. In 10 million years, you might not recognise humans at all.
You can argue all you like about how I can prove evolution in lower life forms but cant in higher life forms till the cows come home. Humans reproduce in the same manner. We share many charecteristics. Apes have been proven to be genetically related to us. The evidence points to evolution. We evolved from apes. Apes evolved from chimps. Chimps evolved from a more primitive monkey. That monkey evolved from some kind of possum-like creature that evolved from some kind of mouse that evolved from the animal that was half mammal, half reptile, that evolved from the pre-permian herbivore that managed to survive the permian extinction, that evolved from fish that evolved from lower life forms still.
It all goes back to the original organic soup. Not only did life form independently many times over, but there were many versions of life. Remember that when the organic soup was coming around, earth was also being bombarded by meteorites. It was a damn hostile place. The organisms that lazed about doing nothing were eliminated entirely. Only the ones that clung to life tooth and nail survived, and only the life that adapted to changing environments survived that rough and tough time.
Their success lives on today. Only the most adaptible and flexible species will survive any major event. Bacteria are the most flexible and the most adaptible, and thus survive despite attempts to destroy them using antibodies and such. Mans time will end, just as the dinosaurs time ended and just as surely as 95% of all life died in the permian extinction.
God could be acting through evolution. The story of creation has, and always will be very metaphoric. It was never to be taken literally. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
completely. i dont think he is, but he may be
the bible never says that evolution didnt happen, it doesnt say how god created humans, it just says why. The bible hardly says how anything happened, because that is not as important as the why. A boy goes into the kitchen and sees the kettle steaming. He asks his dad (a scientist) why the kettle is boiling. "well, so, the electricity passing through the element causes it to theat up, and this heat is transferred to the water, causing it to boil." the son is not satisfied, so he goes to his mum in the lounge and asks her. "the kettle is boiling because i am making us all a cup of tea" Finally the boy gets the answer he wants. Not the how, but the why.
God could be acting through evolution. The story of creation has, and always will be very metaphoric. It was never to be taken literally. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
completely. i dont think he is, but he may be
the bible never says that evolution didnt happen, it doesnt say how god created humans, it just says why. The bible hardly says how anything happened, because that is not as important as the why. A boy goes into the kitchen and sees the kettle steaming. He asks his dad (a scientist) why the kettle is boiling. "well, so, the electricity passing through the element causes it to theat up, and this heat is transferred to the water, causing it to boil." the son is not satisfied, so he goes to his mum in the lounge and asks her. "the kettle is boiling because i am making us all a cup of tea" Finally the boy gets the answer he wants. Not the how, but the why. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Frankly, as a child I always wanted to know how as well as why. I'm still the same way. Actually, I'd rather know how something happens before I know why. I think it helps me see the situation clearer.
Coil, that was very well done. You get serious bonus points for using Dinosaurs in your example.
Hopefully, if you aren't that stupid, you have questioned these stories, as it is natural for anyone to do. So how can these stories be true? Only loose interpretations can be used to show they are true. So why not expand these loose interpretations to include evolution?
What's so darn hard to believe about evolution? Creationists argue about the little proof evolutionists have about their theory, when ironically, they have no proof of their own!
To quote southpark, "If irony were strawberries, we'd all be drinking a lot of smoothies right now."
Folks, <b>enough with the religious topics</b>. They are, quite simply, not discussions, and no one is going to convince a person of science when he already believes that an invisible immortal man lives in the sky and runs the whole world with magical powers and mind control. Nor is anyone going to convince someone that believes in the scientific method that said invisible man exists.
<i>It is completely pointless to "discuss".</i> So stop it.