Poll: Do you support evolution?

[discrider]

2. Devolution isnt a word. Evolution isnt creatures becoming "Bigger" or "Better" its surviving. Wolves for example became weaker and friendlier when some individuals realised leeching from human colonies was easier and more secure than hunting. Humans were more likely to allow small friendly wolves nearer the camp and let them have scraps. These wolves survived without having to chase anything or hunt properly. Not to mention selective breeding isnt about "improving" the animal for the animals sake, its about making it better for US. So of course it might become worse at surviving but thats because we have artificially ruined it.

3. Those mathematical models are less than worthless and im kinda saddened it isnt obvious to you. Why? Because in the real world the environment changes. In the real world you have predators, competition from outside a species and competition within a species AND adaptation from within the plants themselves. In the real world there is no "Peak" because circumstances change a LOT. The world changes, weather changes, climate changes, the predator hunting you gets faster or smarter, the plants being eaten gets tougher or climbs higher and the other species competing with you get better at getting the resources before you can. All of this means you cannot reach a peak. Its a race with no finish line since ALL contestants AND the finish line are constantly redefining the race. And if for some reason a species DOES become VERY successful suddenly its over populated. You have too many individuals for the currently available resources. So some need to move or die. And if they move to a place they cannot or probably wont return from evolution can occur. Humans evolved from apes who lived in forests, however our ancestors moved to the savannah probably to escape from this kind of over population and we adapted for that environment instead, which is why there are differences. Its more effective to try and eat the food no one else is trying to eat. Every niche will get filled over time.

4. The fossil record is far more accurate than you say. Heres a pattern for you (THANKS QUAXAR!)

Its damn good. Not to mention carbon dating is far more accurate than you say it is. There are challenges yes, if a mineral has changed form or been damaged and such it makes the dating incorrect. And MANY creationists would have you believe that, somehow, the experts in this field are TOTALLY unaware of this and someone with no training at all can spot it easily while they cannot. But of course they are, its told to them on day ONE of their training how to overcome this. You can examine the crystalline structure of a mineral before you carbon date it to know its past, if it HAS changed form or been melted and when. This is standard procedure and carbon dating is only used on samples that past muster. People are rigorous. They WANT to date things properly. If you find an issue with how they do it they will fix it or spend their lives trying. And they did fix it.

4.2 Theres also more biological proofs. Like retro viral DNA which is a prediction evolution makes. A retro virus inserts DNA into your cells where virus's are produced. If during this time the infected cell is a testicle cell or an ovary cell your children get the viral DNA in their DNA forever. And so will their children. It wont DO anything but its an easy marker of inactive non human DNA. Humans have 7 as a species ALL shared from when our population was low 7 times and an individual got the virus. The further away a relative is the less viral DNA they have in common with us and visa versa. The chimp and gorilla have the exact same 7 we do. Orangs have 4. The smaller great apes have less. This matches predictions about the tree of life.

5. MY FAVOURITE! WE DO! WE DO WE DO WE DO! And i LOVE it. MANY experiments have been done to show how the buildings blocks for life spring from non life. Amazingly, and this is awesome proof, if you take ancient earths atmosphere, add water and add electricity (lightning) you get DNA and amino acids forming. Its true, heres the test to prove it, it has been repeated time and time again. What a MASSIVE coincidence that when evolution predicts life arose the atmosphere has the PERFECT conditions to form biological matter from non living matter. The two match perfectly.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller%E2%80%93Urey_experiment

Its called abiogenesis. Its a very well understood area and the evidence supports it being possible. Hell in a single human lifetime we made DNA and amino acids from a random process. True, in real life it took millions of years for life to pop up in these conditions because these building blocks need to interact JUST right to make it so but its proof it could most certainly happen. The scientists did all the work and all you had to do was google it. Who was lazy again?

2-3. Well, my definition of "devolution" is this, that the organism becomes less and less tolerant of changes to its environment. As such, it is more likely to have an extinction event when the environment does change, because it has constantly specialised itself to the current environment rather than keeping a broad gene base and being able to fall back to that when the conditions change.

Also the models are fine because the fitness functions also change over time. There is always a "peak" and a broad, and I think fair, definition for it could be "that which takes the least energy to do but which provides the most energy to support those doing it". So moving to a food rich environment provides more energy than having to scavenge. Being more attractive to mates means less time and energy spent searching for one. Avoiding predators is far easier than having to heal. So survival of the fittest, being most able to confront the challenges the environment throws at you, is the "peak".

From this, I conclude that only one of two things happen to a large population of organisms when presented with some trait that improves the specie in its environment. Either the population stays homogenous and the improvement benefits them all, or only some of the individuals benefit and they split off from the population. Now the first option doesn't allow for speciation at all, because the entire current population gains the benefit. The second makes the splinter population vulnerable, as they will only be carrying with them part of the genetic library of the larger population, and also has fewer individuals making them far more prone to genetic loss through the destruction or corruption of a single individual.

And so evolution is left with making many from one group or betting on the weak to survive. Sure, these events can happen in any order many, many times, but the fact remains that each time a species branches off, it's left at best having to catch back up to the standard of the original population, and at worst extinct.

4. I'm loath to take the human evolutionary "family" fossil tree as evidence of anything, since there is the huge incentive here for confirmation bias. There is a very disproportionate focus on our own ancestry, and so the fossil record will have been completed here regardless of it's veracity.

As for isotope dating, my biggest issue with it is the inherent assumption that radioactive isotopes have kept the same halflife period throughout history. Whilst we don't have any reason to suspect otherwise, I do not think that our current data of a couple of hundred years can be readily extrapolated back several million without addressing this issue, especially when we don't have any real theories developed as to why this may be the case and are just relying on the empirical data here.

4.2 This was interesting. My first thought was perhaps that humans and apes may well share similar virii that would then integrate themselves into the same identical sites in both species. But having no real clue, turned to Google. Learned about Avian Leukosis virus from Wiki which lends some credence to the idea that virii might be selective about base site integrations (otherwise it wouldn't cause tumors all the time). And then found this:

http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/05/do_shared_ervs_support_common_046751.html

Bias taken for what you will. Sources seem sound enough, but interested to hear your opinion on it since you seem knowledgeable, and the article no doubt cherry picks appropriate evidence to make a point.

5. This one alone is hardly conclusive (which is why I've never been convinced by it before). It's one thing to produce the raw building blocks of life through straight chemistry, and it's another to get the machinery constructed out of the blocks so it can replicate and repair itself. Also it doesn't deal with chirality at all, and explain why we're all right handed when that experiment will produce a 50-50 mix of left and right handed chiral acids. And DNA was -not- formed in that experiment.

That Adenide article seems interesting, but I don't have a way through the paywalls.

DNA isn't magic, it's an organic compound susceptible to extreme temperatures and pH and in an environment full of microorganisms, as such it has an expiration date of around half a million years. That is why we have cells, because DNA needs a very precise environment to function.

I only brought up DNA because of this discovery:

http://news.ncsu.edu/releases/tpschweitzer-bone/

We're finding soft-tissue with some DNA inside dinosaur bones. I mean, I suppose it could still be scrambled or what not. But I believe that it shouldn't be there at all according to the date of the fossil. This fossil survived with cells intact, so that either says something about how well these can be preserved, or it says something about the accuracy of the date of the fossil. And while I think going full Jurassic Park might be over the top, we could at least look for DNA within recent human ancestors and study that to ensure that we're looking a different species and not just deformed individuals from the same population.

 

[Shadowstar38]

EDIT: All right, maybe believe was the wrong word. How does 'support' sound?

Support sounds dumb. It's like saying you support breathing, or weather. You can't really 'support' a natural process like you would support a sports team.

And in the end, whether you believe in evolution is irrelevant, because nature flat out does not give a shit and will continue to roll along doing what it does, with or without anyone's 'support'.

Okay, this just sounds like nitpicking. You get what he means.

 

[waj9876]

Whether or not I support, believe, or whatever in evolution, doesn't mean a god damn thing in the long run.

It happens. The only reason people would have to think that it doesn't would be if they believe every major scientist ever who has spoken on the subject is part of a worldwide evil conspiracy designed to keep people from turning to religion, or something.

Though a worldwide evil conspiracy by the devil to make religion an unpopular choice sounds kind of cool to be perfectly honest. I'd almost prefer that, just because of how badass it sounds.

 

[ImperialSunlight]

I'm a skeptic, so I don't believe anything. Speaking in practical terms, however, there is far more evidence of evolution, and so, though it has no bearing on metaphysical creation (it doesn't explain why the world exists), that life evolved on Earth is fairly obvious.

 

[BiscuitTrouser]

2-3. Well, my definition of "devolution" is this, that the organism becomes less and less tolerant of changes to its environment. As such, it is more likely to have an extinction event when the environment does change, because it has constantly specialised itself to the current environment rather than keeping a broad gene base and being able to fall back to that when the conditions change.

The same effect can be achieved with a genetic bottleneck simply due to a lot of individuals dying from disaster or plague. I agree that it IS an effect we currently see in the panda but its not called devolution. This is a main reason extinction occurs anyway.

From this, I conclude that only one of two things happen to a large population of organisms when presented with some trait that improves the specie in its environment.

And so evolution is left with making many from one group or betting on the weak to survive. Sure, these events can happen in any order many, many times, but the fact remains that each time a species branches off, it's left at best having to catch back up to the standard of the original population, and at worst extinct.

Not so. Youve missed my point so ill explain it again. Youre imagining one big "Population" where the mutation either splinters off or encompasses the whole thing AFTER the new gene arises. Sometimes the new gene arises BECAUSE a group has splintered to a NEW location that selects differently from the original. Here ill give you an example.

We have a forest in the middle of some plains. Some apes live there. There are 12 social circles of 10 apes each. Due to a recent abundance of food there is 1 too many social group for the forest to support with its resources the following year. So we have a forest with resources for 11 but 12 groups. Thus due to territorial fights 1 group is moved by force toward the plains because if it remained there wouldnt be enough food for any of the groups. It is forced to look elsewhere and has drawn the short straw. It lives on the outskirts of the forest, still able to gather SOME forest food, but forced to attempt to eat from the previously deserted plains. THIS social group of apes will favor individuals who are best at gathering resources from the plains AND the forest rather than just the forest. Thus it will select differently from groups who live in the heart of the forest. Youre correct when you say that speciation requires the mutated individual to survive and its likely the new gene wont become the mainstay of the population. You are correct. Its why evolution takes so long.

True for the new social group times will be harsher until adaptation allows them to properly exploit their resources. But it has no other choice. It would be worse for them to attempt to compete for purely forest resources because then there wouldnt be enough for anyone. Its better to scrounge alone than share a single meal with 100 people.

5. As for isotope dating, my biggest issue with it is the inherent assumption that radioactive isotopes have kept the same halflife period throughout history. Whilst we don't have any reason to suspect otherwise, I do not think that our current data of a couple of hundred years can be readily extrapolated back several million without addressing this issue, especially when we don't have any real theories developed as to why this may be the case and are just relying on the empirical data here.

Im really not the one to ask about this since this is outside biology. Bassik i believe was the resident geologist. But honestly you address this point yourself, and as i would put it: There is no evidence to suggest that the laws of physics, in this case the weak nuclear force governing radioactive decay, can change or have changed over time. Until you can demonstrate they can it doesnt make sense to suggest the physical laws governing this are fluid.

4.2 This was interesting. My first thought was perhaps that humans and apes may well share similar virii that would then integrate themselves into the same identical sites in both species. But having no real clue, turned to Google. Learned about Avian Leukosis virus from Wiki which lends some credence to the idea that virii might be selective about base site integrations (otherwise it wouldn't cause tumors all the time). And then found this:

http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/05/do_shared_ervs_support_common_046751.html

Bias taken for what you will. Sources seem sound enough, but interested to hear your opinion on it since you seem knowledgeable, and the article no doubt cherry picks appropriate evidence to make a point.

Wow. Im only starting out as a biology student but this is kinda heavy stuff. Honestly I'm not sure im qualified enough to tackle these papers in their entirety yet, and if i do it will take some time so i might come back to it. However at a glance they seem to have misrepresented a paper which stated as the conclusion:

"These observations provide very strong evidence that, for some fraction of the genome, chimpanzees, bonobos, and gorillas are more closely related to each other than they are to humans".

Which they are trying to twist into some sort of proof that humans and apes are not related AT ALL. Not to mention there are 30'000 retro viral lengths of DNA in our DNA. The 7 I specifically named are the ones we have in the same place with the same length of DNA.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/section4.html#retroviruses

This specifically discusses the 7. Honestly its hard to work out if they are referring to one of the 7 important retro viral strains or the 29993 other viral lengths that are totally unrelated. Honestly I am a lowly student. I know a fair amount about certain aspects but I'm no virologist. Also im going out in 10 minutes so Ill need to come back later to get right into this. It links MANY studies and ill need to dissect them all. Also your source is dire. Like utterly dire. It has lovely gems like this though:

http://www.evolutionnews.org/2013/07/try_to_imagine074101.html

Heres the blog of a researcher who performed one of those studies though:

http://vwxynot.blogspot.co.uk/2007/06/endogenous-retroviruses-and-evidence.html

He is not very happy creationist sites are using his work and misrepresenting it.

EDIT: The more i trawl through that site the more im convinced its utter utter utter utter shit. "Darwinism and racism", "Darwinism and communism", "Darwinism and Stalinism", "The world would be a terrible place if darwinism was true", "MANY scientists deny evolution", "Evolution controversy". Its just too much bullshit. Im sorry but no. I'm not taking the time to read anything on this site. Its appauling. Its a 0/100 for any sort of credibility at all.

5. This one alone is hardly conclusive (which is why I've never been convinced by it before). It's one thing to produce the raw building blocks of life through straight chemistry, and it's another to get the machinery constructed out of the blocks so it can replicate and repair itself. Also it doesn't deal with chirality at all, and explain why we're all right handed when that experiment will produce a 50-50 mix of left and right handed chiral acids. And DNA was -not- formed in that experiment.

That Adenide article seems interesting, but I don't have a way through the paywalls.

I rather hastily classed Adenine as DNA which technically with some phosphates and some sugars it definitely is. Both of these were also produced in the experiment. However by itself i was incorrect as it was just the single nucleotide. I know we have yet to understand the next step but I just find it pretty convincing that in the time where life was predicted to have arisen the atmosphere JUST happened to be ideal for the formation of these building blocks. There's a lot of discussion about the first proto cell, its possible chirality was selected for or against AFTER the first few proto cells. Perhaps the first cells that formed with mixed chirality were unstable or didnt work. Perhaps in the mix of various chiralities, on a chemical level, ONLY the right handed one could form the proto cell and from there it was set in stone for all life forever. Every time the test is repeated with a more accurate idea of what was in the atmosphere the results give rise to MORE compounds than before. Hell when they re opened the old vials they found more compounds than the original test showed and that was 30-40 years.

 

[Tom Roberts]

I would love to support evolution, but such activity is Illegal where I live. (I've thinking here specifically of evolution in the strict sense as 'success at reproduction' and those who just shouldn't have, ever.)

 

[Quaxar]

Well, my definition of "devolution" is this, that the organism becomes less and less tolerant of changes to its environment. As such, it is more likely to have an extinction event when the environment does change, because it has constantly specialised itself to the current environment rather than keeping a broad gene base and being able to fall back to that when the conditions change.

Then the problem is you're making up words as you go along. That's <url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generalist_and_specialist_species>specialization.

I'm loath to take the human evolutionary "family" fossil tree as evidence of anything, since there is the huge incentive here for confirmation bias. There is a very disproportionate focus on our own ancestry, and so the fossil record will have been completed here regardless of it's veracity.

First thing I'd make up would be the common ancestor of "humans and monkeys" just to shut creationists up, inventing dead-end side-species like Homo floresiensis or the whole Megadonts branch (Paranthropus aethiopicus and others) would serve no purpose.
Sure, there are discussions on whether a few select species are separat ones or just an extreme sexual dimorphism but that hardly ruines anthropology.

Of course you can go ahead and play the old Piltdown card, but if you want to play the "spot the paper with falsified data to fit the prereached conclusions"-game get ready for the Creation Institute.

As for isotope dating, my biggest issue with it is the inherent assumption that radioactive isotopes have kept the same halflife period throughout history.

Uh yeah, you do realize that your theory of a changing halflife would completely destroy nuclear physics? Just checking.

5. This one alone is hardly conclusive (which is why I've never been convinced by it before). It's one thing to produce the raw building blocks of life through straight chemistry, and it's another to get the machinery constructed out of the blocks so it can replicate and repair itself. Also it doesn't deal with chirality at all, and explain why we're all right handed when that experiment will produce a 50-50 mix of left and right handed chiral acids. And DNA was -not- formed in that experiment.

RNA is sugar, phosphate and nucleic acids, all of which have at least partially been produced in the Miller-Urey experiment or a follow-up thereof. RNA also has much more functions, such as self-replication, which we are <url=http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2011/04/rna-enzyme-makes-another-rna-e.html>this close to recreating in a lab and enzymatic activity, meaning it can not only store information but at the same time influence chemical reactions.

And your chirality thing is like saying why is there so much more matter instead of antimatter and subsequently dismissing physics. Fact is a small early imbalance can have massive consequence 4 billion years down the line.
Possibly there's also some chemical difference to it but I don't have the time to look into that today.

We're finding soft-tissue with some DNA inside dinosaur bones. I mean, I suppose it could still be scrambled or what not. But I believe that it shouldn't be there at all according to the date of the fossil. This fossil survived with cells intact, so that either says something about how well these can be preserved, or it says something about the accuracy of the date of the fossil. And while I think going full Jurassic Park might be over the top, we could at least look for DNA within recent human ancestors and study that to ensure that we're looking a different species and not just deformed individuals from the same population.

That was big news though, so you can kind of see how rare findings like this are. And even then this doesn't mean we can clone dinos, just that apparently enough DNA survived in some form to keep the cell alive. Let's put it this way, you can't expect to find genetic information older than half a million years or so, sure you could get lucky but it's extremely unlikely and needs very precise conditions. Hell, fossils are rare to find as it is so the chances are immensely small.

Ancestral DNA? We're already doing that, have a look at the <url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neanderthal_genome_project>Neanderthal genome project.

 

[Vivi22]

Theistic Evolutionism: because there are practical issues with atheism (you can either delude yourself into thinking life has meaning and thus there's a point to scientific inquiry, or be a nihilist and spend the rest of your life contemplating suicide)

Why does life need some inherent meaning for someone to be happy? Why can't they define their own purpose.

In fact, I feel sorry for anyone who does need some greater meaning as defined by someone or something else in order to feel like they aren't worthless sacks of shit and nothing matters.

EDIT: Hell, if we're going to be honest here and someone is an atheist and doesn't believe in an afterlife, then what they do with their time being alive should matter more since it's literally all they get. They don't get some get out of oblivion free card to assume the real fun starts once they're dead.

 

[Sectan]

Of course. I think you'd be hard pressed to find anyone on this site who doesn't, even those who are religious.

Bingo. I've mentioned this before. Evolution totally happened. It's just that a lot of religious people can't adjust their views to the idea that the all-powerful god - who is, you know, all-powerful - made all this shit happen. Universe from an initial boom? Let there be light. Adam and Eve? The ascension of primitive man from something more animal than intelligent being to an upstanding hairless mammal. Obviously, I'm speaking only from the Catholic perspective, but you see where I'm going with this. The point is that we don't have to be afraid that science is going to go all Hitchhiker's Guide on us and make god disappear in a puff of logic. In any belief system where the deity is everywhere and nowhere and omni-lots-of-things and very mysterious, there is no reason why science should be a threat. God obviously knows science too!

I really wish I had more to say. The bible is interpreted in many ways by many people. Scientific interpretation can easily fit just as easily.

 

[Frission]

I find it weird how these threads bring some strange people out of the woodwork. Why bother arguing about something like snowflakes as if that would matter in evolution?

Evolution is biology. Nothing in biology makes sense without it being in light of evolution. It's simple.

(1) Variation exists in natural popula8on

(2) This variation affects survival (& fertility)

(3) This variation is inherited

(4) Therefore, those that survive are more likely (than
the original average) to possess traits that enhance
survival

(5) Therefore, through time, species evolve traits that
best help them to survive in their environment

If you acknowledge 1, 2 and 3 to be true, them 4 and 5 must take place.

Someone something about how evolution doesn't always seem to better a species. That is because evolution works through two ways:

Random production of new gene variation. Otherwise known as mutation.
Nonrandom retention (survival) of some of the new gene variants, otherwise known as Natural Selection .

Mutations just tinker, not improve and according to Kimura, most mutations are neutral.


OT: A good side of these threads though is that I like the informative counter posts that take place.

 

[Wargamer]

I don't support evolution. I don't need to support evolution. Unlike religion, which requires a constant stream of cash from its believers and pedophiles to act as priests, evolution happens whether we embrace it, ignore it, attempt to speed it up or try and halt its progress.

 

[Mullac]

Hell yeah. Don't really know if I support it as such, I haven't seen myself evolving.

 

[discrider]

As for isotope dating, my biggest issue with it is the inherent assumption that radioactive isotopes have kept the same halflife period throughout history.

Uh yeah, you do realize that your theory of a changing halflife would completely destroy nuclear physics? Just checking.

I guess a smaller sun would be a problem :S
I'll have to think this through some more.

That was big news though, so you can kind of see how rare findings like this are. And even then this doesn't mean we can clone dinos, just that apparently enough DNA survived in some form to keep the cell alive. Let's put it this way, you can't expect to find genetic information older than half a million years or so, sure you could get lucky but it's extremely unlikely and needs very precise conditions. Hell, fossils are rare to find as it is so the chances are immensely small.

Well I have to wonder how many fossils we have found, because getting extraordinarily lucky seems like a non-argument to me.
Halflife of DNA: http://www.nature.com/news/dna-has-a-521-year-half-life-1.11555

Not so. Youve missed my point so ill explain it again. Youre imagining one big "Population" where the mutation either splinters off or encompasses the whole thing AFTER the new gene arises. Sometimes the new gene arises BECAUSE a group has splintered to a NEW location that selects differently from the original.

I still think that this new group that has moved themselves into the peripheries stands a far higher chance of extinction from other environmental stresses, and any gains made through segregation and adaptation will be outweighed by the loss of genetic stores available in the bigger population.

Wow. Im only starting out as a biology student but this is kinda heavy stuff. Honestly I'm not sure im qualified enough to tackle these papers in their entirety yet, and if i do it will take some time so i might come back to it. However at a glance they seem to have misrepresented a paper which stated as the conclusion:

"These observations provide very strong evidence that, for some fraction of the genome, chimpanzees, bonobos, and gorillas are more closely related to each other than they are to humans".

Which they are trying to twist into some sort of proof that humans and apes are not related AT ALL. Not to mention there are 30'000 retro viral lengths of DNA in our DNA. The 7 I specifically named are the ones we have in the same place with the same length of DNA.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/section4.html#retroviruses

This specifically discusses the 7. Honestly its hard to work out if they are referring to one of the 7 important retro viral strains or the 29993 other viral lengths that are totally unrelated. Honestly I am a lowly student. I know a fair amount about certain aspects but I'm no virologist. Also im going out in 10 minutes so Ill need to come back later to get right into this. It links MANY studies and ill need to dissect them all. Also your source is dire. Like utterly dire. It has lovely gems like this though:

http://www.evolutionnews.org/2013/07/try_to_imagine074101.html

Heres the blog of a researcher who performed one of those studies though:

http://vwxynot.blogspot.co.uk/2007/06/endogenous-retroviruses-and-evidence.html

He is not very happy creationist sites are using his work and misrepresenting it.

EDIT: The more i trawl through that site the more im convinced its utter utter utter utter shit. "Darwinism and racism", "Darwinism and communism", "Darwinism and Stalinism", "The world would be a terrible place if darwinism was true", "MANY scientists deny evolution", "Evolution controversy". Its just too much bullshit. Im sorry but no. I'm not taking the time to read anything on this site. Its appauling. Its a 0/100 for any sort of credibility at all.

I was afraid of this. I only posted it because the article made a decent point and the research behind the article looked sound enough, but it's hard to tell the depth of the field without further investigation (and a uni connection with access to all the papers). It's a bit sad that it was the second result in my search actually.

 

[PainInTheAssInternet]

Theistic Evolutionism: because there are practical issues with atheism (you can either delude yourself into thinking life has meaning and thus there's a point to scientific inquiry, or be a nihilist and spend the rest of your life contemplating suicide), time is relative, and why would God have removed any doubt of His existence by spoiling hundreds of years of research anyway? Giving Moses a simplified version of events makes a great test of faith, too.

Before I get replies from butthurt, "hail science" militant atheist types, think about why Nietzsche and Sartre were opposed to German anti-semitism, or why Richard Dawkins wrote his own Ten Commandments, all while preaching that morality, good and evil, don't exist and that people shouldn't act like they do.

Short version: it's impossible to live happily and consistently as an atheist, but evolution is fact. Therefore, theistic evolutionism is the best way to reconcile fact with truth.

Saying that it is impossible to be anything other than a cynic or a self-deluded cynic without your god only shows how cynical you are.

I'm with team Science, but Evolution can just jump off the bus. In other words, this poll is completely biased and the OP should be ashamed.

Okay, so obviously I agree with "micro-evolution". I can see the small scale changes happening and species diverging and resistances appearing and the like. This is all adequately shown in numerous experiments and in human farming activities since forever. These processes exist and enable creatures to adapt to their environment or at least stop dying to it.

What I don't agree with is that any of these processes can lead to "macro-evolution". This is the part I'd call Evolution, and then I would rename "micro-evolution" something far less synonymous. This is due to two reasons, first that from what I see today in large scale experiments (farming, pet breeding, etc) is that captive populations are most likely to devolve rather than evolve. They move to a smaller genetic base in response to outside stress and become weaker for it. Second, in mathematical models, given an arbitrary gene injection rate into any given population of individuals regulated by some outside environmental function, one of two things happen. Either the population perfects itself to the local maxima (through micro-evolution) and never changes enough to benefit from other local maxima the environment presents (no macro) or the injection rate is too high and the population never stabilises, so instead of becoming fit for the environment the constant changing of their genome makes them unfit for everything.

Also "macro-evolution" is inherently untestable. Every prediction it makes into the future within a reasonable timescale will not differ from what we see in "micro-evolution". We will see species adapt to the environment as per usual, but we are not going to see the largescale physiological changes within our lifetime. We have the fossil record, but unless we're going to properly map out ancestry by pulling DNA from the bones (and thus voiding their supposed age), all we have are speculations based on similarities in bone structure backed up by guessed dates which are verified by the bones which are verified by the guessed dates. In any case, it would be nice for "macro-evolution" to make some predictions which we could go ahead and verify instead of hiding behind long time frames that we cannot ever test over.

It would also be nice if "macro-evolution" had a concrete starting point for life. But again, "macro-evolution" is untestable. So if we do find some way of kick-starting life naturally, even if in the most contrived and unlikely manner, "macro-evolution" will latch onto it as "proof", whereas there is no fail condition and never finding an appropriate starting point for life will just be down to lazy scientists.

So, yes Science is great. But Evolution is not science, as it does not inform us and thus cannot be disproven. Maybe when we have a collective data base of a million generations then we can look at this argument again and see whether the data shows trends of macro-evolution, but at the moment this just isn't possible.

There is no reason for evolution to cease. The terms "micro" and "macro" only mean "small" and "large". In this case, it's "small-scale" and "Large-scale" evolution and only in regards to the time scale. Given that most processes take far longer than our lifespan (going on a century depending where you live), I don't see the point in separating the two. Really, they're just terms used to dissect and examine the processes at different levels.

As this point has already been countered previously in response to another poster, I'll just repeat what they said. It's the difference between walking a meter and a mile.

With your example, you make a critical mistake; you assume that the environment is static. The environment changes along with the organisms that inhabit it. The temperature can change, food sources can die out, water can dry up or flood, more hostile predators can be introduced etc. You also leave out the fact that other organisms evolve alongside each other, predators and prey alike. This causes them to compete with each species and even within their own species in order to survive. This is the origin of the popular term "genetic arms race."

How exactly did you get your mathematical equations? Especially if they do not account for other organisms or changes in the environment that would be happening concurrently and at similar rates?

We have seen changes in DNA and have been able to link ourselves to our genetic ancestors back up the tree and downwards towards our modern-day "cousins" via DNA mapping and dissection.

What do you mean by "devolve," exactly? If you mean that there are species that have been engineered by us in order to suit our needs to the point that they cannot exist in the wild, then yes. However, I must ask how this disproves evolution instead of being an excellent demonstration of how imperfect the process is. Evolution does not guarantee survival; merely that one adapts to the environment to which they are exposed.

You also combine the theory of Abiogenesis with Evolution. Evolution makes no attempts to explain the origin of life, but rather how it became complex from a simple group or individual of origin.

How is Evolution not science? It does inform us and we can make predictions about how organisms will react (mosquitoes in the London Underground, for example)

 

[gamernerdtg2]

I don't support evolution. I don't need to support evolution. Unlike religion, which requires a constant stream of cash from its believers and pedophiles to act as priests, evolution happens whether we embrace it, ignore it, attempt to speed it up or try and halt its progress.

This is what I'm saying about the extremists. No one will believe in God as the pedophiles and power hungry leeches in leadership. I really think that this issue within the religious community needs to be sorted out before it can approach science with any credibility. How can you say "believe in God" and then completely go against everything that you're supposed to follow? I'm not an atheist but I understand the anger over this 100%.
The constant stream of cash quote is hilarious, but too true.

 

[EstrogenicMuscle]

No, I don't support evolution. I pirate it.

Reported for piracy.

You'd better feel sorry. You'd better be repentant. You thief.

 

[discrider]

As this point has already been countered previously in response to another poster, I'll just repeat what they said.

Indeed.


Honestly, the worst thing about this debate has to be the amount of propaganda from both sides. It just obfuscates the science. I mean, I was following Biscuit's links trying to analyse the science and form a more balanced opinion, but then they'd link to the creationist response who'd chew them out for misrepresenting their arguments and willfully ignoring evidence. And of course the opposite happens as well, with the creationists misrepresenting the evolutionist arguments. And around and around and around it goes. And it just becomes impossible to discern what is valid research among all the bluster without doing all the legwork yourself.

It doesn't help that all the scientific archives require subscriptions to browse either. Means we have to rely on a media filter of some kind to receive any information at all.

 

[Quaxar]

That was big news though, so you can kind of see how rare findings like this are. And even then this doesn't mean we can clone dinos, just that apparently enough DNA survived in some form to keep the cell alive. Let's put it this way, you can't expect to find genetic information older than half a million years or so, sure you could get lucky but it's extremely unlikely and needs very precise conditions. Hell, fossils are rare to find as it is so the chances are immensely small.

Well I have to wonder how many fossils we have found, because getting extraordinarily lucky seems like a non-argument to me.
Halflife of DNA: http://www.nature.com/news/dna-has-a-521-year-half-life-1.11555

I might have put it badly. Fossils are indeed extremely rare. Consider that billions of dinosaurs once dominated the whole world for 135 million years, yet only a few months ago paleontologists discovered a completely new genus (the magnitude above species), <url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurornis_xui>Aurornis xui, a dinosaur-bird link. If you compared the amount of organisms that lived at any given time to the amount of fossils of each species we have found so far fossils are incredibly rare because they only form under very specific conditions. Good T-Rex fossils are so rare <url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specimens_of_Tyrannosaurus>they even have individual names.
You can probably guess then how good your chances are of finding any DNA in any given fossil.

That doesn't mean we just dig at random, you can narrow possible locations down a lot with geological factors and known habitats. For example we know that human evolution happened mainly in Africa, so if we want to dig for early Homininae we'd be wise to go there. And if we know our African geology and history of discoveries we can deduce that the <url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_African_Shear_Zone>Central African Shear Zone will be the best place to dig for an Australopithecus since there it is much easier to reach lower geological strata and thus older fossils.

That doesn't of course imply there couldn't have been Australopitheci in Europe at one point, but because we haven't found any anywhere outside of a certain area in Africa while at the same time we discovered quite a lot of Homo neanderthalensis and Homo ergaster in Europe and the latter one all over Asia as well it is the most likely explanation.

That also doesn't mean we can't get <url=http://jezebel.com/5992340/5+year+old-girl-discovers-new-species-of-dinosaur-scientists-name-it-after-her>5 year-olds stumbling upon new species from time to time too.

 

[snakeinthereeds]

This is a topic that should raise no debate, because the amount of proof for evolution is just plain ridiculous while creationists and other naysayers stick to misrepresenting the proponents and putting up ignorant claptrap they make up on the spot while utterly missing the whole point and meaning of the topic.

The only problem this really "has" with religion is that it clashes with all those creation myths that were written by people anyway. But you don't need to stick to any musty doctrines to believe in some sort of higher power(s) that influence how the world ticks. It's actually kind of a given that there are mechanisms this world runs on. Evolution looks like it might be one of these, or maybe a tool of some sort that propagates and updates data for some unknown purpose, or maybe for something that has little to do with the concept of "purpose" as we understand it. There's also the thing about that(those) "god(s)" having any sort of will/mind as we understand it being kind of unlikely. Because lets face it: there's no way anything anywhere near godlike would have the intelligence and attitude of a spoiled brat - how most religions like to portray them. And then the ones that don't trip over that one still have their gods have the brains of an average human. In essense: they're interpretations of "god" made in the image of humans, and that's just silly on way too many levels.

 

[BrassButtons]

4. I'm loath to take the human evolutionary "family" fossil tree as evidence of anything, since there is the huge incentive here for confirmation bias. There is a very disproportionate focus on our own ancestry, and so the fossil record will have been completed here regardless of it's veracity.

Just so we're clear, are you accusing paleontologists of incompetence or fraud? Either way this is a serious accusation, and I expect you to have evidence to back it up. Otherwise you should retract this libelous claim.