The misinterpretation of evolution

[Olrod]

Personally Im a Creationist out of convenience

You mis-spelled "ignorance".

Its out of the evidence that I use to reveal flaws to the theory of evolution, which evolutionists themselves should be screening for. This is how science perfects itself, through self critisicm.

Also, you need to quote this evidence. Please. If you have ANY evidence that *disproves* evolution, Science REALLY REALLY wants to know it, you'll be famous and win a Nobel prize!

 

[evilneko]

Because yours is the most reasonable response ill reply to yours.

Basically all are observed with limitations to 5 & 8. Species vary as dominant & recessive genes are shuffled about during the generations. A simple punnet square demonstrates this perfectly. However, the assumption that mutations create new complex traits (not including the traits forming out of degeration)& change families & rather than just species.

The reason I call evolution superficial is that its based on external traits, especially from fossils despite their obscure details. This is fair enough to base a hypothesis from but when more evidence is revealled to conflict with the theory the theory must adapt or die. Sadly the hubris of many wont accept that we cant truly know & instead promote their theories as a fact & ommit details in the evidence that conflict with the theory. Abiogenesis is one of the oldest examples of these.

Personally Im a Creationist out of convenience & this is plausible since you cant truly prove anything from the past. Its out of the evidence that I use to reveal flaws to the theory of evolution, which evolutionists themselves should be screening for. This is how science perfects itself, through self critisicm.

Ah, you did return.

Despite my response I actually did go looking for science literature on the evolution of glycolysis. I didn't spend too terribly much time on it though as a) I didn't really believe you'd accept anything I came up with anyway and b) unfortunately most of the papers I came across were not available in full-text for free.

Also I had this niggling doubt that even though I'm interested in it, I'm far from a biology major and scientific papers on the process might be too technical for me.

So let me just leave you a couple of free ones I did manage to find. Admittedly I've not had time to actually read the entire things. Given the tone of your second post I doubt you will bother, honestly. I'll eventually get around to it though.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1016/0307-4412(93)90018-U/abstract

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16756667

 

[darkstarangel]

The trouble is would you understand it? I mentioned abiogenesis & you skimmed straight past it to ask for evidence disproving evolution. Your first impression wasnt exactly a bright one.

 

[darkstarangel]

Sorry evilneko that last response from me was for olrod not you. I appreciate your persistance.

 

[Olrod]

Abiogenesis has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with evolution.

 

[evilneko]

Sorry evilneko that last response from me was for olrod not you. I appreciate your persistance.

I actually thought it was kinda funny when you mentioned glycolysis in your earlier post since I had mentioned earlier that was one of the things I myself had trouble comprehending as an evolved process.

The difference between someone like me and a creationist though is I'm going to investigate and try to understand instead of throwing my hands up and saying "GODDUNNIT." That's what really gets my goat about creationism: it's just plain giving up. Actually, it's not just giving up, it's giving up and claiming the only answer is magic. I'm sure glad there are people who don't do that. We'd still be living in mud huts otherwise.

 

[darkstarangel]

Good work on your search. You may not be a bio major but an interest is all it takes for you to learn more. I started out with a mere interest in general biology & now im studying a bachelor in biomolecular science.

Also sorry about the tone of my last post, I knew id come across sarcastic jackasses so I was prepared for it.
The two articles you found basically compare the glycolytic pathways of related phyla on the phylogenetic tree. The scope was to add confirmation to evolutionary relationships but the point im always puting across is that this can also be interpreted in otherways also since glucose is a major source of energy for neally all organisms on earth, so naturally their cells need to split sugar into pyruvate. This is the precursor for the krebs cycle which produces the energy for us to live. Its also the reason why we breath oxygen & & exhale CO2.

What these articles havent put across is how organisms survived without it before it evolved or how it could have evolved. Its an irreducibly complex system where if components are removed the end result doesnt happen. Our bodies are composed of thousands of such components.

All I can do is encourage you to learn as much as you can its mind blowing stuff.

 

[darkstarangel]

LOL thats my issue too & yes, there are a lot of overzealous douchebags out there on all fields. Im happy to accept that 'God dunnit' but I wanna know how he done it. But its happening on the other spectrum too with 'Evolution dunnit'. Dont tell me it evolved tell me how it evolved. I got sick of people telling me that mobile phones can ignite petrol at service stations so I used the formula for deriving wavelength energy & the flashpoint of octane to prove it as just an urban myth.

BTW sorry I still havent figured out how to quote yet. Forum posters must be getting a bit confused by now.

 

[Asita]

Because yours is the most reasonable response ill reply to yours.

Basically all are observed with limitations to 5 & 8. Species vary as dominant & recessive genes are shuffled about during the generations. A simple punnet square demonstrates this perfectly. However, the assumption that mutations create new complex traits (not including the traits forming out of degeration)& change families & rather than just species.

Well thanks for saying I'm reasonable, but I have to ask...what limitations to 5 & 8? In order to support this notion you really would have to actually cite a mechanism that would prevent change over time. Additionally, 'family change' is not a part of evolutionary theory, nor does it suggest family change. That is the old misrepresentation 'why doesn't a dog give birth to a cat' (though to your credit, you seem to be looking at this on a larger scale than parent-child transitions), which itself is simply a more [deliberately] absurd version of the old 'why are there still apes' argument, relying on the notion of evolution espousing a cross-over model rather than a divergent one.

And as for new complex traits: I'd point you to the formation of cecal valves in Podarcis sicula that were absent in their ancestral strain, E.Coli populations in Richard Lenski's long-term E.Coli experiment developing the ability to process citrate (which is an incredible innovation considering that the inability to process citrate is a detail used to identify E.Coli in the first place, and the famous 'nylon-eating bacteria'.

The reason I call evolution superficial is that its based on external traits, especially from fossils despite their obscure details.

...Did you just forget about everything we've learned from DNA sequencing (and Genetics in general), ERVs, observed speciation, and the observed effects of attempted hybridization of various species, many of which are compatible enough to produce offspring but not enough for that offspring to be fertile? To say nothing of the fact that every single line of inquiry all points to the same conclusion?

This is fair enough to base a hypothesis from but when more evidence is revealled to conflict with the theory the theory must adapt or die.

If you have such evidence, please provide it. Do remember, however, that a lack of data does not equate to contrary evidence.

Sadly the hubris of many wont accept that we cant truly know & instead promote their theories as a fact & ommit details in the evidence that conflict with the theory. Abiogenesis is one of the oldest examples of these.

I'm afraid I must question how much you actually know about abiogenesis, as A) there is no single model for abiogenesis at present, and B) the details of those models are changing as new info is gathered and old experiments are being revisited to test them under the new proposed circumstances of ancient earth.

Personally Im a Creationist out of convenience & this is plausible since you cant truly prove anything from the past.

Er, no. If your rationale is that you're accepting it 'for convenience' rather than actual agreement then the intellectually honest thing is to reject that explanation as well. "I don't know" is a perfectly valid response, and far more honest than choosing an explanation you don't agree with.

Its out of the evidence that I use to reveal flaws to the theory of evolution, which evolutionists themselves should be screening for. This is how science perfects itself, through self critisicm.

Eh, you have yet to actually present any evidence. The closest you got was suggesting that we didn't have an explanation for a given trait, which isn't an argument against the topic. A lack of knowledge of a given trait is simply that: a lack of knowledge about that trait. A flaw would have to produce solid data which contradicts the predictions of the theory. For instance, we didn't change the atomic model from Thompson's 'Plum Pudding Model' to Rutherford's 'Planetary Model' because Thompson couldn't prove where the electrons were. We switched to the Planetary Model because the data (namely that an atom's mass and positive charge made up a small portion of its volume) went against the predictions of the Pudding Model (which called for roughly equal distribution of both) and lined up with the Planetary Model (Small dense positively charged center with electrons orbiting). Any evidence against evolution would have to rely on similar data that contradicts the model.

Sorry evilneko that last response from me was for olrod not you. I appreciate your persistance.

Word of friendly advice: Use the quote button at the bottom right of a given post. It makes it clear who you're talking to and has the added benefit of notifying the person you're responding to via their inbox.

 

[Vindictus]

"IF EVOLUTION IS REAL, THEN WHY ARE THERE STILL MONKEYS?

CHECKMATE, DARWIN"

Counterpoint: "If your cousins grandparents are your grandparents, then why aren't they your siblings instead of your cousins?"
Alternate Counterpoint: "If Americans came from Europeans then why are there still Europeans?"

There are two main flaws with the 'why are still monkeys' argument, the first being the assumption that evolution is a linear trend. It is not, it's divergent. Honestly, it's a bit surprising that people can even make this mistake considering that even the very concept of the tree of life shows species branching off from a common source rather than being a singular road. Separate a population into different environments, they evolve along different lines based on the pressures of those environments and the mutations that occur in each isolated population. The end result is that where there was one species there now are two (or more). This ties into the other major flaw in the objection, namely the assumption that we're descended from modern apes. Evolution does not claim this, but posits that modern apes and humans share a common ancestor (hence the cousin analogy above).

Now amusingly, the old "why are there still monkeys" bit is so worn out and so well known as being based on false premises that even groups like Answers in Genesis recognize its failings and list it among the arguments they beg other creationists not to use.


Checkmate? You haven't even set up the chessboard yet.

I guess an obvious troll isn't as obvious as I'd thought :s

I was jesting in regards to the previous post, which mentioned those people who make these silly "BUF IF EVOLUTION IS REAL.. THEN WHY CAN'T ROCKS SPEAK" claims.

 

[Olrod]

Poe's Law: More than "just a theory".

 

[oktalist]

We are talking about millions of years here. Millions-of-years. Do you seriously believe that in that time, some drastical change is impossible to have happened?

If it is "impossible" for change to happen over the course of millions of years, the why has the fish Coelacanth been living with very little change since it's fossil ancestors during te Paleozoic Era, which btw was about 350 million years ago?

The coelacanths are not a single species but rather an order, like bats, rodents or primates. The first known coelacanth species appeared 400myo and died out 360myo. The two coelacanth species living today diverged 40myo. Between 400myo and today, at least sixty species of coelacanth have appeared and subsequently died out, most lasting no more than 30 million years each.

 

[oktalist]

Because yours is the most reasonable response ill reply to yours.

Whose response was that?

Basically all are observed with limitations to 5 & 8.

What are you talking about?

LOL thats my issue too

What's your issue too?

BTW sorry I still havent figured out how to quote yet. Forum posters must be getting a bit confused by now.

There's a button on each post, labelled "quote".

Sadly the hubris of many wont accept that we cant truly know & instead promote their theories as a fact.

Personally Im a Creationist out of convenience & this is plausible since you cant truly prove anything from the past.

You are right, we can't truly prove anything from the past. Like the Romans for instance, all we have to go on are these old bits of pottery and coins and ancient buildings, they could be anything. It's very unlikely that they are the result of an advanced society of people living thousands of years ago. That stuff was more likely just put there by magic.

Hell, I can't even prove what I had for breakfast this morning. I believe I had cornflakes, but that memory of eating cornflakes could have been implanted in my mind by the creator when she created the universe 12 minutes ago.

Im happy to accept that 'God dunnit' but I wanna know how he done it. But its happening on the other spectrum too with 'Evolution dunnit'. Dont tell me it evolved tell me how it evolved.

We may not know how it evolved (whatever "it" is), but since we have good evidence for how a lot of other things evolved, and no evidence for any alternative, it's reasonable to assume that "it" did evolve unless you have evidence to the contrary. ("It looks irriducibly complex" is not evidence.)

[EDIT] An "irriducably" complex system in an earlier, slightly less complex form, might not have worked for the same function it has now, but might still have been useful for some other function. There are lots of evolved things which once looked irreducibly complex, or failed to be explained by natural selection for some other reason, but which we now understand the evolution of, like the eye, or altruism. Science is littered with things which we once weren't sure about, but later gained a better understanding of. [/EDIT]

"God did it" means nothing, because God is a made-up word, and words are not things, they are just words. You might as well just blow raspberries. Evolution is a thing; even if it were not true, it does at least have a well-defined meaning based on observable phenomena.

I can conceive of lots of evidence that might possibly come to light and disprove evolution. A human fossil dated to earlier than the earliest primate, for example. That would be pretty good evidence, huh? But I can conceive of no evidence that might possibly come to light and disprove the assertion that God created something. Because that assertion relates to no observable phenomena.

It would be nice if God made everything, and everything had a purpose, part of some important plan. But the niceness of a proposition is no basis for believing it.

Its out of the evidence that I use to reveal flaws to the theory of evolution, which evolutionists themselves should be screening for. This is how science perfects itself, through self critisicm.

Also, you need to quote this evidence. Please. If you have ANY evidence that *disproves* evolution, Science REALLY REALLY wants to know it, you'll be famous and win a Nobel prize!

This. A million times this.

 

[Asita]

I guess an obvious troll isn't as obvious as I'd thought :s

I was jesting in regards to the previous post, which mentioned those people who make these silly "BUF IF EVOLUTION IS REAL.. THEN WHY CAN'T ROCKS SPEAK" claims.

Yeah, my apologies for that, but unfortunately I have seen people use that bit seriously, so it's easy for Poe's Law to get me like that

 

[sergnb]

We are talking about millions of years here. Millions-of-years. Do you seriously believe that in that time, some drastical change is impossible to have happened?

If it is "impossible" for change to happen over the course of millions of years, the why has the fish Coelacanth been living with very little change since it's fossil ancestors during te Paleozoic Era, which btw was about 350 million years ago?

You completely misunderstood what I was trying to say, or you worded it poorly.

Evolution does NOT MEAN THAT ALL ANIMALS EVOLVE. This is the "if we evolve from monkeys, then why monkeys still exist" argument all over again.

Fact is, when a species is adapted to its environment, few changes are to happen. It's the seeking of optimal adaptation what causes evolution.

So yes, one species can live for millions of years without changing, and other species can evolve into a completely different thing. They are not mutually exclusive.

 

[McMullen]

First of all, your run on sentences make an extremely incoherent argument. Second of all, you seem to have some of your facts bass-ackwards. You seem to believe that evolution was the lead idea the whole time, and that these filthy newcomers of Intelligetn Design are invading. It is actually quite the opposite. Evolution is an idea that is barely even a hundred years old, while Creationism has had free reign for thousands of years.

I think that it is fair to say that you seem to need to brush up on some things first before you go crying wolf on other people. Also, it is fair that if one idea is taught in the classroom, then another idea must be taught as well. People need to see all of the choices, and then decide for themselves what they want to believe is true. There is no reasone why Creationism nor evolution can be taught simulataneously.

Are you suggesting that old ideas have some sort of advantage over newer ones in terms of how close they are to the truth?

No, it is not fair that an unscientific idea is taught in science classes. ID is not science. It is built on a foundation of logical fallacies and non-falsifiable claims, and every argument that can be made in its favor rests on those foundations, which crumble easily under scrutiny. It has no place in a science class, except as an example of a conclusion based on something other than the scientific method. It has a place in theology, maybe philosophy (also as an example of how not to do things), but not science.

I have no problem with people believing in creationism. I think it's kind of sad that there's a whole other (and in my opinion, grander and more inspiring) picture of the cosmos that they are denying themselves simply because they do not understand it or are for some reason afraid of it, but I don't have a problem with it. That said, creationist's attempts to inject their beliefs into the school system under the blatant lie of teaching it as science is as disgusting and unwelcome as an overzealous atheist barging into a Sunday mass and commandeering the pulpit.

 

[Rensenhito]

This is the way evolution works, for anyone who's interested:
A theoretical species of giraffe has, on average, relatively short necks. This wouldn't be a problem, except that the trees in their area are, on average, quite tall. Now, note that I said "on average." I said this because there is natural variation in every population, meaning some giraffes have shorter-than-average necks, and others' necks are slightly longer. Because of this set of circumstances, the longer-necked giraffes will be able to eat more and be healthier, so when mating time comes, they will be better able to pass on their genome. Over time, the average neck length in the population will change, due to the fact that the long-necked giraffes have a better chance of surviving.

This is the way it DOESN'T work:
A population of giraffes has short necks. Unfortunately, the trees in the area are tall! So what do the giraffes do? They harness the magical power of evolution, lengthening their necks to reach the leaves! SCIENCE!

There still seems to be a huge misconception about evolution. Animals are not Pokemon. It's not mysterious. It's what HAS TO HAPPEN for life to survive.

 

[sageoftruth]

From the Book of Forums, Science 3:48;

"Lo, men and women of forums shall never know what Evolution is, nor what causes it, for they do not wish to know. Those that do wish to understand may understand ONLY through ancient right of Biology classes and intense study; for the young who claim to understand Evolution cannot truly understand it."

TL;DR: Study it.

Simply beautiful. Can I call you Socratoasty?

 

[Bearadox_42]

I agree completely. It is absolutely absurd that 50% of the country doesn't believe in evolution. It's just silly.

 

[Bearadox_42]

There is no reasone why Creationism nor evolution can be taught simulataneously.[/quote]

Aside from the fact Creationism, unlike Evolution, has no physical evidence....