Evolution: PROVE IT!

reply to post by chiponbothshoulders


Except theory and theology have different roots. Theory comes from the Greek "theoria" while theology comes from the Greek "the + logia."

While evolution does at times seem to present material that would be a stretch of the imagination to the layman, it's a far more believable theory than the one presented by the religious community.

I find that when you strip religion away from the microscope (or telescope) you examine life through, you gain an understanding of what life is, of what reality is, of the vastness of the universe as it appears to us - or the vastness of a grain of sand as it would appear to an atom.
The truth is, is that we are still learning. What we know today, if spoken of hundreds of years ago would have gotten us burned at the stake and labeled as heretics. I can only fathom that our descendants, assuming we don't annihilate ourselves, will regard us in the same fashion hundreds of years in the future.
I can only imagine the shock that must have rippled through the scientific community when human eyes peering through the first microscopes saw the wonders of life that can exist in a mere drop of water.
This entire universe that we are a part of is evolving. Gases and dust coalesce and form planets, some form stars - creating their own gravitational pulls which affects everything around it - around and around it goes until one of the local stars has had enough and blows - completely sterilizing everything around it and blasting the exact same components that you and I and everything around us is made of back into the universe.
Watch the stars and see - over time - they evolve. They change. Who knows what changes lie on the surface?
On early earth, the primordial soup - the compounds - now free from the intense heat and magnetism and pressures could combine in new ways and form new things.
Only a mere fraction of the life that has ever lived on earth has been discovered. There are things that we most likely will never know. This doesn't frighten me, this makes me appreciate who and what I am.

I believe that the more people realize that evolution is a fact, the more will disregard the teachings of religion. Once religion has been obliterated as a stronghold on the populace, something new will emerge. This is what frightens me.

As far as proof - to someone who doesn't want to believe, not even seeing it with their own eyes would suffice.

Here is a video, 65 million years with a creationist - just for fun...
www.youtube.com...

Evolution isn't really something that you have to prove. It's a word that names a process. The process consists of genetic changes in a population over time. That's the direct meaning of evolution. This process happens, and we know it does.

you can watch evolution starting from two sperat very unalive things a sperm with 23 cromasons and a egg with 23 more.
once combined they become a SINGAL living cell (yes a ONE celled life form.
within hours this cell evolves very quickly into a many celled life form and over the next three months the life form goes through many evolutary changes .
A human featus in the early stages has GILLS thatb are reasorbed into the body .
in another stage the HUMAN featus has a TAIL which is also reasorbed into the body befor brith.
you want proff of evolution just look at your own gens as the gens for GILLS are still there just shut off.
the gens for a tail are still there but just shut off.
you want proff of evolution just look at whats left of your apendix as 50k years agaio humans ate many more hard to digest foods such as nuts but once we started farming we no longer needed the apendix to help us digest food in just 50k years the apendix has shrank from being over 6 inches to being 3 inches and doesnt do any thing IT cant it no longer works (use it or lose it)
with in the next few k years there will be humans born with OUT a apendix at all this is evolution jsut a small change but a change that makes you different from your great grandmaw 1000 times removed.
but i do understand you need to feel special you dont excreat wast like every other animal you dont have instinks that drive you like every other animal your special .
your not a animal just like every other animal are you?
Maybe i am wrong ? does seeing a fine looking man- woman get your blood boiling? maybe i am wrong when you eat do you excreat wast? maybe i am wrong you are a animal just like every other animal that has ver been .
i gess your not special after all are you?

I think (correct me if wrong) that the OP is focusing on human evolution.

Being a Darwinist myself, for the most part, I think that in time the mystery of H. Sapiens Sapiens will be solved...as of now, however, our own specific existence is a glaring example evolution's short comings. Nothing discovered in the fossil record supports our evolution from ANY currently known incarnation of biped mammals. None. Notta. Zilch.

I personally believe that this will be proven, hopefully in my lifetime, but probably not.

Until the missing link is found and positively ID'd...Human beings themselves remain the single largest "What about" in evolution...

...and it will continue to haunt me into the wee hours of the night as it has since I abandoned church years ago.

just my opinion.

ETA: I called myself a Darwinist. While I have some doubts about evolution as a whole, that may seem a misnomer. I am convinced of natural selection as an idea and as a law of nature. It has been years since I questioned that particular "dogma". In recent months, I have come to see a possibility for a union of intelligent design and natural selection...but creationism as outlined literally in the book of Genesis? No. Not unless 1 God day equals a million human years...then maybe. The order is correct, anyway.

reply to post by madnessinmysoul


This is a good opprotunity to pull out my favorite link EVER. Its a link about the Tibetans and how due to their genetic and geographic isolation they have developed genes to help them survive at high altitudes. These genes are direct proof of evolution in human beings. If the Tibetans stay genetically isolated long enough they'll become a separate species in all likelihood (not likely with how interconnected the world is becoming)

Genes Explain Why Tibetans Thrive

Originally posted by Dantas
.....You can even see it today, kids are taller now on average than in the past....

so you are inferring that humans would appear to be evolving then into a taller race?

Or has a God created some bigger species of human.

Let me know if anyone happens to find a sausage dog colony thriving in the wilds. That breed of dog which has a disproportionately short legs, a very long body with a large head. A dog breed in-which the environment and nature did not help to shape it into it's current form, a breed that cannot survive in nature without human intervention.

If God can be bothered to create this dog for us, then I want a dog that looks like Pikachew in the Pokemon cartoon!!!

With science, most people have been able to trace it back to it's original ancestors, the wolf and it's domestication, breeding and evolution into the modern day dog with the many unusual breeds and mutations.

Theist who dismiss evolution probably have a hard time explaining to their children how these modern day dog breeds came into existence except with the normal "God did it." explanation, unlike the dinosaurs and so many other questions.

Originally posted by trailertrash
"Evolution" cannot be proven. The requirement is that it is subjected to rigorous testing by various independent researchers each attempting to discover any major flaw in the hypothesis. Note that during this stage "evolution" is not yet a "theory" but only a "hypothesis". When all attempts to disprove it fail the next step is for a consensus of scientists to agree to elevate it to a "theory". In other words a scientific theory has passed the required number of attempts to disprove it.

(Deleted this part - I was full of it.)

I do agree that evolution cannot be proven, except by the lazy definitions of "proof" and "theory". Proof is for mathematics. But the fossil record combined with genetics and evidence of natural selection in action do lend quite a bit of support for evolution.

Well, here is a new species of catfish found in the Amazon that can eat tree bark and the feces of other fish because of the scarcity of food in the rivers.. Plus, it has thicker scales, a kind of armor, to protect it from the bigger carnivorous fish

Catfish


Here's an article from National Geographic basically saying Whales evolved from Tiny Deer-like Mammals

WhaleVolution

Clarification: Look at my avatar, I accept the theory of evolution.

This thread is meant to be more of a 'provide proof of evolution/discussion of that proof' educational thread for those that wish to draw every discussion of origins into a 'let us try and poke holes in evolution' tangent.

reply to post by Dantas


From the OP

Please do not address a proof of evolution that has not been brought up. This is a proof ->response->rebuttal etc thread, not a "let's just try to randomly debunk things that aren't in the discussion" thread.

reply to post by trailertrash

Originally posted by trailertrash
"Evolution" cannot be proven. The requirement is that it is subjected to rigorous testing by various independent researchers each attempting to discover any major flaw in the hypothesis.

You mean the thing that's been going on for...oh...150 years?

Note that during this stage "evolution" is not yet a "theory" but only a "hypothesis". When all attempts to disprove it fail the next step is for a consensus of scientists to agree to elevate it to a "theory". In other words a scientific theory has passed the required number of attempts to disprove it.

It has been elevated to a theory. The vast majority of scientists accept it. Not just 'vast', it's an overwhelming majority. There are actually more scientists named "Steve" (or some variation eg Stephen, Stephan, Stephanie) that accept the theory of evolution than there are scientists that reject it.

If you, or a bunch of Christians, or someone else want to have "evolution" thrown out on it's ear the burden is upon you, not science.

I don't want it thrown out, I want it proven as I know it is. I'd just like to provide a thread to actually talk about the proof of evolution.

You must do your own testing and find a flaw. When you find this flaw you must submit it in the accepted scholarly format to accredited universities for consideration. It is the established leaders in science then who will accept or reject your work.

Yep, that's falsification for you.

This is the way that science works. Experience tells us that anyone who demands proofs is an outsider who knows nothing of scientific investigation.

Well, someone didn't read the OP. Blind-replying to a thread based on its title isn't always the wisest thing to do.

Another note here is important. "Theory" in the common use of the word is just an idea. Example "I have a theory of what happened to the car". In science the word "theory" means an entirely different thing. A scientific theory has passed all the tests imaginable and is accepted as fact.

Actually, it doesn't have to pass "all tests imaginable", it merely has to pass the appropriate level of scientific rigor. Just like the Theory of Relativity was proven without actually attempting to accelerate matter to light speed.

Lastly when science learns more it is common for older theories to be modified or set aside in favor of new ones.

Yep, just like how Darwin's ideas have been heavily built upon in the last 150 years.

Science is much different than Bible study friend. Opinions don't cut it in science.

Totally in agreement with you.

"Evolution" is fact until new information displaces it.

Yes, it is a fact as of right now. But the people in the "Creationism/ID: PROVE IT!" thread refused to participate in proper science and instead attempted to debunk evolution, so I created this thread as a resource.

If you want an example of evolution then just consider the lowly Halibut. This fish is in the middle of evolving from a vertically orientated fish to a horizontally orientated one. Note how the mouth is still orientated the wrong way and note the eyes. One is moving into a different position but it is not yet there so they look funny. Evolution takes time usually. When I say time I mean a long time.

Yes, that's a good example.

God's Intelligent Design is helping this fish to adapt to a new or better food source so it can survive. This is what evolution is and God set the whole process up, not a bunch of atheists.

...um...now you're off topic. I should direct you to the Creationism/ID thread, as that is what the discussion is over there.

And obviously science isn't saying 'atheists' set up evolution, it says that evolution is simply how nature functions regardless of divine intervention.

"I want to know God's thoughts. The rest are details." Albert Einstein

Said the atheist.

I received your letter of June 10th. I have never talked to a Jesuit priest in my life and I am astonished by the audacity to tell such lies about me. From the viewpoint of a Jesuit priest I am, of course, and have always been an atheist.
- Albert Einstein, letter to Guy H. Raner Jr, July 2, 1945, responding to a rumor that a Jesuit priest had caused Einstein to convert from atheism; quoted by Michael R. Gilmore in Skeptic, Vol. 5, No. 2

When Einstein said "God" he typically meant "The universe".

God created the universe and then instituted evolution as His method of insuring that all things constantly change and improve as time goes by. God made the first single celled animal and then God's evolution did the rest. The Bible was written by man and parts of it are wrong.

...ok, so you went from championing science to providing an entirely unfalsifiable explanation for everything up to evolution...I see there are still gaps for your deity.

All that is necessary to have this make sense is to chuck the first couple of chapters of Genesis. Let's face it, this is the problem.

...and to prove the existence of aforementioned deity. I mean, if you're going to accept a deity anyway, go ahead and believe that. But I still don't see a reason to introduce deities into science.

Oh how badly the Christians want their book to be correct. How fearful they are that if any small part is wrong then their whole faith is jeopardized. To be this way is silly. Get the bigger picture. God's greatest gift to man is his brain. We have it for a reason. Let's use it.

Well...big parts are actually wrong. But that's a discussion for another thread.

reply to post by Cole DeSteele


Nope, just the theory itself. If it applies to one animal it applies to them all.

As for human evolution, there is plenty of evidence of it. Particularly the damning evidence found in genetics.
But I'll let Ken Miller explain that for me, he's the expert. Don't worry, it's a short video.





As for my favorite instance of evolutionary proof? Nylon eating bacteria. They eat nylon, a synthetic substance. That means new information had to have been developed.

reply to post by madnessinmysoul


Evolution: DISPROVE IT!

-B.M

Proven facts (premises):
1. mutations in the DNA happen e. g. each offspring is slightly different from the parent (mutations supplement variation (changes) to population)
2. natural selection promotes positive changes and supresses negative changes in a population, according to environment
3. if two populations of the same species became separated by some reproductive barrier (rivers, mountains..), there is NO mechanism to synchronize inevitable changes in both populations, so over time they will inevitably diverge to the point that they wont be able to interbreed anymore - speciation

This three FACTS alone are enough to deduce that evolution happens. And proof by deduction is also a valid way to obtain scientific knowledge. So even if we didnt have paleontology, developmental biology etc., just biochemistry (the 1st point) and population genetics (2nd and third points) is enough to prove evolution, even macroevolution - speciation.

reply to post by trailertrash


What an amazing reply, so good in fact, that I don't need to add anything more to this thread!
Star and friend request

Originally posted by madnessinmysoul
Said the atheist.

I received your letter of June 10th. I have never talked to a Jesuit priest in my life and I am astonished by the audacity to tell such lies about me.
From the viewpoint of a Jesuit priest I am, of course, and have always been an atheist.
- Albert Einstein, letter to Guy H. Raner Jr, July 2, 1945, responding to a rumor that a Jesuit priest had caused Einstein to convert from atheism; quoted by Michael R. Gilmore in Skeptic, Vol. 5, No. 2

When Einstein said "God" he typically meant "The universe".

Just to clarify Einstein's apparent position; I believe that he was a pantheist, but rejected the notion of a personal God and organised religion.

Notice how he said: ''From the viewpoint of a Jesuit priest I am, of course, and have always been an atheist.''
In other words, the Jesuit priest would regard him as an atheist for not believing in the Christian God.

I know that it's slightly off-topic, but I often see how ''both sides'' in a religious debate often claim Einstein as ''one of theirs'', when in fact, his personal beliefs appear to be neither religious nor atheistic.

There are two definitions of Evolution: Evolution the fact, which is that species adapt to their surroundings, and evolution the theory (which is a scientific theory,not a guess), which goes to explain the complexity of life as it is now from simplistic origins, that a series of changes over a long time will bring about complexity.
Currently, punctuated equilibrium has been added to the theory, which is that occasionally situations develop where new niches open, either through new adaptions, or extinction of the animals previously holding the niches (like in the extinction following the dinosaurs.)


Evolution is backed up by the fossil record, however even without it, you are still left with biological evidence, in teh form of your DNA.

I suppose the best example I can think of would be Ring Species.

reply to post by trailertrash


Wow buddy, you really need some help in the logic department, a theory is "FACT" ntil displaced with another theory?????


Sorry, that is just plain wrong.

A theory is always a theory and consensus means nothing to those who do not consent.

Much evidence providing contrary evidence to the premises necessary for the theory of macro evolution have been presented and has been ignored, dismissed, or giant leaps of logic have been undertaken to write them off as something else entirely in an effort to protect the paradigm of macro evolution.

This is the human condition and modern science is one of the most guilty parties in this effect.

Originally posted by Masterjaden
reply to post by trailertrash

 

Much evidence providing contrary evidence to the premises necessary for the theory of macro evolution have been presented and has been ignored, dismissed, or giant leaps of logic have been undertaken to write them off as something else entirely in an effort to protect the paradigm of macro evolution.

No, that's patently untrue. There isn't any evidence to contradict evolution as of yet, though I recommend that you take that discussion into this thread here as this is a proof->attempt to refute thread, not a 'randomly start bashing evolution' thread.

It's also quite clear that you're saying this having been informed of it by a creationist as you are using the term 'macro evolution'. That distinction is found nowhere in the scientific literature and is a fabrication of the creationist movement.

This is the human condition and modern science is one of the most guilty parties in this effect.

Not at all. Modern science is actually one of the few places where intellectual freedom reigns supreme. The only problem is that science lives under a dictatorship of evidence. You can have whatever idea you want as long as it fits in with the evidence.

My husband is a PhD in biochemistry, works as a R&D scientist. He likes to talk about the "miracles" in evolution at times. But he says the one thing he cannot figure out is why everything that has evolved seems to have been deliberate and intended..in other words..that although evolution is a fact in his opinion..it appears to have been set down by a "designer". Funny, huh?

Originally posted by james404

Proof is for mathematics.

Exactly true. Consider this. Suppose evolution does not occur. One species cannot evolve into another. This would imply that every species that exists today has always existed. We also know that some species become extinct, and we have reasonable estimates for the number of species that become extinct.

Now, if we consider the number of species that exist today, then extrapolate backwards, we quickly find that the number of species existing on Earth, say a million years ago, reaches an impossible number.

I know I didn't explain this well, I hope what I was trying to say was clear. TIme limitations.