Can someone explain a part of evolution to me?

a reply to: Ghost147

Thank you ghost!

I haven't seen you in quite some time. Perhaps different threads participated in or viewed but thank you for your reply.

I will look at your past posts, and also request the links you are talking about, in relation to speciation.

a reply to: deadlyhope

To be honest I don't have an answer, considering we are talking about theory, but here are some thoughts on why.

1. Fossilization isn't a common occurrence. There are very specific condition required for it to happen.

2. Discovery of fossils isn't a common occurrence.

3. Large animals are easier to discover and their fossils are easier to find but they don't evolve as quickly so there is less of a chance of seeing evolutionary changes through fossil observation.

4. Small animals evolve much more quickly but are harder to discover and their bones have a much higher likelihood of being scattered or destroyed after the flesh decays.

5. While there are scientists who are very good at reconstructing skeletons, the is a lot of guessing. In fact a recent discovery of a fossilized lizard-like dinosaur tail with feathers could mean that our whole mental picture of what dinosaurs looked like could be completely wrong.

Tzar gave you some very valuable advice for learning of a wide variety of subjects.

But, let me just save you some time...

You won't find the evidence you are looking for. In my opinion, your friend is correct to be cautious toward the idea of swallowing the THEORY (not fact) of Evolution, at least, all of it, hook line and sinker.

In any case, according to the theory... Evolutionary processes take, as you stated, millions of years, so there were not any humans with cameras to take pictures and then one day, notice that the rainbow trout has become the rainbow sparrow. And the fossil record doesn't really tell you much... Just the shape and general location (maybe) of the bones... And maybe a bit of fossilized chewed up food... The thing with fossils, wwhich by the way are not "bones". There are No dinosaur bones in any museums! And no, that's not my old, ancestral Fundamentalist Christian DNA acting out, it's actually real science!

You see, when a body decomposes, the bones are the last thing to go, and what happens is a process where each "bone" (probably the calcium?) molecule is replaced by a mineral molecule after it decomposes. So, fossils are just bone shaped rocks, or wood shaped rocks in the case of petrified wood. In some rare cases you can see items like a piece of wood where part of it has fossilized at a much higher rate while the rest is not yet decomposed yet, and it looks like part of it is in the present, screaming "help meeeeee!!!" as it is slowly but surely swallowed by the sheer eons of time that have passed, pulling it deeper and deeper into the impenetrable, inaccessible depths of prehistorical epoch gone by long ago... Never to return to our modern era.

Compated to nothing, it's a wealth of information. But its not really much...

Oh, ah, just to be clear, I respect him for his skeptical attitude towards the theory of evolution. However, I feel he is a little, ehhh... too trusting, of the information regarding the "young earth".

Anyway, it's not actually necessary to try to prove Evolution (not gonna happen...at least not without a time machine...even then, who knows, you may end up disappointed at the truth?) in order to disprove a 6,000 year Planet...or a bunch of the other stuff he probably believes. Now, don't get me wrong, I love Jesus, ok? And I love science. And I think Jesus loves Science. Call it a holy trinity. Or The Holy 3-Some, hahahaha XD

No its all good, I joke around with Jesus like that Alllll the time. You kinda have to be a good sport after what happened during to him during his last visit...so yeah, now he just doesn't take life too seriously You know. He's the one who wrote that one book series, "Don't Sweat The Small Stuff (...and it's all small stuff!)" He explained on Larry King how he knows "A lot about small stuff... In fact, I'm still picking out thousands of little small stuff splinters from the GODDAMN CROSS you f%#@ers put me on... Yeah I'm lookin at you, Larry. Ya goddamn Jew... It was your great great great (5 minutes later...) great grandfather Nicodemas who got me in this mess! The most uptight earthling on the planet and he hates me... Great!

Yeah, 'go to earth' my dad said... 'the girls will love you, your the man!' he said... Of course he failed to mention he was going to put me in Year 0, in the most religously uptight region, being ruled by the most authoritarian regime that demands that I bow down to their puny human emporor as a GOD? And I tell you, my dad knew exactly what he was doing, too, putting me in that situation. He knew I wouldnt be able to last too long in that HellHole before I started telling everyone I was God, and performing miracles like providing wine and fish for the parties, man I sponsered so many parties... Of course the local rich boys got jelly and went to their dads, the Pharisees... That's when I got into that argument with Nicodemus the fool... That man is so stubborn...

originally posted by: Quantumgamer1776
a reply to: deadlyhope
Seems like nothing will ever be enough proof for "your friend". No matter what you show him his argument will always be "well what about this other thing I don't understand". All the while never actually seeking understanding.

If he's anything like my mother, you could spend your entire life showing him proof after proof, but the moment he detects one tiny inconsistency in your proof, he will completely disregard all of the proof he's seen and take that tiny inconsistency as irrefutable confirmation that his strange views are correct.
In my experience, whenever Christians want to discuss things or ask for evidence, they tend to only be doing so just to look for those tiny little inconsistencies and moments where they can say to themselves "AHA! So I might possibly be kindof right!" while completely disregarding everything else.

originally posted by: Quantumgamer1776

And how can you believe in the small changes but not see all those small changes adding up over long periods of time into big changes?

Because this (allegedly) 100 million year old chameleon rejects that notion...



Source

a reply to: deadlyhope

It might be better for your friendship if you avoid the subject altogether. I don't know if it's a sport between you and maybe part of the banter? Like arguing over whose team is better. Some locked disputes are great fun and run for years. Others, like politics, are sometimes best left alone.

It's not hard at all to prove evolution exists as a process. The insurmountable obstacle is when someone has already decided it's all hoakum. The psychology is writ large in Moon hoax threads as well as all the "Prove evolution to me" threads. Some people just don't know better and others are wilfully resistant to education.

Do we actually have a fossil record showing every step between a modern day animal/human and one that existed millions of years ago?

Of course we don't. The fossil record is slowly being filled in and still won't ever be totally complete.

Put it in context. As individuals, we can't give step by step acceptable evidence for where we've been over twelve months. Is it reasonable for anyone to demand step by step evidence for every incremental change across a few hundred million years?

originally posted by: deadlyhope
a reply to: Kandinsky

Do we actually have a fossil record showing every step between a modern day animal/human and one that existed millions of years ago?

No we don't, and it's already been explained to you why that is. Fossils don't form and last everywhere, the conditions to create them are actually quite specific, so your not going to find fossils from every singe generation of every single animal everywhere on the planet.

There's a reason it's called the THEORY of evolution and not the LAW of evolution.

It still doesn't change the fact that the evolution of many species is observed in the fossils record, maybe not micro step by micro step like your goal post moving friend wants, but strong evidence is there if you actually look. And I mean actually LOOK, not ask the same tired questions and ignoring the answers.

I don't understand how religious people can demand irrefutable proof from science, while simultaneously, willingly remaining scientifically illiterate and using the argument " I don't understand it so it must not be true derp-e-der".

Apply the same skepticism to your own religion. Science is not a belief system, it's a way of systematically removing falsehoods until only the truth remains, revealing the repeatable nature of reality.

I do not think you stand a chance in helping him open his mind. I have friends such as this, I just let them think whatever they want and then I say, "bless their hearts!"

a reply to: deadlyhope

Good question.

I would tell your your friend that Siberian tigers and bengal tigers look different but are essentially the same creature. Do they change colors by magic? You could also tell him that Australia has the only two monotremes (egg laying mammals) and ask why lemurs are indigenous to Madagascar? that's Darwinism my friend and island nations are perfect examples because they are isolated and if you rewind the clock you wouldn't find these unique creatures because the continents in the time were connected or close to being connected.

But if you want the clincher, tell him about the Dodo and the Thylacine, both were indigenous and hunted to extinction but were never found in any other nation.Or you could really screw with his head and say that chickens evolved for dinosaurs (which is true, some species of the two share the same hipbone.)

Science is fun.

originally posted by: deadlyhope
a reply to: Bone75

Hmm looked up carbon dating again for a refresh, interesting.

One question - it says things will be harder to date if they died after the 1940's due to nuclear bombs the like.

Is this to say that dating can in fact be messed with and unreliable, or am I reading into it wrong?

Well that's a matter of faith now isn't it?

a reply to: Bone75

How does that reject the notion of small changes adding up to big changes?

You realize evolution doesn't change whole populations of animals just for the heck of it right?

That Chameleon hasn't changed much because it's already adapted very well to its environment. So generation to generation doesn't change much because there's no need to. The current version survives well in the environment and passes on its genes.

Evolution is a random process, tiny genes get changed and if that happens to help that organism in its environment it will survive better/longer to pass on those genes. Over time those genes can spread through a whole population, creating a new species side by side or even replacing the first one altogether.

So because there were no random gene changes that happened to help that reptile in its environment, the population didn't change.

originally posted by: Quantumgamer1776


There's a reason it's called the THEORY of evolution and not the LAW of evolution.

Please don't confuse Theory with Law.

The fact that we have a Theory of Evolution doesn't mean that evolution is a theory. A theory is a scientific framework that best describes what is observed in nature. Evolution is not a theory - the Theory of Evolution is a theory. Evolution is a fact.

A Law is just a repeatable observation - scientific Theories don't turn into scientific Laws.

a reply to: MarsIsRed

Your right, and I apologize for my symanticly false statement.

I was just trying to make my point that evolution,while by far the most accurate idea, isn't 100% provable in every single instance, but I understand now how that statement went wrong.

originally posted by: Quantumgamer1776
a reply to: Bone75

How does that reject the notion of small changes adding up to big changes?

Well it certainly doesn't support it.

a reply to: Bone75

Well first you said it rejected, now it just doesn't support, please explain the conflict that your so convinced exists.

originally posted by: Bone75

originally posted by: Quantumgamer1776
a reply to: Bone75

How does that reject the notion of small changes adding up to big changes?

Well it certainly doesn't support it.

That's a silly argument -- i.e., why bother posting the 100 Million year old chameleon at all?

So you can find some organisms who have not needed to make major evolutionary changes over 100 Million + years. How is that meaningful enough to post in an argument against evolution?

You'll find that sharks and crocs haven't changed much, either. Again, because they have not face environmental challenges that forced evolution to make big changes.

Evidence of evolution.

Three examples.

- From the fossil record we can trace the evolution of the horse back 50 million years.
- From "in life" obervation we can trace the change to the peppered moth.
- From the petri dish we can see antibiotic-resistant bacteria

Of the horse

Of the peppered moth

To be honest, people who think that the world is 6,000 years old are silly. Forgetting evolution, we have geology.

I've got a question for you to ask him but I have a question first...

You say he believes in evolution.

What's his view on the 'big bang'?

IF - he believes in the 'big bang' - just ask him to explain this:

'Big Bang believers think at first there was nothing, then nothing exploded.'

Ask him to explain that to you.

As for evolution? If we evolved from apes why have we not seen any apes give birth to human's lately?

I know it's an argument used far too often but sometimes cliche's are there just for that reason.

peace

originally posted by: silo13
I've got a question for you to ask him but I have a question first...

Oh no, here it comes...

originally posted by: silo13
You say he believes in evolution.

No, he said that his friend doesn't believe in evolution

originally posted by: silo13
What's his view on the 'big bang'?

IF - he believes in the 'big bang' - just ask him to explain this:

Ohhhh no... here it comes again!!!

originally posted by: silo13
'Big Bang believers think at first there was nothing, then nothing exploded.'

No, The Big Bang Theory never states that "there was nothing, and then nothing exploded", it states that all matter was compressed into a singularity, and that singularity expanded rapidly.

Something (the universe) came from something (The singularity).

originally posted by: silo13
As for evolution? If we evolved from apes why have we not seen any apes give birth to human's lately?

No, evolution doesn't state this. We didn't evolve from the apes you see today, we share a common ancestor with the apes we see today. The Theory of Evolution has never stated that a species all of a sudden gives birth to another species. Nor does the Theory of Evolution state or even imply that evolution is linear. It branches.

originally posted by: silo13
I know it's an argument used far too often but sometimes cliche's are there just for that reason.

Yes. And that reason is an issue with reading comprehension.

originally posted by: deadlyhope
Is he correct or on the evidence based side in any of this?

I can't really refute him because I have no good example of a swimming dinosaur becoming a flying creature after millions of years, etc, and I don't know enough about human evolution.

Google searches are not as helpful as I had hoped, so here I am.

The problem with the 6000 year old belief is this. An omnipotent God can create the Universe in any amount of time including all the fake fossil and carbon dating evidence. It is a complete violation of the idea of omnipotence to suggest God is bounded by the laws of physics. So either you accept God is omnipotent or not.

But regardless of how you feel about God, there is no doubt in my mind evolution is science fact. Anyone who has ever studied animal physiology knows there are exact similarities between all the vertebrates. The similarities are just too great to NOT be part of the evolutionary chain. Just look a fish. A fish has two eyes. Two nostrils. Two forward fins like arms. To rear fins like feet. A spinal cord. A mouth and a poop hole. We came from fish. It's not that hard to see.