What bugs me about the theory of evolution

a reply to: Barcs

The question was how evolution can cause mutation.

originally posted by: Bluntone22


Well it is called a theory.
I'm sure we have some of it wrong and some of it right and maybe we will have the whole story someday. Still looking for those missing links.

It is not a theory, it is a scientific theory...two completely different things.

a reply to: Xtrozero

Scientific theories are facts. They are never wrong.

They are never wrong because they are scientific theories.

And facts are never wrong.

I said before that what really kicked off evolution about 560 million years was the start of predator and prey, and this is called the great arms race. Evolution tends to go the path of least competition, so the first predators had it easy, then the prey started to develop harder skin, then hard shells, then shells with spikes. As the prey did this the predators kept developing better ways to hunt too and so on and so forth until you get what we have today.

Evolution is also not perfect, it goes with what works, not even what works best, just what works.

originally posted by: Out6of9Balance

Scientific theories are facts. They are never wrong.

They are never wrong because they are scientific theories.

And facts are never wrong.

Well no....

They are based on facts as we know them. My point is the way people tend to think of what a theory is, is actually a hypothesis. When you say scientific theory it was once a hypothesis that is now proven to be correct by the facts we have.

We have come a long way since Darwin's understanding evolution, and we are pretty damn close. The ability to map whole genomes provides crazy understanding in how it all works.

originally posted by: Out6of9Balance

The question was how evolution can cause mutation.

What is evolution in the first place? At the simplest level it is the rearrangement of the AGTC in DNA caused by a number of factors with radiation being the most influential. The actual mutation comes mainly from sperm, and the older the dad is the more changes in the DNA will be seen. Now the vast majority of the time these changes are neutral and so mean nothing and negative changes have a lower chance to reproduce compared to positive changes that live on, and this is what they mean by natural selection.

It is also very complex and when something is positive in one way it can be negative in another. Take sickle cell that people in Africa can be born with. It was actually a mutation that had a positive impact on not contracting malaria and so was very positive for people to live long enough to pass it on compared to people with normal blood cells that died before reproducing due to malaria (natural selection once again). The problem is most people tend to have very short lifespans due to complications from it, but evolution doesn't care. The reason why is because evolution is only affected by reproduction and sickle cell helps people survive their reproduction years, after that it doesn't matter. This is why we see so much cancer etc today in older people as evolution stops working once a person stops reproducing.

originally posted by: oldcarpy
a reply to: cooperton

As I understand the theory, amphibians evolved over millennia from fish which developed lungs so that they could breath air when their ponds dried out (lets not go near climate change......). But, that needs a lot of time. Which fish don't have when their pond dries out. They just die.

I may have this wrong, can anyone explain this?

Good thinking. Logical scrutiny of evolution will eventually lead anyone to realize it could not have happened.

Imagine a fish that mutates limbs that are capable of walking onto land. This has never been observed, nor is it observable in the fossil record. You might see appeals to "tiktaalik", but this sad fossil is way too ambiguous to make any sense of it



There are no other claimed fossils that come even close to resembling such a transitional fossil. and tiktaalik is too incomplete to come to any conclusions. But anyway, even if a fish manages to mutate limbs that are capable of walking (which would likely hurt its ability to swim as fast), this trait would be totally useless since it does not have the proper lungs to be able to breathe out of water.

So if evolution were true, we would expect the transition from gills to lungs to be a very simple switch, because otherwise it would be too big of a hurdle for gradual modification. But unfortunately for evolutionists, gills are vastly different than even the most basic amphibian lungs.

as you said, it is not as though the fish out of water has any time at all to gradually develop lungs suitable for air.

Amphibian lungs resemble our lungs, and to think that gills could have transformed into them is absurd, especially since the theorized fish would be waddling around the ocean floor with its mutant appendages that are no longer ideal for swimming fast. Therefore, we can see that evolutionary theory is invalid at every step along the way.

Keep scrutinizing the theory and you'll find it's a house of cards.

originally posted by: cooperton

Imagine a fish that mutates limbs that are capable of walking onto land. This has never been observed, nor is it observable in the fossil record. You might see appeals to "tiktaalik", but this sad fossil is way too ambiguous to make any sense of it

Imagine a fish that due to random mutations is able to go into shallower waters that other fish and predators have a hard time getting too, and so that fish finds a predator free and lots of food environment. Since it doesn't get eaten it makes babies and some have this same mutation and are able to go into the shallower waters too. This one mutation takes off and more and more have it since they tend to live and reproduce compared to the fish that do not have it and so are eaten. Time goes by and another mutation comes along that allows the fish to go into even shallower waters and even mud for a small periods of time and it finds good eating as it doesn't need to compete with the other fish. Then a predator finds one day it can go into shallow waters and boy the target enriched environment it finds and eats its way to many babies that can do the same. The mud fish live on since the predators can't get to them...

We can rinse and repeat this over and over along with any number of other scenarios millions of times and you finally get land animals. So we are not talking about a fish that one day has feet and lungs...Look up Bowfin...they can live for weeks out of water in mud. Here is a great example that the mutation that allowed this carried on because when ponds ran close to dry only the Bowfin with this mutation lived on to reproduce.

originally posted by: cooperton

Amphibian lungs resemble our lungs, and to think that gills could have transformed into them is absurd, especially since the theorized fish would be waddling around the ocean floor with its mutant appendages that are no longer ideal for swimming fast. Therefore, we can see that evolutionary theory is invalid at every step along the way.

Keep scrutinizing the theory and you'll find it's a house of cards.

Your statement here is almost spooky ignorant...

It seems you have created the right scenarios in your brain to justify your beliefs, good job.

originally posted by: Xtrozero

Imagine a fish that due to random mutations is able to go into shallower waters that other fish and predators have a hard time getting too, and so that fish finds a predator free and lots of food environment. Since it doesn't get eaten it makes babies and some have this same mutation and are able to go into the shallower waters too. This one mutation takes off and more and more have it since they tend to live and reproduce compared to the fish that do not have it and so are eaten. Time goes by and another mutation comes along that allows the fish to go into even shallower waters and even mud for a small periods of time and it finds good eating as it doesn't need to compete with the other fish. Then a predator finds one day it can go into shallow waters and boy the target enriched environment it finds and eats its way to many babies that can do the same. The mud fish live on since the predators can't get to them...

We can rinse and repeat this over and over along with any number of other scenarios millions of times and you finally get land animals. So we are not talking about a fish that one day has feet and lungs...Look up Bowfin...they can live for weeks out of water in mud. Here is a great example that the mutation that allowed this carried on because when ponds ran close to dry only the Bowfin with this mutation lived on to reproduce.

Cool story.

Any evidence that gills can mutate into lungs?

a reply to: cooperton

Hey don’t be too hard on that fellow he’s busy imagining things and he wants you to also...
hahaha
Just imagine those gill mutating into lungs then also relocating to a chest cavity so they are not strangling every time they inflate rendering them useless lol the odds against this being even remotely possible are beyond impossible...
But go ahead Coop just imagine...

a reply to: cooperton

It is what it is. It just is. There's plenty of evidence of lungs.

originally posted by: Xtrozero

originally posted by: cooperton

Amphibian lungs resemble our lungs, and to think that gills could have transformed into them is absurd, especially since the theorized fish would be waddling around the ocean floor with its mutant appendages that are no longer ideal for swimming fast. Therefore, we can see that evolutionary theory is invalid at every step along the way.

Keep scrutinizing the theory and you'll find it's a house of cards.

Your statement here is almost spooky ignorant...

It seems you have created the right scenarios in your brain to justify your beliefs, good job.

It is an established fact, with at least two research studies I’m personally aware of, but there are more, all with the same conclusion; religious/spiritual/superstitious people have lower IQs:
www.frontiersin.org...
digest.bps.org.uk...
bigthink.com...

Obviously there are exceptions but, on average, the statement is true. They do indeed have a special part in their brain that makes them ‘believers’.

originally posted by: cooperton

Any evidence that gills can mutate into lungs?

No. But a swim bladder can.

ucmp.berkeley.edu...

originally posted by: AndyMayhew

No. But a swim bladder can.

ucmp.berkeley.edu...

Thanks for a relevant rebuttal.

But the gas for the swim bladder comes from the water through the gills. To function as a lung it would still require a trachea. Yet if it had a connection from the swim bladder to the mouth, this organ would immediately flood with water
and drown the fish unless it had some sort of epiglottis. This epiglottis would need muscular and neuronal control to be able to open and close this flap and also be able to "know" when it was under water and out of water. Otherwise the fish will drown. The fish would also need the proper limbs to make its way out of the water.

We have no evidence that mutations can do any of this, especially all at once, since all components would be required for the new function to be relevant.

originally posted by: Out6of9Balance
a reply to: Barcs

The question was how evolution can cause mutation.

Simple, evolution doesn’t cause mutations. Mutation is a mechanism of evolution. The new genes will be passed through the local populace and if they are (as the overwhelming majority of mutations are...) neutral, nobody will likely know the difference. Likewise, with positive mutations , they will also filter through the local populace. But evolution doesn’t cause mutations. Mutations are one of the mechanisms of the MES and one of the steps in adaptation.

originally posted by: cooperton

Any evidence that gills can mutate into lungs?

Any evidence of a God?

You know that ALL LIFE share the SAME DNA right? And DNA changes lead to changes in species right? So we have changes and you are trying to debate that in 100s of million of years we would not see much change even though ALL LIFE share exact DNA sequences to a percentage level. If a chimp is close to us and a grape vine shares 17% that means at some point there was a relationship between all life. You suggest its all God, and I suggest God doesn't need to be a part of any of this or he can be here to do it all AND we still can have evolution in either case.

Your God practices parlor tricks....waves a magic wand and everything is here as it is today...OK

I can't debate against that...

originally posted by: TerraLiga

Obviously there are exceptions but, on average, the statement is true. They do indeed have a special part in their brain that makes them ‘believers’.

I don't agree with that, since beliefs can be a strong force that overrides intelligence. I think it is something else in the brain as you suggest "a special part". Its not just religion that people get locked into something and will not budge one inch even with over whelming arguments, facts, examples that say otherwise etc.

The biggest frustration about evolution is it still works the same with or without a God in the picture. For a religious person to argue that the only way for us to be here is for God to just wave a magic wand makes zero sense as we learn so much about how things work. One could suggest that God made the universe and he put humans on a 14.5 billion year path to be born. Science and God would be the same here, but people are stuck in the 1700s with beliefs when the reality is science doesn't try to explain the WHY (intelligent design or not) science just tries to explain the HOW and that HOW fits very nicely with either model. I fell to see how evolution diminishes any faith in a God, but for many it does for some reason.

originally posted by: [post=24530042]Out
It is what it is. It just is. There's plenty of evidence of lungs.

Here are 5 fish that live in water and on land. One called Snakehead can grow up to 4 feet and stay out of water for many days to reproduce and hunt for food. They been known to even attack humans...

Fish on land

a reply to: Xtrozero

They adapted to 2 environments at once. Nice.