Evolution is a farce: Evidence

a reply to: LadyGreenEyes

There are scumbags in society from all walks of life. People have egos and prefer fortune and fame over legitimacy. It's a shame, but it happens, and there are plenty of religious folks like that as well. Ken Ham, Kent Hovind, etc have lied directly about evolution and science many times. Does that make you not trust Christianity as a whole? If no, then why do you discount evolution because of a handful of frauds that wanted to get famous over the thousands of legitimate scientists that do valid research?

The only thing I'm asking from you is for you to tell me which parts of the evidence I posted are wrong without flat out denial. I've done it multiple times for other science denier sites. You not only dodged my evidence again, you refused to answer the question of why mutations do not add up over time. Nobody ever addresses that point. The websites I posted cite direct scientific studies and experiments. You claim to be debating but you ignored almost all my primary points. So basically you're saying all science is wrong and can't be trusted. Sorry, that's not good enough. You don't trust science but I'm willing to bet you own a refrigerator, and computer and are not denying their capabilities despite being products of science.

Fetal drawings are not part of Modern Evolutionary Synthesis. If you are not referencing that, you are not referencing evolution. Darwin is irrelevant. The theory has changed quite a bit since Darwin, so referencing it as it was then isn't pertinent to the argument. The evidence behind evolution is not a farce.

You either don't understand the classification system, or you are intentionally misleading people saying that "mutations don't change one species into another," immediately following my link to the scientific experiment that showed exactly that. You say "type", but that classification does not exist and you used the exact argument I predicted you would. Did you know there are near 1000 different species of shrimp alone? The term species does not apply to all shrimp. But again, if an organism can change slightly, why can't the changes add up over millions of generations? Please don't dodge this question again, or you will prove my point.

I wasn't using fundamentalist as an insult. It seemed appropriate. Would bible literalist be better? WordofGodist? They are essentially the same thing. I didn't mean radical, I'm not trying to associate you with terrorists, although most are indeed fundamentalists that deny evolution as well. Either way denying evolution despite the evidence is irrational.

Also you said above that you seldom visit creationist OR evolutionist websites, yet you sourced:

www.darwinthenandnow.com...

Clearly a creationist website with an anti evolution agenda. What do you consider unbiased? You discount all science sites without even reading them despite the fact that they directly reference numerous studies and experiments.

a reply to: LadyGreenEyes

Another disappearance act from someone who can't respond intelligently.

You prefer to engage in rhetorical chaos that has nothing to do with real science. You're playing a game of hide and seek - you hide when others seek (or ask). You are very transparent.

a reply to: peter vlar

No worries. Discussions like this can get heated, and we can all sound "snarly" from time to time. Regarding the moths - that case was used in textbooks when I was in school, even after it was known to be faked. The fetal drawings were likewise used, and were called fakes even in their own day. That sort of thing wasn't widely known before the internet, however, and many people still don't know the truth. My position is that any theory that must be supported ad taught based on lies should be discarded. If there was, in fact, so much good evidence, why all of the fakery? I have seen statements that Darwin used the drawings, but I haven't done in depth research on that, so I won't debate it for now. That faked sketches were used, and probably still are, to teach school children about evolution, is a sad thing. I love science. The idea of testing, reproducing, and so forth to learn is very appealing, but that isn't what I see when it comes to evolution. I was disappointed to discover that much of what I had been taught all of my life was wrong, but that's what happened.

Learning from strata? Depends on what you mean. If you mean the sort of material of which the strata is made can be informative, that can be true. For dating, however, it's useless. Strata are dated by the fossils sound in them, and vice versa. Convenient circular reasoning, that. The other dating methods are error=prone as well. Unless it's a closed system, you can't know for certain the starting amounts of whatever elements are being measured, or what happened to the sample over time that could have added or removed various amounts of those elements. Claiming that such measurements are valid to determine age is thus incorrect. Even with the measurements accepted, the dating is often proven very wrong.

There are biologists, geologists, anthropologists, and the like that believe creation over evolution as well. They research and study, and make educated guesses, and disagree. I will willingly admit that creation isn't proven, any more than is evolution. Both are theories. My faith wouldn't fall apart if God used evolutionary processes; I simply don't believe that all of the evidence supports that theory. There is so much we don't know. The field of genetics has had some big surprises recently, too, with new discoveries showing that we don't come anywhere close to understanding how it all works. That's exciting stuff.

I don't fault anyone for addressing errors, but I do have problems with people that wont admit deliberate fakery is a problem. I have seen that more than once. I also take issue when errors are known and yet are repeated in textbooks. Or when a creature like Lucy, known to be a knuckle walker, is displayed as upright.

Interesting article, but it makes a lot of assumptions. One species found with feathers doesn't imply that all species had them. Maybe they did, and maybe they didn't, but the article tries to make it sound like an almost sure thing. Assuming to know that this species is "far from birds" in evolution is extremely assumptive. Science suspects that dinosaurs changed to birds, but that suspicion is far from proven. Still interesting, though, that they found a previously undiscovered species, with feathers to boot.

That's a good list, but I didn't see 41 thousand different versions listed. Seems high. There are certainly differences, and some I would call something other than Christian, that might claim to be, but 41,000? Seems high. Calling any and every church that doesn't claim a denomination different isn't likely accurate, either. Many small churches prefer to mind their own business, but still follow the same Bible.

a reply to: peter vlar

One chimp? One chimp studied in more detail doesn't make for a good representative group, for a solid scientific study. Links to the actual papers, that can be accessed easily, would be appreciated, though. Always loved genetics. Not an expert, but it's fascinating stuff.

Citations would be hard to come by, because anything that disagrees is considered "creationist" and disregarded by many people. And, yes, studies done to support evolution are evolutionist studies. Are you claiming that they did NOT use the human genome as a framework? If they did, as I have read, then that's a problem.

I have known some former Catholics, and heard a bit about that. When you say "recovering", do you mean away from or back to the belief system?

I don't have the article to reference now; it was my dad's, and has been gone for ages now. The article, though, was just a start, and spawned years of reading and research into the entire theory of evolution. It was some time into that before I came across what you would call "creationist" writings. The thing that struck me was that science was assuming a relation between all of those various forms, and calling it the timeline of human development, and yet the actual data presented didn't support that conclusion at all. When science is based on observing and testing and reproducing, and the evidence doesn't add up, it's simply logical to question why. That's what I did.

The point is that there aren't clear changes in morphology. There aren't links between the forms assumed to be related. There is one, then there is another, with no gradual changes. Evolutionary scientists know this, and admit it's a problem. I simply take that a step further, and call it a reason to doubt the theory. If it was true, there should be millions of examples of transitional forms, but there aren't. There are "lines" put together of similar forms, with nothing concrete to link them.

The point of the missing link isn't that t he term is old, but that the link is still missing.

originally posted by: Barcs
You not only dodged my evidence again, you refused to answer the question of why mutations do not add up over time. Nobody ever addresses that point.

Yup, I second this. I've seen it said many times by others as well. Not once has this biological barrier ever been explained, no observational evidence is ever presented, just the baseless assertion that genetic mutations can't accumulate beyond the arbitrary, human-defined species classification. If it were true, it would sink genetic mutations sorted by natural selection as being the explanation for biodiversity. Yet, it is NEVER described in any other words than "it cant happen because I said so".

So, any creationists fancy having a pop at explaining and describing this mechanism with empirical data to support it? At least devise a falsifiable experiment to observe it to get some data to support it. Anything other than "it cant happen because I said so".

a reply to: LadyGreenEyes

Dear LadyGreenEyes,

May I make a suggestion without it coming off as sarcastic?

Pray about it. Pray for your God to show you the truth. That's right, I am suggesting you spend some time speaking to God about evolution.

Everything you have stated as a problem with evolution, is ultimately irrelevant to the theory as a whole. The fakes you alluded to awhile back were never pillars of the theory of evolution. The peppered moths, were never pillars of the theory of evolution. The drawings of embryos, were never pillars of the theory of evolution.

In other words, the theory of evolution didn't stand or sink based on those cases alone. There literally is an enormous amount of supportive evidence, in a multitude of fields of study. You're holding dusty old arguments, and your own lack of understanding the theory, against the theory of evolution.

Who do you think exposes frauds and hoaxes? The scientists with a very real, very unbiased objective approach to the study of evolution. Now surely you aren't going to throw the whole theory out based on a few bad apples. If that is how you set your standards, you may want to reconsider your chosen religion. There are frauds and hoaxers there as well.

There is no "missing link" my friend. The "missing link" is an irrelevant term these days. In fact there are multiple "missing links" to support the link of humans with apes. The reason there is no single "missing link" for any species is because all fossils are transitional forms.

Sure, every crowd has a bad apple or two. And I agree with you people like that are problems. In any field or walk of life! They damage the credibility of everyone around them. Thankfully though, they don't actually represent everyone around them.

E.g. I give Benny Hinn zero credibility and label him a fraud. However I know that I shouldn't base my opinions on all of Christendom because of his antics.

Evolution is real. It is healthy to challenge theory, in fact that's what makes it such a supported theory.

originally posted by: LadyGreenEyes
a reply to: peter vlar

One chimp? One chimp studied in more detail doesn't make for a good representative group, for a solid scientific study. Links to the actual papers, that can be accessed easily, would be appreciated, though. Always loved genetics. Not an expert, but it's fascinating stuff.

How many humans don you think have had their genome fully sequenced to the same degree of coverage as the male chimpanzee who had the highest coverage sequencing in the study referenced? The HGP solicited samples from both makes and females from across the globe for their genomic mapping but over 70% of the sequence comes from one male donor from Buffallo NY. As for links to the papers I read you're welcome to subscribe to any number of journals that will five

Citations would be hard to come by, because anything that disagrees is considered "creationist" and disregarded by many people.

Or another way to say it is that there are no bid papers supporting the topic. If the evidence is there and supports your claim and can be Independantly verified and repeated by others then it would be considered valid. That's exactly how it works. Science isn't a person and has no agenda. There's truth and there's fiction. If the data can be repeated Independantly following the same route taken by the initial research then it's a valid study plain and simple.

And, yes, studies done to support evolution are evolutionist studies.

Sorry. That's just whackadoodle. Studies aren't done to support evolution and are not begun with the bias you continuously imply. Studies are done to get answers and results. Then the results are published so others can scrutinize the data. A comparative genomic study us just that, a comparison of more than one genome whether it be members of the same species or members of varrying species. The results are what they are. You're welcome to do your own study and attempt to replicate or how errors in others work if you like.

Are you claiming that they did NOT use the human genome as a framework? If they did, as I have read, then that's a problem.

If they did so as you have read then you should demonstrate a citation supporting your statement. There were earlier studies in the late. 90's that may have done so but not the 2005 study I cited not in any newer research for that matter.

I have known some former Catholics, and heard a bit about that. When you say "recovering", do you mean away from or back to the belief system?

The statement was a non sequitur and I shouldn't have made it. If your theological beliefs are off the table so are mine. Let's stick to the science.

I don't have the article to reference now; it was my dad's, and has been gone for ages now. The article, though, was just a start, and spawned years of reading and research into the entire theory of evolution. It was some time into that before I came across what you would call "creationist" writings. The thing that struck me was that science was assuming a relation between all of those various forms, and calling it the timeline of human development, and yet the actual data presented didn't support that conclusion at all. When science is based on observing and testing and reproducing, and the evidence doesn't add up, it's simply logical to question why. That's what I did.

Questioning why is a critical aspect of any research but if you can't support it with any type of explanation let alone citation then the position falls into the realm of unsupported opinion. A simple good search should be enough to locate the information you're referencing. No disrespect intended but you keep tossing out conjecture and incredulous hyperbole but aren't supporting your positions with anything. Heck, you're not even explaining your own position on most instances and staying in the safety zone of generalizations

The point is that there aren't clear changes in morphology. There aren't links between the forms assumed to be related. There is one, then there is another, with no gradual changes.

Absolutely bunk. There ARE clear changes and even discounting the prolific fossil record, modern genetics prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that evolution has occurred and can demonstrate a time frame within which certain lineages diverged when comparing genomes.

Evolutionary scientists know this, and admit it's a problem.

Which "evolutionary scientists" would Be making those statements? If I can provide a link demonstrating there are over 40,000 denominations of Christianity you should be able to cobble together a list of biologists, anthropologists and geneticists who have made statements to that effect.

I simply take that a step further, and call it a reason to doubt the theory. If it was true, there should be millions of examples of transitional forms, but there aren't. There are "lines" put together of similar forms, with nothing concrete to link them.

Not remotely true. First, as I mention above, genetics alone proves evolution absolutely exists. Second, let's look at Homo Erectus. There are countless morphological variations over its nearly 2 MA existence. There are vast morphological differences between humans of 100 KYA humans from 50 KYA and humans today. The same applies to Neanderthal, H. Habilis and most definitely to the vast array if australopithecines. To say there are none is either a flat out lie or lack of due diligence.

The point of the missing link isn't that t he term is old, but that the link is still missing.

No, there is no missing link. There never was. Every single person or fossil is transitional as each new offspring inherits traits from both of its genetic predecessors and thus changed ever so slightly from one generation to the next. This applies to all known species not just HSS

a reply to: LadyGreenEyes

humanorigins.si.edu...

Click on sort by age to get a better picture.

Here are the fossilized skulls:

www.talkorigins.org...

The one thing certain about them is slow change over time. You misunderstand a missing link to be some exact 50/50 chimp human hybrid. Evolution doesn't work that way. It follows the environment. Humans share a common ancestor with a pig as well, but that doesn't mean there's a pig/human hybrid.

Events like Piltdown man and others only made future scientists use more scrutiny with findings. These days you usually don't hear about fossil finds for several years because they are running countless tests and making sure everything is verified first.

The major factor that debunks creationism and supports evolution is that there are no mixed fossil layers. I know that you probably deny the science of radiometric dating, but if it was wrong or evolution was a farce, you would expect major date discrepancies in fossils. For example you'd have a kangeroo and a T-rex dated to the same time period. You'd have a human and a Stegosaurus in the same layer. Oddly enough the fossil data matches up perfectly with evolution.

a reply to: LadyGreenEyes

Please stop, you're just showing how little you actually understand about evolution. Can I ask where you got your list of incorrect assumptions?

a reply to: AngryCymraeg

It starts with the Bible and everything that stems from it.
Pity though most religions accept evolution.

originally posted by: LadyGreenEyes
My position is that any theory that must be supported ad taught based on lies should be discarded.

Then why do you support Christianity? There have been countless frauds and liars exposed that have lied about it. Obviously that's not really your position, plus evolution is supported just fine without the hoaxes, and I'd bet you cannot find a modern day text book that contains any of them. You are arguing based on the past, not based on the theory today, so you are coming up short. Nothing you brought up is critically important to the theory, in fact science is the reason we figured out they were fake. But of course if you only focus on the fake and do not even consider the real evidence, then it only shows your bias in this situation. You discount an entire huge theory just because of a few fakes? I wouldn't be surprised in the least if Piltdown man was actually done by creationists in an attempt to make evolution look bad.

If there was, in fact, so much good evidence, why all of the fakery?

The fakery is not part of the theory anymore, so your argument is pure straw man. The fakery has been exposed thanks to real scientists and real evidence.

Strata are dated by the fossils sound in them, and vice versa. Convenient circular reasoning, that.

This is a long debunked Kent Hovind argument and is another lie. You're just full of them this week. Unbelievable. Strata are dated based on the breakdown of isotopes. You haven't studied evolution in the least. You have studied creationist websites about it. If you don't look at both sides of the coin, how can you really know for sure?

The other dating methods are error=prone as well.

The error margin is like less than 1%, but okay, they are error prone because you say so. Forget providing proof of anything, just repeat it over and over again until it become true in your head.

Unless it's a closed system, you can't know for certain the starting amounts of whatever elements are being measured, or what happened to the sample over time that could have added or removed various amounts of those elements. Claiming that such measurements are valid to determine age is thus incorrect. Even with the measurements accepted, the dating is often proven very wrong.

Please back this up with facts.

There are biologists, geologists, anthropologists, and the like that believe creation over evolution as well.

Irrelevant.

I will willingly admit that creation isn't proven, any more than is evolution. Both are theories.

Another lie. Evolution is scientific theory. Creation is not even a hypothesis because there is ZERO evidence. Scientific theories require verified evidence to support it, and evolution has it.

I don't fault anyone for addressing errors, but I do have problems with people that wont admit deliberate fakery is a problem.

WAS a problem. It is no longer a problem because they are no longer in the theory or taught to kids. But again, creationist deliberate fakery doesn't sway you away from Christianity so why the double standard when it comes to evolution?

I have seen that more than once. I also take issue when errors are known and yet are repeated in textbooks. Or when a creature like Lucy, known to be a knuckle walker, is displayed as upright.

The lies just keep coming. You haven't studied the fossils, you are again using creationist arguing points that have already been debunked multiple times.

www.wsws.org...

www.livescience.com...

Lady, you're going to have to do better than using debunked creationist arguments from 10 years ago if you wish to debate evolution. You still have not addressed the actual evidence and have not presented a single thing that conflicts with evolution. You have also not answer the question of why mutations do not add up. Any day now.

You are dishonestly supporting your position because you are not acknowledging a single piece of legitimate evidence, and you refuse to answer any of our points and refuse to back up any of yours with unbiased sources. It's like I said in the beginning. This isn't a debate, it's a schooling. What you are doing here is just as dishonest as any evolution hoax and you'd get laughed out of any real debate making points like this.

a reply to: LadyGreenEyes

Here is the crux of the arguments against evolution by folks with faith (remember I am a spiritual person, but not Abrahamic, so I am speaking as someone who has faith, and is also a scientist).

"Its not about Deity".

Why should it be about deity? Where does evolution contradict your faiths teachings?

I am most likely more informed than most creationists on the science behind evolution, but part of my tertiary education is in Bioinformatics and Biochemistry (thus genomics and genetics). So please show me where youa re having issues with the part of evolution which is "change through mutation", because THAT is evolution in a simple statement.

Don't wave the words macro-evolution and micro-evolution around, those have been shown (in this thread) to be used in an faulty manner by creationists, and I don't want to have to deal with that again, if you have to read the whole thread for the information.

Just because you do not agree with the theory of evolution (and we are talking about a scientific theory meaning it gets updated as evidence is discovered), does not mean it is wrong.

a reply to: Noinden

So please show me where youa re having issues with the part of evolution which is "change through mutation", because THAT is evolution in a simple statement.

Sorry to jump in on this, but for me THAT is the problem - this gene centric view of evolution. Seeing as you've studied biochemistry to some extent, I'd be curious to know what your thoughts are re: the apparent non-linearity between genotype and phenotype.

a reply to: PhotonEffect


Why would a "gene centric" view of evolution be an issue? Genes express proteins, and well proteins are the physical form of creatures.

I don't understand why genotype and phenotype need to be "linear" either. Observed differences between a genotype and a phenotype are usually able to be explained through epigenetics. Even putting that aside, several genes may code for an apparent physical trait, quite simply because several different structures are involved. Thus, there is no issue there.

a reply to: Noinden

Because genes are constantly being regulated. They are not causal agents, they are passive, as they only contain the information used to construct a protein. Genes generally can not be correlated to any particular trait or disease as many would believe.

When you say " the part of evolution which is "change through mutation", because THAT is evolution in a simple statement. " You would be right- that is a simple statement, but in it's gross oversimplification it leaves out the vast majority of what is actually happening. It also seems to put the focus on the gene, and only those which happen to mutate. The process is astoundingly more complex than that, as I'm sure you know. However a lot of it is still not fully understood.

a reply to: PhotonEffect

Well its a gross over simplification, quite simply because the original post provides no evidence of farce, and subsequent people trying to post that it is indeed farcical , have oversimplified, or ignored the evidence. Thus I am aiming for that lowest common denominator, as quite simply the higher end posts get ignored.


You are also ignoring or confusing that a scientific theory, is allowed not to fully understand the process. We know next to nothing about gravity, yet it is obviously there. We know much more about evolution, genetics, and such, yet a small subset of the species is threatened by the idea. *Shrug*

I still fail to see your points taking away from the fact no one has shown "evolution to be a farce" in this thread.

a reply to: Noinden

Oh and as for the genes and disease comment. It depends on the condition. Certain traits can be traced to a single nucleotide difference from the non afflicted gene, and others are more complex. I've done published work on the latter, specifically breast cancer, and yeah those are complex, but still understandable.

a reply to: Noinden

Fair enough.

My points weren't meant to go against evolution as the process governing the dynamics of life. I wholeheartedly accept it, and can't understand, nor can relate, to folks who claim it as a farce because of their belief in a god. It's quite obviously not. So perhaps I'm in the wrong thread...

a reply to: Noinden

In certain cases, yes. But generally aren't we hard pressed to find direct correlations between genes and phenotype?

a reply to: PhotonEffect

Not at all. Lets use the BRCA 1 and BRCA 2 gene correlation with certain types of breast cancer as an example, it gets a LOT of news time thanks to celebs undergoing surgery to avoid potential issues.

First one has to remember having a certain mutation only increases your chance of something associated with it, because epigenetics is just being properly studied now. But with BRCA1 and or 2 mutations. The genes in question are supposed to (in the normal form) suppress dangerous mutations. However if you have the dangerously mutated form, you will be between 45 and 65 % more likely to get breast cancer than the norm of 12%, thus more than 5 (but less than 6) times more likely to get breast cancer (also ovarian cancer chances are also increased just to be really nasty to those with it).

While this may not seem like a huge difference, it really is. I know I'd be less than thrilled at 42 discovering I carry that gene or both (I've not even gone into the increase if both genes are mutated, don't ask). I'd also note men can get breast cancer too, so it's not just a womans problem.

So that is an example of correlation, and in genetics, a correlation in the 60% range is truly high, because we are complex creatures.

That is one example, and well it's complex beyond that, but others included Cystic Fibrosis, colour blindness, Tay–Sachs etc.

So while not as simple as the media sold it when the draft human genome was done ... its not mystical either. What makes some "Diseases" more complex is that sometimes multiple genes are faulty, and working out which ones is hard. Again the media makes this seem strange ... shows like House while great entertainment, were somewhat not based in reality, but joe and Jo-Ann public assume its accurate (just like getting a genetic profile back in hours on any CSI type show is BS)