It's a bird... only a bird. Using such logic would dictate that blacks and whites are two different species because they have different colors and sing different songs, and even the texture of their hair is different. However, that would be bad science because we know that blacks and whites belong to the human family.

Now, if one of the finches should show signs of changing into a chimp or a cat, well, it would have to be evolution. People will keep trying to prove evolution in spite of all it's flaws and lack of evidence such as transitory evidence.



[edit on 18-11-2009 by Fromabove]

Originally posted by Solofront
No one knows for sure how old the earth is, it could very well be 4 billion years old...it could be 6k years old, it could be 10 billion years old.

Could you explain how it could be six thousand years old? Also, how it could be ten billion years old? What evidence leads you to conclude that either of those datings are possible?

any 5 year old could tell you that m.e. will never lead to M.e.

Would that be the same five-year-old who told you about the

naturalistic manipulation of dna

by any chance?

And would you care to explain why your unique, personal take on science trumps the more conventional variety with which the rest of us are familiar?

Geeze I swear I'm talking to my lil cousins, lol

I wonder if they find you as amusing as we do.

Probably not, poor things.

Originally posted by Astyanax
Could you explain how it could be six thousand years old?

I too would like to see how it could be 6k years old, I very highly doubt it is, though it very well could be.

Also, how it could be ten billion years old? What evidence leads you to conclude that either of those datings are possible?

The earth could of been created already aged, but WAIT!!!, ...thats thinking open-minded...

And would you care to explain why your unique, personal take on science trumps the more conventional variety with which the rest of us are familiar?

First of all, going with the "masses" ...yup, that's the most "logical" thing to do...

And I know, as does probably the majority of members who read this forum, how M.e. is suppose to work, the thing is, we don't observe it in action. Sure we could get into the whole irreducible complexity issue, but that just solidifies the non existant proof of M.e.

We have individual species only.

Take for instance the whale and its land based ancestor, we should have millions of transitional forms in between, for that group, however we only find a select number of individual species, made tailored to their habitat.

Originally posted by ravenshadow13
I just tend to think that there is extraordinary evidence for that image. Without everything on the left, we would have nothing on the right.

According to the theory of evolution...that is...

But again, this is what I study, this is what I am doing with my actual life. I've studied it much more, and are more interested, than the question "Oh, did we evolve from monkeys or not."

Education is great, I think everyone should be educated, however when you die, you don't take your degree with you.

I tend to only enjoy debating with people who actually understand the topic they are trying to debate. Thank you, though.

Like I said, I think most of us who read this particular forum, understand the topic. But just because you understand the process, doesn't neccesarily mean, the process is correct.

Flaws are everywhere, they seem to particularly show up more often when one thinks close-minded, than not open to other possibilities that are shunned by the main stream.

Again, I'm not defending anything, simply pointing out that the process of macro evolution is not observent, nor are their any concrete facts to support it.

The only evidence for Macro evolution is faith-based as with everything else that is not observable.

The aforementioned article shows a (bird --> bird) thats it, we have nothing in the way of something being formed from nothing, or life stemming from non life.

There are many who don't like to dwell in open-mindedness or have faith in a higher power, simply because that lowers themselves, and they seem to think that their ego trumps everything.

Ego's are stumbling blocks, the larger the ego, the larger the stumbling block.

At least you Raven, are discussing with me without the resort to name calling and label tagging...much appreciated, lol

.

[edit on 18-11-2009 by Solofront]

[edit on 18-11-2009 by Solofront]

Originally posted by Solofront
I too would like to see how (the world) could be 6k years old, I very highly doubt it is, though it very well could be.

You don't know how it could be. You doubt that it is. Yet you still say it could be? Is that, like, an escape clause in an insurance policy?

The earth could of been created already aged, but WAIT!!!, ...thats thinking open-minded...

No, that's thinking stupid. What possible reason could there be for such a thing? Why would anyone even think of it, except in a desperate and hopeless attempt to reconcile Bronze Age creation fables with observed facts?

And would you care to explain why your unique, personal take on science trumps the more conventional variety with which the rest of us are familiar?

First of all, going with the "masses" ...yup, that's the most "logical" thing to do...

Going with the majority is often the sensible course. People usually do things for good reason, so a majority decision or opinion has a fairly good chance of being the right one.

But 'the rest of us' I mentioned are not your 'masses'. I was speaking of intelligent, scientifically literate folk like ravenshadow, andrewh7, The Walking Fox and others. People who understand how the world works and how all the pieces fit together. Such people are just as likely as others to be wrong when they offer intuitive opinions that are not fully formed; but when they advance an informed, evidence-based opinion they are very likely to be right.

These are the 'rest of us' I mentioned. They understand science the same way, because--despite the fact that they study very different sciences and their experiences of life are also very different--they all share the same world-picture, which is founded on and buttressed by verifiable interrelations and correspondences between different domains of knowledge. Their scientific education enables them to appreciate that; they can see how it all checks out.

Against all that, your idiosyncratic ideas about 'naturalistic manipulation of DNA', don't have a hope. You still haven't explained what you mean by that phrase, by the way. Are you ever going to?

As for the rest of your argument, the distinction between macroevolution and microevolution is not scientific in nature. It is an artificial distinction, invented by religious activists and meaningless for any practical purpose. As it happens, there is overwhelming evidence for the evolution of species into other species; if your desperate clinging to Biblical literalism had not so blinded you, you would have seen that long ago.

Originally posted by Solofront
First of all, no one knows for sure how old the earth is, it could very well be 4 billion years old...it could be 6k years old, it could be 10 billion years old.

Solofront. Let's play a thought experiment. Let's first assume that there isn't a global conspiracy amongst all scientists, and that the data we have collected in every scientific discipline is actually correct.

I would like an answer to this question:

Could your god create a universe where we are a result of a 14 billion year plan, and this is what it meant by "creation". Is your god powerful enough to do that?

[edit on 21-11-2009 by xelamental]

Hi,

Ive always found it staggering how creationists throw the bird turning into a donkey around ...

Are you telling me that if a bird gave birth to a donkey youd beleive in evolution?

Because im willing to bet that anyone who beleives in evolution witnessing that would throw down their darwin hat and admit we were wrong and there must be a god.

Evolution isnt about an animal magically turning into another animal...

you start with one animal, for example a mouse... and you have your little mouse colony happily living in a nice little cage in a lab somewhere.

And then you decide, hey lets see if we can mix things up a bit.

You decide that youll put food on the highest shelf in their cage so only the talles mice can get at it.

well now the poor mice have a problem, only the tall mice can get the cheese! And assuming mice dont share their cheese this means that the poor little tiny mice starve and die out. Only the ones tall enough to get the cheese will live. And they do and they pass on their genes because they reproduce. And then you find that after a few generations you have bigger mice. WOW how did that happen, you might ask.

Well the little mice who no longer passed on their genes died out, so only the bigger mice had babies. Now these babies were probably no different from the old population, but there are more of the genes that make mice tall in this gene pool, because it was bred from mice with said genes.

So this new generation of mice, some tall some small, have the same problem. The cheese is only within reach of the tall mice! So the short mice of this generation die out, and with them their "inferior genetic makeup".

After a few generations of this, the gene pool is quite different from the original colony of mice. You have more tall mice on average than you did back then, there are more of the tall combination of genes kicking about.

So the mice change... is this evolution? Well yes and no. Its not speciation, but its shows how even after a few generations you will have lots of tall mice and hardly any small...

Now lets make the experiment more exciting!

Lets go back to the original mice. And say now you put cheese not only on the top shelf, but also in a very small enclosed space.

Now you have two selection pressures. The tall mice will eat the cheese off the top shelf and live, and the very smallest will eat from the little cubby hole and survive. Those mice too short to get the cheese from the shelf but too big to get them from the small space die out.

What happens if we now sepparate these two groups? the small and the tall... say a cat moved in and had its territory in exactly the middle space between the tall shelf and the small hole... the tall mice cant get to where the small mice live and vice versa. Now you have two selection pressures acting in opposite ways and no way for the two groups to interbreed. Generations of mice go on, and one group gets bigger, cos the small ones die out in their population, and the same but opposite happens with the little mouse society.

one group gets taller and taller to make it easier and easier to reach the cheese... and the other gets smaller and smaller so its easier to fit into the hole to get the cheese.

so now you have two related but very different groups of mice! ... the tall ones have to develop different tactics to evade the cat, say by being smarter or faster to run away from it... whilst the little ones can hide underground.

And selection pressure after selection pressure forces the two groups to change in subtle different ways. Neither group has turned into a dog. But one has gotten big like a rat and the other small like a vole. Given enough time their differences will be big enough to stop them from being able to interbreed. The tall and small ones can mate, but are so genetically different at this point, even if only in small ways, that their children cant get a working assortment of genes from the mating, and are infertile.

cont...

... continued

And lo and behold, we have two separate species. They both developed from the same original tribe of mice, but generations of subtle differences in what they needed to be to survive in their environment let only those most fit for the situation survive. And after time, and isolation the changes are such that the two groups are so different, they cant interbreed anymore... cant exchange each others gene pools.

Changes arnt seen in individual organisms, theyre seen over the entire group... their seen in the gene pool.

you dont have a dog giving birth to a cat suddenly one day because there was no dog food in the house only cat food.

you have gradual change. And even this gradual change isnt as slow as people make it out to seem.

Within what? A couple thousand years weve bred an army of different breeds of dogs. Theyre all still dogs, most can still interbreed... but can you seriously look at a poodle, then look at a great dane and tell me theyre the same? And thats after only a few thousand years, a few thousand generations.

anyway enough of this i think

sorry for the waffling

~TR

Very well written Tomb_Raven.

Even if speciation wasnt directly observed (which it was), deduction is also a valid way in science to obtain knowledge. So as long as creationists cannot find a flaw in the above deduction, I see no problem with evolution, even if we had no other evidence.. (which we have plenty of...)