I will answer every question about evolution you have

originally posted by: WeAreAWAKE
a reply to: Ghost147
While I understand the "science", I've never quite gotten my head around this. How can a creature at some point in time, that has no eyes and can't see...develop an eye? Their body doesn't know there is anything to see...their world could be pitch black. How does the eye know to develop for a certain light frequency? I'm just wildly guessing here but if the eye was a "chance of luck"...how many mutations would have to occur (let alone WHY it would occur) before we ended up with a eye that is useful in our specific location in the universe. Billions? Trillions?
I'll never quite get that.

The problem your having is that you're looking at it from an individualistic and/or species level. Evolution occurs to populations. If we were to have one species and split them up into two groups, and each of those groups lived in a different environment, then they would adapt to each of those environments separately. If they develop traits that are not advantageous to that environment, the group that has that mutation within the group in that environment has a higher chance of dying off, because they aren't as well suited for the environment.

The speed at which we see a physical change thanks to a mutation is a very long time. As time goes on, the population can grow or shrink or migrate or split off into separate populations and each begin to adapt to new separated environments. This is why we see a 'branching' effect throughout evolution.

So Evolution is not linear, it spreads out over time, through successive generations.

Now, the main problem you're having now is 'how can such a complex thing occur in the way it did?" This is actually quite simple to describe. Essentially if population were to develop an advantageous mutation, this mutation may allow it to be a part of multiple environments or situations at once. The primitive mutation they had before (in the eye's case it would be photoreceptors) can now develop further in these new environments. The development is extremely small and takes a great amount of time.

The thing to really pick up on, though, is that the time needed to form these mutations can be so long that the species would have likely diverged from it's biological ancestor long ago.

So it's not really one species developing this specific, complex mutation over time. It's the lineage of a species that developed that mutation over time

originally posted by: Murgatroid
Not ONE single particle of scientifically provable piece of evidence has been found in support of it.

I've actually given several examples of observed, tested evidence of Evolution in this very topic. I think the issue you're having with my responses is not that they don't prove Evolution, it's that your concept of what Evolution is isn't accurate to begin with. Here's some more evidence, nonetheless:

~ All life shows a fundamental unity in the mechanisms of replication, heritability, catalysis, and metabolism.
~ Common descent predicts a nested hierarchy pattern, or groups within groups. We see just such an arrangement in a unique, consistent, well-defined hierarchy, the so-called tree of life.
~ Different lines of evidence give the same arrangement of the tree of life. We get essentially the same results whether we look at morphological, biochemical, or genetic traits.
~ Fossil animals fit in the same tree of life. We find several cases of transitional forms in the fossil record.
~ The fossils appear in a chronological order, showing change consistent with common descent over hundreds of millions of years and inconsistent with sudden creation.
~ Many organisms show rudimentary, vestigial characters, such as sightless eyes or wings useless for flight.
~ Atavisms sometimes occur. An atavism is the reappearance of a character present in a distant ancestor but lost in the organism's immediate ancestors. We only see atavisms consistent with organisms' evolutionary histories.
~ Ontogeny (embryology and developmental biology) gives information about the historical pathway of an organism's evolution. For example, as embryos whales and many snakes develop hind limbs that are reabsorbed before birth.
~ The distribution of species is consistent with their evolutionary history. For example, marsupials are mostly limited to Australia, and the exceptions are explained by continental drift. Remote islands often have species groups that are highly diverse in habits and general appearance but closely related genetically. Squirrel diversity coincides with tectonic and sea level changes (Mercer and Roth 2003). Such consistency still holds when the distribution of fossil species is included.
~ Evolution predicts that new structures are adapted from other structures that already exist, and thus similarity in structures should reflect evolutionary history rather than function. We see this frequently. For example, human hands, bat wings, horse legs, whale flippers, and mole forelimbs all have similar bone structure despite their different functions.
~ The same principle applies on a molecular level. Humans share a large percentage of their genes, probably more than 70 percent, with a fruit fly or a nematode worm.
~ When two organisms evolve the same function independently, different structures are often recruited. For example, wings of birds, bats, pterosaurs, and insects all have different structures. Gliding has been implemented in many additional ways. Again, this applies on a molecular level, too.
~ The constraints of evolutionary history sometimes lead to suboptimal structures and functions. For example, the human throat and respiratory system make it impossible to breathe and swallow at the same time and make us susceptible to choking.
~ Suboptimality appears also on the molecular level. For example, much DNA is nonfunctional.
~ Some nonfunctional DNA, such as certain transposons, pseudogenes, and endogenous viruses, show a pattern of inheritance indicating common ancestry.
~ Speciation has been observed.
~ The day-to-day aspects of evolution -- heritable genetic change, morphological variation and change, functional change, and natural selection -- are seen to occur at rates consistent with common descent.

originally posted by: Murgatroid
Evolution is positively anti-science. Science deals with things that are testable, observable, and demonstrable and evolution has none of those qualities. To call evolution "science" is to confuse fairy tales with facts.

I’ve already shown this to be false earlier in the topic (and in this comment)

originally posted by: Murgatroid
n fact, there is no science to support evolution.

Read above.

originally posted by: MurgatroidThe evolutionist has faith that these things happened, but he has not seen them and neither does he have any way of proving them.

Read above.

originally posted by: Murgatroid
On all three counts, the commonly-accepted "Theory of Evolution" fails the test of being scientific.

Read above.

originally posted by: Murgatroid
At the heart of the problem is the fact that Evolution, disguised as a viable scientific theory, is actually a tool of religious propaganda and cultural domination, used by those who hold to the religion of Naturalism.

Read above.

originally posted by: Murgatroid
When the Evolutionist says that life originated without the intervention of a supernatural Being, he is making a religious assertion, not a scientific one.

Evolution doesn’t deal with how life originated, it deals with what occurs to life once it already exists. Again, it’s not that “Evolution is wrong” it’s that your understanding of what the theory really says is incorrect.

originally posted by: Murgatroid
The theory of evolution can never recover from the obvious objection to it, that there are no credible (in other words ones that have not been proved to be fake or which require a huge dose of faith) transitional fossils in the fossil record when there should be billions of them. If evolution's continuous morphing were really going on, every fossil would show change underway throughout the creature, with parts in various stages of completion. The gradual morphing of one type of creature to another that evolution predicts is nowhere to be found.

Read above.

originally posted by: Murgatroid
There should have been millions of transitional creatures if evolution were true.

There is. Read above.

originally posted by: spygeek
Excellent thread ghost! Very informative, unbiased and we'll written responses, S+F!

What do you think of the future of human evolution, being driven more now by human's own hand through the likes of genetic manipulation technology and sexual selection than natural selection? Do you think we may be heading for an increase in evolutionary pace and subspecies variety? In your opinion, could transhumanism and digital neurobiology liberate us from natural selection altogether?

Sorry, that's like three questions.. Just curious to read your opinions on these possibilities.

Thanks

I've actually answered this somewhere here among my responses. For a brief summary of that earlier post, it's definitely a curious case. We've essentially shielded ourselves from our natural environment, so what we would be adapting to is the synthetic environment we've built for ourselves.

However, I personally see us converging with technology, as you brought up. Once we do that, we may simply 'escape' evolution, because we'd consist of non-biological matter anyway. The whole "technological singularity" bit. It seems very likely, from the evident advancement in technology.

a reply to: Ghost147

Have we reached the end of our evolutionary road map? If we to physically evolve a bit more what do you think would change?

Could some birth defects actually be an evolutionary change however due to it not being the norm we for lack of a better word fix it?

Alright this question seemed to be touched upon already...when did we start losing hair as a species...how will we know when the next evolutionary change in human beings happens such as loosing a pinky toe which actually could be viewed as birth defect...

originally posted by: Ghost147
[Snipped]

With the best of my abilities (and hopefully the help of other knowledgeable members), I'm here to further knowledge on the subject of Evolution.

Now, I'm not quite sure what these questions will be so I'm opening the questions to others that may also feel that the Theory of Evolution is an inadequate way to determine how modern life came to be.

Why gay people? How do they fit the model? And why does it take so long for a tortoise to right itself when it is so vulnerable?

a reply to: MoshiachIusDei

Could being gay be part of a natural population control mechanism?

originally posted by: japhrimu
What is the evidence for the origins of mitochondria?

This is a very good question. When we look that far back, we can never really know with a high level of certainty, but we can gather information that may suggest, or even highly suggest, that it's origins were likely caused by 'this'.

In the case of Mitochondria, we know that they reside in other cells and function as an organelle. We have observed cases of amoebae that were infected with "x-bacteria" and then actually evolved to become dependent on them. The same type of incident would have very well occurred with Mitochondria and Eukaryotic cells.

The Endosymbiotic Theory is our theory that explains this event. Here's a good visual representation:



As for the specific origin of mitochondria itself, before it was part of Eukaryotic cells, that would actually start to dwell in the realm of Abiogenesis.

originally posted by: japhrimu
What's junk DNA good for?

This link explains it better than I can. But, to quote them:

"In genetics, the term junk DNA refers to regions of DNA that are noncoding.

DNA contains instructions (coding) that are used to create proteins in the cell. However, the amount of DNA contained inside each cell is vast and not all of the genetic sequences present within a DNA molecule actually code for a protein.

Some of this noncoding DNA is used to produce non-coding RNA components such as transfer RNA, regulatory RNA and ribosomal RNA. However, other DNA regions are not transcribed into proteins, nor are they used to produce RNA molecules and their function is unknown."

A lot of Junk DNA may simply be there because it used to serve a function, and no longer does, but it may simply cost more energy to rid ourselves of it naturally instead of just keeping it.

I gave an example of this a few comments back on the topic of Vestigial organs/limbs/Etc. Take Human males for example. We have absolutely no need for nipples, but yet we still have them. The reason for that is simply because, in the womb, we are all female. It is only after a bit of gestation that males become male, but we're all female in the beginning. The coding for nipples is still ingrained in is, so we continue to develop them. The reason for that is simply because it 'costs less energy' to keep them and serve no purpose, rather than to erase them from male anatomy.

originally posted by: japhrimu
If Aliens had a hand in creation of what we know today, can both sides be right?

Not necessarily. The process of evolution still exists, and we can verify it had always existed when life exists through various means.

Some people attribute life beginning on Earth from Aliens (or another extraterrestrial source) and that would be a theory about Abiogenesis.

Some people also claim that Aliens helped guide hominoid evolution into humanity, and they very well could have happened, but we still see evolution throughout our biological lineage.

So the notion doesn't really clash with Evolution, because evolution doesn't deal with the start of life, but only what happens to life when life exists.

originally posted by: japhrimu
Can unanswered/unanswerable questions be counted for the creationists' side?

This claim assumes that creation and evolution are the only two possible models, which is quite false. Many other models, scientific and otherwise, have been proposed. Problems even with all but one of the models do not imply that the remaining model is true. Another alternative is that another as-yet unknown explanation is correct.

Essentially, simply not knowing details about specific things/events does not validate another theory. After all, we do have a lot of evidence that supports the Theory of Evolution, that has yet to be discredited.

originally posted by: Raggedyman
What came first
Male or female and why

This question is similar to the whole "what came first, chicken or egg" argument. In which case the answer is simply "both".

Evolution doesn't occur on an individualistic scale, it occurs on a population-based scale. A population adapts to the environment around it, and the individuals who did not adapt the same way within that same population tend to be weeded out of the gene pool through natural selection.

I actually answered a similar question involving the origin of sexual reproduction already, it will give you a larger, more detailed description of your concern

originally posted by: Raggedyman
What came first
Male or female and why

as the first life on earth was single celled, it was neither. They were asexually reproducing hermaphrodites because gender wasn't defined as yet and all genetic informnation was contained within that one cell.

originally posted by: MoshiachIusDei
Why gay people? How do they fit the model?

Well, homosexuality isn't an exclusive Human Trait. There are thousands of other species that have shown varying levels of homosexual behavior. There are some species out there that are actually exclusively female, and males simply do not exist (which is actually different from asexual organisms that basically just clone themselves). Then you have even more species that can change their gender if the population requires it.

So homosexuality, transgender, hermaphroditism, and sex changing are all abundant throughout life on Earth.

The benefits of each of these cases all vary, and would be dependent on a per-species outlook. These benefits can be anything from practice for actual reproduction, a requirement for ovulation, an increase in firtility, to save a population, so on and so forth

Let's just focus on homosexuality in Humans. There doesn't seem to be any obvious functional purpose at a biological level for Homosexuality in humans, but that doesn't discredit Evolution.

Evolution is all about experimentation and adaptation. Reproduction produces variation within genes, and if that variation doesn't produce something that is beneficial to an organism in a specific environment, it's often simply weeded out of further generations. That alone allows for things that may not be totally beneficial to exist in the first place, at least for a small time. But, we also know that we are directly related to everything else on earth, so it's not inconceivable that specific traits be passed down, or remain dormant at any time (and also to varying degrees).

Something as minor as sexual orientation would actually become quite likely to occur at some point. Furthermore, we have very developed brains, and we're the first known species to have this level of development. A lot of the anatomy of the brain is quite new, and so problems have a chance to arise. Which is why there are things like personality disorders that actually go completely against our own species (think 'Psychopathy"). So it's not totally unreasonable for nature to produce a trait that isn't totally beneficial.

It's not an accident, or a mistake, it's just doing what life does best, producing mutations to adapt with.

originally posted by: MoshiachIusDei
And why does it take so long for a tortoise to right itself when it is so vulnerable?

This is mainly due to benefit-over-disadvantage. The shell of a tortoise developed for protection, and it serves its purpose very well. So well, in fact, that the disadvantage of sometimes flipping over and being unable to right itself immediately is much less of an issue than having the benefits of that shell in the first place.

Basically, the mutation of the shell is beneficial, just not in all scenarios. The same could be said about Lungs and water.

originally posted by: chrismarco
a reply to: MoshiachIusDei

Could being gay be part of a natural population control mechanism?

In the case of Homosexuality, no. Mutations don't ever kill off a species, but there are some more effective ways to prevent overpopulation. Usually, that equates to shorter lifespans, and less offspring.

For instance, a predator doesn't often benefit from having a high population of themselves. Take sharks for instance, if there were more and more sharks, there would be less and less food. a sort of equilibrium is that predators tend to have very few offspring, and prey tend to have an excessive amount of offspring.

Homosexuality doesn't really achieve much of anything when it comes to reducing population. As I stated above, there are some species that are exclusively female and require homosexual behavior to mate. Homosexuality tends to be benificial, or simply 'there' with no real advantageous functionality.

a reply to: Ghost147

I find it hard to believe in this day and age we are still debating evolution. Can you tell me why that is?
And is it possible to devolve, because I really think we are experiencing a devolution right now?

a reply to: Loveaduck

Haha. Actually, yes, I can tell you why that is.

From an evolutionary perspective, we have an instinctual fear of change. We've learned specific things and if those things provide some level of comfort, it makes us feel safe. Venturing outside of that comfort can be incredibly frightening, especially when that zone had been shown to be this terrible, evil, scary thing, as many Creationists teach Evolution to be.

It can also simply be that, at a subconscious level, an individual has spent all this time and energy on a specific action, thought, or lifestyle, and it can be a crushing experience to learn it was all for nothing.

Of course, this applies to all of humanity, not just creationists.

Sagan said it perfectly when he stated:

"In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion."

As for 'devolving'. No, the action isn't that these people have somehow 'devolved' or are anything lesser. Ironically, it's because evolution itself has ingrained that 'fear from the unknown' trait that they do this.

Poetically, their actions are caused by the very thing they reject.

a reply to: Ghost147

Is it taught that natural selection is a part of the
evolutioary process? And if so, why?

Why are there no scientific breakthrus associated with evolution?

originally posted by: randyvs
a reply to: Ghost147

Is it taught that natural selection is a part of the
evolutioary process? And if so, why?

Yes, Natural selection is a mechanism within Evolution.

Basically, what is meant by "natural selection" is that mutations are either carried on or erased from the gene pool due to certain factors. Those factors are things like predation, or environmental change, or disease; basic obstacles of survival that every organism faces.

When a mutation is beneficial to an organism, that organism now has a higher chance at reproducing - or in other words, carrying on that mutation in successive generations. Natural selection is simply the term used to describe the process of the continuation, or deletion, of genetic information to a gene pool.

originally posted by: randyvs
a reply to: Ghost147
Why are there no scientific breakthrus associated with evolution?

I'm not quite sure what you mean by this, could you elaborate?

originally posted by: chrismarco
a reply to: Ghost147

Have we reached the end of our evolutionary road map?

no. There is no "end" or goal to evolution aside from the impetus of an organism to pass on its traits to offspring.

If we to physically evolve a bit more what do you think would change?

There is no simple answer to this as predicting future morphological changes is more science fiction and hypothesizing than it is hard science. There are so many variables involved that can potentially affect how a population will adapt and change. Looking at our own past, a massive part of who "we" are today is the result of a massive, planet wide, devestating genetic bottleneck. It nearly wiped out Homo Sapiens Sapiens, led to the eventual disappearance of Homo Neanderthalensis, Homo Altaiensis and Homo Floresiensis as well as the possible last remnants of H. Erectus (there is the possibility that isolated groups of Erectus survived into the recent past and that they coexisted with us and the other humans living here until ~40KA)

AMH/HSS were reduced to as few as 100 breeding pair world wide. It was right around the same time as this event that HSS began its trek outof Africa and into Eurasia and Australia, met up with Neanderthal and Denisovan/Altaiensis and with that influx of European and West Asian genetics, be started to become "us". Just to give a little perspective, a human born in West Africa has more in common genetically with a human born in Siberia than 2 lowland gorillas who were born less than 10 miles apart. Their genetic diversity is far greater than ours and its definitely a resultof this bottleneck event.

Could some birth defects actually be an evolutionary change however due to it not being the norm we for lack of a better word fix it?

Not really. Evolution is at its core, a measurement of the change in allele frequency of a given population over time. Birth defects don't typically occur population wide and instead occur on the individual level. Furthermore, one must be specific regarding the nature of the "defect". Is it really a true defect or is it a morphoogical oddity? Does the mutation decrease or adversely affect genetic fitness?Will it make the individual appear less fit or attractive to a potential mate? Because if the trait adversely affects genetic fitness then there is no evolutionary advantage to it, the individual may not even survive long enough to pass on those genes or it may simply find them so unattractive that finding a mate is impossible. In any of those examples, the trait will not be passed into the population and can not be considered an evolutionary change.

Alright this question seemed to be touched upon already...when did we start losing hair as a species..

The most recent point we could have lost it is ~1.2 MA while H. Erectus was still running large and in charge. There is however some anecdotal evidence that this occurred during the time of the Australopithecines ~3-4 MA. The fact that H. Erectus was taller than modern humans and had a spine, pelvis and legs better suited to bipedalism and consequently running long distances, and is known to have hunted large prey, I'm inclined to believe that the loss of large portions of our body hair occurred much earlier than 1.2 MA. Losing our body hair and increasing coverage of sweat glands is one of the single most important developments in hominid evolution.It allowed us to become an apex predator,chasing down larger prey by coordinated groups for longer periods of time over far greater distances than we had been able to in the past. Drastically reduced body hair and sweat glands is literally the difference between us being human and us being a chimpanzee. It allowed us to greatly increase our access to protein which in turn fueled brain development which leads us to where we are today.But I digress... for H. Erectus to have been hunting the prey they were,m in the fashion they were hunting it, they were not still covered in hair or even partially covered in hair. This is something that began much earlier.

how will we know when the next evolutionary change in human beings happens such as loosing a pinky toe which actually could be viewed as birth defect...

we wont until it becomes commonplace within a given population. Like the recessive trait for blue eyes for example.

What are your comments on the distinction between Homo Sapiens and Neanderthalensis as separate species despite some evidence of interbreeding existing?

What are your comments on genetic modification as pertaining to how it affects evolution.

a reply to: Ghost147

The second question I suppose was a bit vague.
Science makes break thrus in medicine, prosthetics,
robotics the space program, geneology is another one.
If there are any in the field of evolution maybe they're
just not exciting enough to be news? We don't really
hear of them from evolution. i'm not saying I know this
to be true. But do they have any break throughs of
note in evolution?

Also it always seems odd to me that any thing could cause
evolution to be selective. The word selection seems to descript,
requiring a thought process and a decision.

Question: What becomes of the theory of natural selection in a population that dwells in an unnatural environment? Is it not too far off to suggest that technological societies have basically brought their evolutionary processes to a figurative extinction?

The natural order of universal laws that govern the evolutionary processes of species--animal, mineral, vegetative, and human are intricately attuned to one another. To suggest that synthetics have become the future of a single unit is to suggest the formation of new laws of evolution, which when considered on all levels, leads to an inevitable contradiction to evolutionary theory.

How can this be feasible from an evolutionary stand point? It can't. When we conclude that synthetic life is the future of evolution we are simultaneously concluding that science can and will break the balance of universal laws by replacing natural evolutionary processes with unnatural, synthetic processes. Do you understand what such a belief entails?

originally posted by: Ghost147

originally posted by: Raggedyman
What came first
Male or female and why

This question is similar to the whole "what came first, chicken or egg" argument. In which case the answer is simply "both".

Evolution doesn't occur on an individualistic scale, it occurs on a population-based scale. A population adapts to the environment around it, and the individuals who did not adapt the same way within that same population tend to be weeded out of the gene pool through natural selection.

I actually answered a similar question involving the origin of sexual reproduction already, it will give you a larger, more detailed description of your concern

That's a silly answer for children in early years of schooling
How can evolution occur on populations, is evolution a virus now

What came first, male or female, how and why.
did they both evolve together one day?
Did they evolve on separate days, how did seamen gain a genetic code that works with another, totally different body.

Not chickens and eggs, codes is the question, dna
That was a childish answer ghost

originally posted by: randyvs
a reply to: Ghost147

The second question I suppose was a bit vague.
Science makes break thrus in medicine, prosthetics,
robotics the space program, geneology is another one.
If there are any in the field of evolution maybe they're
just not exciting enough to be news? We don't really
hear of them from evolution. i'm not saying I know this
to be true. But do they have any break throughs of
note in evolution?

absolutely. though in deference to your point, what someone like me thinks of as a huge breakthrough or important find will typically be ignored by larger media outlets and relegated to journals and anthro/archae/paleo blogs. a few recent ones off the top of my head would be decoding the Humand and Neanderthal genomes, the discovery and subsequent genetic decoding of Denisovans, finding out that while AMH and Neanderthal both had red hair, a different version of the gene coded for it in each species which means we didnt inherit red hair from "them", pin pointing where and when the mutation for blue eyes appeared, finding out that complex eyes evolved independantly literally dozens of times in different species, finding whale fossils with intact legs showing the progression from land to water mammal, the Tiktaalik which was an ancient fish with front and back legs showing the transition from sea to land, in paleo-anthropology the finding of Kenyanthropus Platyops, Sahlantheopus Tchadensis and Ororin Tsungenesis were pretty huge...

Also it always seems odd to me that any thing could cause
evolution to be selective. The word selection seems to descript,
requiring a thought process and a decision.

to an extend though the selection is a real, hard decision. Just not in the sense you may think. If you were a beautiful woman who had to choose their mate based on genetic fitness are you going to select an Abercrombie model with a graduate degree and a good income or would you instead opt to mate with Sloth from the Goonies? The genes don't select themselves in regard to which present and god doesnt select either. It's a matter of who appears to be the most fit person or mate for continuing your genetic line. Even in instances where youve got a patriarchal society such as Gorillas, whoever the top ape in a given group is, gets first pick of the ladies. And once again,m he's going for the hottest mountain gorilla he can find, not the Sloth of the forrest!