Is There Evidence for Evolution? Show it to us.

originally posted by: cooperton


Such adaptations can be due to epigenetics. For example, high altitude trainers adjust to the change in oxygen levels by an increase in 2,3-diphosphoglycerate in the blood. After they return to normal altitudes for long enough, the 2,3-DPG levels resume normal. This is not evolution, just adapting to the environment.

Research epigenetics. A very fascinating field.

So what if that adaptation becomes permanent over a large number of generations, what do you call that?

I'm WAY late to the party, I see....perhaps just here for the cleaning up part...so, I'll just leave this here:

Walking fish raised on land mimic ancient evolutionary transition

It's a really short article, just a snippet really - but it provides links to the sources and so forth: (EDITED to break up paragraphs and add emphasis):

researchers raised bichirs, which are fish with functional lungs and strong fins. In a pinch, these qualities allow them to walk on land. ...

For eight months, a group of the primitive fish were raised entirely on land so that researchers could compare their development to specimens that grew up in normal, mostly aquatic conditions.


Standen and her colleagues thought that the bichir would develop differently if it grew up on land, giving them hints as to how a fish could go from water to earth as it evolved.

Sure enough, the fish raised on land walked with a more effective gait. They placed their fins closer to their bodies and raised their heads up higher, which made them slip less than the aquatic walkers.

Their skeletons also developed differently, with the bones that support the fins changing shape to support them in higher gravity.

The researchers also saw the fish acquiring more head and neck mobility, which would be important in a transition to life on land.

"Fish generally don't have necks, as they can approach their food from any angle in a 3-D environment," Standen said. "Once on a 2-D terrestrial plane, head mobility becomes essential for feeding and other sensory perceptions."

While the changes are subtle, Standen said, they mirror what scientists have seen in the fossil record of fish-to-land-dweller evolution. So it was probably a similar kind of developmental flexibility that allowed the first fish to emerge from the water.

Wayy late too. And I didnt read the (gasp) 25 pages...

But how about the flu virus as a regular occuring example.

a reply to: smirkley

Yep, that (well at least E.Coli and bacteria evolving to be resistant) was brought up.

I was going to post about "why we need a new flu vaccination every year". Bacteria aren't the same as Viri (a bacterium is not a virus), though - so it should still be emphasized, you are right. It might have been but I didn't slog through far enough to see.

There are oodles of online sources showing how the influenza virus EVOLVES every year. We can't keep up....

originally posted by: Xtrozero


I'm not sure what you think evolution is or how you seem to want to apply it to say it is not a theory or that there is zero evidence.

Never said that.

The assumption is that adaptations can accumulate to the point where you eventually result in an "evolved" species. Adaptations are observable and happen all the time; anti-biotic resistant bacteria, Galapagos finches, etc. But, we are only left to assume that these adaptations could accumulate to give rise to new species. It seems logically possible, but there is no direct observable evidence that this occurs. We are only left with observing adaptations.

Could an accumulation of adaptations/mutations be solely responsible for the diverse plethora of lifeforms we see today? Sure it could. It is also possible that this is not the case. I, personally, find it hard to believe that conscious entities (us, among other animals) were generated by incident. So my scientific search for the answers of our beginnings continues.

originally posted by: rnaa
a reply to: cooperton

Wouldn't a second life be just as likely as life in the first place?

There is absolutely no way to know if a second life is 'possible' and it is therefor pointless to 'worry' about it.

Make the most of the life you have.

Happy now? The thread has bee completely and irredeemably hijacked.

As has the attempts at figuring out how life is possible in the first place.

It is certainly pointless to 'worry' about it.

originally posted by: ParasuvO
As has the attempts at figuring out how life is possible in the first place.

It is certainly pointless to 'worry' about it.

Surely it is pointless to "worry" about it, but it is not pointless to inquire about it. I've heard that learning your beginnings will be the ultimate understanding:

"Since you have discovered the beginning, why do you seek the end? For where the beginning is, there will the end be. Blessed is he who shall stand at the beginning (in the beginning), and he shall know the end, and shall not taste death."

a reply to: BuzzyWigs

My body keeps itself up, I guess I EVOLVE at least as fast as the influenza, cause I am exposed to everyone and do not get it.

Or, maybe it is something different.

Maybe the influenza does not change itself for the simple stupid idea that it just DOES, maybe it is cyclical in "nature".

a reply to: cooperton

You may have heard that, but no one has ever even claimed to find the beginnings that I am aware of.

I think you are on the right track though, what if we DID find it, what if we actually go and DO IT.

I think this is what I am going to do, I have known this since I am a small child.

Not much time left dallying either, almost ready.

a reply to: ParasuvO

It could be. Our bodies absolutely do adapt. I haven't had a "flu shot" in years, because I trust my body to keep up. When I said "we", I mispoke. I meant that Big Pharma (people trying to do it scientifically) can't keep up, because the flu virus mutates so quickly that they don't know which strain will be here next season.

I haven't had the "flu" in years either. My body does its thing, and that is apparently all I need. I also believe in breast-feeding for the immunity boost that infants get. It's common knowledge that as we age, and the more 'toxins' to which we are exposed, we get sick less and less often.

Could be it's cyclical, too - and humans just haven't (yet) figured out the cycle. I have no idea if anyone is working on that, but I wouldn't be surprised. In fact, I'd be more surprised if someone isn't cataloging every year's virus and watching for trends.

Anyway - what about the fish thing - did you see that?

originally posted by: ParasuvO
a reply to: cooperton

You may have heard that, but no one has ever even claimed to find the beginnings that I am aware of.

I think you are on the right track though, what if we DID find it, what if we actually go and DO IT.

I think this is what I am going to do, I have known this since I am a small child.

Not much time left dallying either, almost ready.

Indeed, Opening the gates...

originally posted by: cooperton

originally posted by: lifecitizen
a reply to:

Uh huh. Craziness is contagious it seems.

That isnt just silly, just totally ridiculous.

What? The Monkey phallus? Specify what is rediculous.

No. The bit about the Earth knowing to get rid of unhealthy people and keep the healthy ones.

Yeah, all those hundreds of thousands of people that died in the 2004 tsunami weren't unlucky, they were all unhealthy. Got it.

Apparently a lot of ATS members don't know the difference between adaption and evolution. One is behavior and the other is genetic...

Typical. This piece is called a straw man. Set up a weak version of one side of a debate then easily knock it over. Problem is this is not what supporters of evolution say. I do not know one credible scientist that says evolution is a proven fact. You see evolution is a scientific theory. Therefore, by definition it is based on true facts, called premises, no one can deny them, it is the inference or the conclusion that is debatable. So what scientists say is that the theory of evolution is the only one that answers all the observed facts and all of the predictions are either not disproven or have been proven. There is no other competing theory that does this. This is not how the scientific method works. Way before we had fossil evidence of feathers on dinosaurs it was predicted birds and dinosaurs had a common ancestor. Way before we had fossil evidence of whale evolution it was postulated that they evolved from a wolf like creature and bingo we have fossil evidence, fact of that. These are two examples you can research.

originally posted by: cooperton
Could an accumulation of adaptations/mutations be solely responsible for the diverse plethora of lifeforms we see today? Sure it could. It is also possible that this is not the case. I, personally, find it hard to believe that conscious entities (us, among other animals) were generated by incident. So my scientific search for the answers of our beginnings continues.

There will be the fastest, biggest, smartest etc..., so us being the smartest doesn't tell me much towards intelligent design anymore than the Cheetah does for belong the fastest.

Hey wait... you said answers of our beginnings evolution doesn't try and explain the beginning of life, or the why, just the how it can change over time.

Yes it is hard when it takes very long time to see changes, but we do see that the more like DNA two living creatures have the closer they are. What seems to be the case is a physical separation of a species and then each head off in their own directions to the point that they can no longer reproduce together. i.e. different species.

We see this with horses and donkeys, right on the edge of no longer reproducing, and even though they can have offspring the offspring is sterile.

Humans are close to Chimps but around 6 million years ago our ancestors had chromosome 2 A/B fuse into one. What this did was change us from 48 pairs of chromosomes into 46 pairs and most likely changed us to as we are today.

originally posted by: lifecitizen

No. The bit about the Earth knowing to get rid of unhealthy people and keep the healthy ones.

Yeah, all those hundreds of thousands of people that died in the 2004 tsunami weren't unlucky, they were all unhealthy. Got it.

It's actually quite similar to the concept of natural selection so this shouldn't surprise you.

Dramatic floods have been recorded in many cultures, and some claim that they were forewarned of the occurrence... Just because you personally don't believe it does not make it false.

originally posted by: Xtrozero

There will be the fastest, biggest, smartest etc..., so us being the smartest doesn't tell me much towards intelligent design anymore than the Cheetah does for belong the fastest.

An Intelligent designer would manifest Itself as the most intelligent. Our highly encephalized bodies insists we are the paramount of intelligent life as we know it.

Hey wait... you said answers of our beginnings evolution doesn't try and explain the beginning of life, or the why, just the how it can change over time.

True. In my opinion our idea of evolution is accurately applied to embryology and biogenesis; how living organisms give rise to other living organisms. Look at the embryological development of the human and it goes through each stage of the proposed evolutionary process, at one point in development it even has gills.... diversity of life due to evolution seems so intuitive because this is the developmental ladder that embryos go through. The question of abiogenesis, life from non-life, in my opinion would require an intelligent force.

Yes it is hard when it takes very long time to see changes, but we do see that the more like DNA two living creatures have the closer they are. What seems to be the case is a physical separation of a species and then each head off in their own directions to the point that they can no longer reproduce together. i.e. different species.

We see this with horses and donkeys, right on the edge of no longer reproducing, and even though they can have offspring the offspring is sterile.

Humans are close to Chimps but around 6 million years ago our ancestors had chromosome 2 A/B fuse into one. What this did was change us from 48 pairs of chromosomes into 46 pairs and most likely changed us to as we are today.

I don't think this argument necessarily disproves intelligent design, if anything, it demonstrates the precision of how intelligent and intuitive the genetic coding is.

originally posted by: Exogyra
Typical. This piece is called a straw man. Set up a weak version of one side of a debate then easily knock it over. Problem is this is not what supporters of evolution say. I do not know one credible scientist that says evolution is a proven fact. You see evolution is a scientific theory. Therefore, by definition it is based on true facts, called premises, no one can deny them, it is the inference or the conclusion that is debatable. So what scientists say is that the theory of evolution is the only one that answers all the observed facts and all of the predictions are either not disproven or have been proven. There is no other competing theory that does this. This is not how the scientific method works. Way before we had fossil evidence of feathers on dinosaurs it was predicted birds and dinosaurs had a common ancestor. Way before we had fossil evidence of whale evolution it was postulated that they evolved from a wolf like creature and bingo we have fossil evidence, fact of that. These are two examples you can research.

The question is do you know any credible scientists at all???
a reply to: RealTruthSeeker

The OP asked:

"Show us the lab results, or a time lap video of evolution, give us something besides a long born thesis. I really do want to see this evidence. "

My response:
Here is a list of 207 recognized scientific journals which contain peer reviewed laboratory experiments on various aspects of evolution. Currently, there are 152,732 research papers containing laboratory experiments, data and results.
Now YOU tell us why all these lab results are wrong????

www.scimagojr.com...

Do you believe that 152,732 scientists with laboratory evidence are wrong? If you think that, why not pick a research paper - any paper - and show us why it's wrong using YOUR data.

This, no doubt, will be another disappearing act.

originally posted by: cooperton
Never said that.

The assumption is that adaptations can accumulate to the point where you eventually result in an "evolved" species. Adaptations are observable and happen all the time; anti-biotic resistant bacteria, Galapagos finches, etc. But, we are only left to assume that these adaptations could accumulate to give rise to new species. It seems logically possible, but there is no direct observable evidence that this occurs. We are only left with observing adaptations.

Could an accumulation of adaptations/mutations be solely responsible for the diverse plethora of lifeforms we see today? Sure it could. It is also possible that this is not the case. I, personally, find it hard to believe that conscious entities (us, among other animals) were generated by incident. So my scientific search for the answers of our beginnings continues.

But it is not an assumption. Regardless whether or not we watch the changes accumulate to the point we would classify a divergence of species, we know that the difference between species is genetics. All life on earth is formed from the same material. Changes to that material is adaptation aka evolution. They are not separate processes. This is a proven fact. There is no specific line between what is adaptation and divergence in species. If there was, you could not get a hybrid animal such as a liger.

Absolute proof of evolution has been given in this thread. However, the op and thread supporters choose to embrace ignorance, hence the amount of replies to this thread. The ignorant saying grass isn't green.

a reply to: Vector99

Much Evidence has been given ... it is true
Absolute and indisputable proof of the Theory has not ie what is causing it

I do know for sure that life adapts to it's environment
Information is exchanged ... cause and affect
The frame for information appears to be DNA
But what is the source/cause that triggers the DNA ? If you follow me