What is evolution and how do we know it's right?

[Autodidact]

This thread was started in response to HaLi, to talk about what the Theory of Evolution (ToE) is and how science knows that it is correct.

[Artie]

The best evidence that mankind has no relation to any other ape and the best differentiation between an ape and man is the difference in chromosome count. I say this because a child can differentiate a human out of any bunch of apes but adult evolutionists are unable to. That is what evolutionary science does to ones mind.

So Ozgirl you actually believe that your god personally took "dust of the earth" and separated it into atoms, then suspended time to avoid any chemical reactions when he was doing the assembling, then assembled the atoms into molecules etc according to some blueprint in his head? This blueprint would have to contain the placement of 7 billion billion billion atoms for a 70 kg human being alone. And this he did for at least 8.7 million species on the planet today plus all the extinct species such as dinosaurs?

Which scenario do you think is true?

1. God assembles say 7 billion billion billion atoms into what evolutionists call an ancestor of humans?
2. God assembles another 7 billion billion billion atoms into a human?

or

3. God tweaks the ancestor assembly and puts a few billion atoms in a different place and produces a human?

[Ozgirl]

and these last, what, dozen pages of The Great Ape Debate are a perfect example of the reason why defining terms in a debate is so important. Ned is hung up on the definition of "ape," and no one he is communicating with agrees with that definition. As such we have mind-numbing pages of back-and-forth where Ned and everyone he's discoursing with are talking past each other.

If everyone involved cannot agree on the definition of "ape" then the discussion is completely pointless, as the last dozen pages have proven.

Great ape is synonomous with homindae the group containing chimpanzees, gorillas, and hominids.

You are all pretenders. Why don't you refute me?

The answer is because you cant.

All you can do from here on in is chase your tail.

A human has 46 chromosomes, sophisticated language and can make meaning of the world by the use of abstract thought. A human is an obligate biped. A human does not have a fur coat.

An ape has a fur coat and is not an obligate biped.

You keep at Ned like as if you have something intelligent to say.

Until 1980, the family Hominidae contained only humans, with the great apes in the family Pongidae.

This ranking is based on the garble I spoke to in my previous post that you flatly refuse to deal with because chasing your tail is easier. Going around in cirlces is what evolutionists do and then they pretend they talk 'science'. Rubbish you do!

What you refuse to understand and are chasing your tail around in cirlces about is that any inclusion in Homindae or any other rank is arbitrary. I can also choose a suite of traits to include or exclude species into a rank that is based on TOE.

Mankind is a tailless primate that has sophisticated language is able to make sense of the world by the use of abstract thought and does not have a fur coat, and has 46 chromosomes and is an obligate primate. This suite of traits excludes any other so called ape.

An ape does not have 46 chromosomes, and is a tailless primate that has a fur coat and is not an obligate biped. This suite of traits excludes mankind from apes.

Homology is a pick a box science that can link man to any flavour of the month.

So far all you have done is repeat your self and chased your tail because you are unable to place any credibility behind any of these assumptions you speak to.

[Ozgirl]

The best evidence that mankind has no relation to any other ape and the best differentiation between an ape and man is the difference in chromosome count. I say this because a child can differentiate a human out of any bunch of apes but adult evolutionists are unable to. That is what evolutionary science does to ones mind.

So Ozgirl you actually believe that your god personally took "dust of the earth" and separated it into atoms, then suspended time to avoid any chemical reactions when he was doing the assembling, then assembled the atoms into molecules etc according to some blueprint in his head? This blueprint would have to contain the placement of 7 billion billion billion atoms for a 70 kg human being alone. And this he did for at least 8.7 million species on the planet today plus all the extinct species such as dinosaurs?

Which scenario do you think is true?

1. God assembles say 7 billion billion billion atoms into what evolutionists call an ancestor of humans?
2. God assembles another 7 billion billion billion atoms into a human?

or

3. God tweaks the ancestor assembly and puts a few billion atoms in a different place and produces a human?

So I take it you want to discuss my philosophy because you are gobsmacked when it comes to defending your own.

I subscribe to the coalescence of matter to create an organism. Researchers have found that all we are are elements organised in a particular way.

You also have stuff all to support abiogenesis. If you evos have separated abiogenesis from the evolutionary paradigm, I likewise claim the same in relation to the genesis. You claim non living elements reorganised themselves into a complex factory of reproduction. I claim a God reorganised elements into beings. Even the evocation of a God sounds more plausible than dead elements doing it.

The day substantiation of the evolutionary paradigm depends on a creationist providing a higher level of substantiation than evolutionists have ever been able to provide is the day you can kiss your theory goodbye!!!

That day appears to be today!

[Clownboat]

Likewise, there is no justification at all to the claim that human chromosome 2 is the fusion of chimp genes 2a & 2b. This link sums it up nicely with the evolutionary research used to support their claims being cited.

http://creation.com/chromosome-2-fusion-1

Here is snip from one...

Human chromosome 2 was formed by the head-to-head fusion of two ancestral chromosomes that remained separate in other primates. Sequences that once resided near the ends of the ancestral chromosomes are now interstitially located in 2q13-2q14.1.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12421751

Then on they go to explain why what is not the same still is the same. It is all biased and assumptive rhetoric. It is all for believers in the TOE philosophy to believe. It is not empirical data.


"Other problems with the fusion theory include the fact that standard cytogenetic techniques, such as C-banding, have detected significantly less heterochromatic centromeric DNA on the long arm of human chromosome 2 than predicted by the fusion model. Evolutionists claim this is because the bulk of the centromeric repetitive DNA has been lost.13 Conversely, it is more likely that the so-called cryptic centromeric DNA never existed."

"Mutations of the magnitude needed to support a fusion event pose serious cytogenetic problems both for the organism during regular somatic cell growth related to mitosis and during the meiotic events occurring in the germ-line tissues. Proper alignment requires the near-identical structure of each pair so that each chromosome aligns only with its sister chromosome. Chromosomal fusion is one major common cause of infertility. If meiosis does occur despite the aberration, the embryo produced from fertilization of these gametes typically self-aborts."

The best evidence that mankind has no relation to any other ape and the best differentiation between an ape and man is the difference in chromosome count. I say this because a child can differentiate a human out of any bunch of apes but adult evolutionists are unable to. That is what evolutionary science does to ones mind.


Evolutionists had to scurry off when they found this difference in chromosome count and explain it in evolutionary terms. To do this they had to put their evogoggles on, ignore any difference, find 2 chimp chromosome that likely have nothing to do with the human ch2, and come up with some good story telling to explain why some humans do not carry 48 chromosomes and why they are disimilar. They pretend to see 2 centromeres, they pretend much. Of course some apes have different chomosome counts, but none have 46 like mankind. This to me demonstrates that a variety of apes were created prior to man.

From here evolutionists can only go around in cirlces and offer more and more biased nonsense, excuses and unsubstantiated stories that mean absolutely nothing more than they have to make it look like it all evolved. They do not have credible genomic evidence and they do not have fossil evidence to back their claims. It is truely a waste of time debating evolutionists. If I leave the forum for another week they will still be tail chasing when I come back.

The story is this. At some time after the separation of the human and chimpanzee lineages, two ancestral chromosomes, #12 and #13 in the chimpanzee, fused end-to-end to form a single chromosome, #2, in humans. Chimpanzee chromosome 13 forms the short arm (2p) and part of the long arm (2q) of human chromosome 2, while chimpanzee chromosome 12 forms most of the long arm (2q) of chromosome 2.

The primary evidence for this fusion is the comparative genetic content of these chromosomes. That is, most of the genes in chimpanzee chromosome 13 are found in human 2p, and most of the genes in chimpanzee chromosome 12 are in human 2q. The chromatin binding patterns line up, the sequence analysis confirms, and there have been some lovely FISH studies that show the correspondence.

What has since been done is that a prediction was made that there ought to be fragments of telomeres (the end caps of chromosomes) in the middle of chromosome 2, at the fusion site. Which has been examined. And the prediction has been confirmed.

Bergman and Tomkins ignore every single bit of that. Instead, what they do is focus on just the region of the fusion, and complain that it is a tangled mess (sound familiar?) and hard to interpret " that it is a degenerate telomeric region, rather than a complete and intact telomere, which is what they demand be present. This is an unrealistic expectation, given that every paper on the structure of the fusion region makes the point that it is degenerate.

An analogy: imagine a red Ford Mustang and a blue BMW X6 are in a head-on collision, and both have totally wrecked front ends, with bumpers and radiators and headlights interlocked and everything about their grilles in tangled confusion, and with bits and pieces torn loose and flung about. Youd be able to look at the crash and still tell by everything in and behind the engine compartment that Car #1 was a Mustang and Car #2 was an X6.

Bergman and Tomkins are the bewildered and incompetent investigators who ignore every other factor in the crash, look at a few particularly mangled bits of the wreckage, and declare that they cant identify it, thereforethe two vehicles were assembled at the factory in this particular configuration, and no crash occurred. But they use lots of sciencey language to explain this at tendentious length, which is sufficient to convince non-scientists that the interpretation of an obvious historical event has been refuted. And thats all they need to do to accomplish their goals: fling about unfounded fear, uncertainty, and doubt to win over the ignorant.

[Clownboat]

All humans are members of the great ape family, there is nothing to demonstrate.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ape

When Wiki publically states that Prophet Muhammed was an ape and that all Jews, Arabs, Muslims and Christians are also apes, then I shall accept your ludicrous claim that you are an ape too! Till then, just saying that all humans are apes is simply dogmatic rhetoric to those of us who are not apes.

You must have missed post 1195 where I showed Muslims claiming to be descended from apes. Here are the relevant points again that counter your claim (that no Muslim would consider themselves an ape):

As far as some Islamic views on evolution:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_views_on_evolution
- In the 13th century, Nasir al-Din al-Tusi explains how the elements evolved into minerals, then plants, then animals, and then humans. Tusi then goes on to explain how hereditary variability was an important factor for biological evolution of living things:[16]
- Tusi then explains how humans evolved from advanced animals:[16]
"Such humans [probably anthropoid apes] live in the Western Sudan and other distant corners of the world.

- This is what Ibn Maskawayh states and this is precisely what is written in the Epistles of Ikhwan al-Safa. The Muslim thinkers state that ape then evolved into a lower kind of a barbarian man.

- Another prominent and controversial Islamic Scholar, Ghulam Ahmad Pervez holds and defends the view that there is no contradiction between the scientific theory of evolution and Quran's numerous references to the emergence of life in the universe.

- Evolutionary biology is included in the high-school curricula of most Muslim countries. Science foundations of 14 Muslim countries, including Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, Indonesia, and Egypt, recently signed a statement by the Interacademy Panel (IAP, a global network of science academies), in support of the teaching of evolution, including human evolution.

Will you do the honorable thing and retract your claim now that you have been shown to be in error?

[Ozgirl]

Likewise, there is no justification at all to the claim that human chromosome 2 is the fusion of chimp genes 2a & 2b. This link sums it up nicely with the evolutionary research used to support their claims being cited.

http://creation.com/chromosome-2-fusion-1

Here is snip from one...

Human chromosome 2 was formed by the head-to-head fusion of two ancestral chromosomes that remained separate in other primates. Sequences that once resided near the ends of the ancestral chromosomes are now interstitially located in 2q13-2q14.1.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12421751

Then on they go to explain why what is not the same still is the same. It is all biased and assumptive rhetoric. It is all for believers in the TOE philosophy to believe. It is not empirical data.


"Other problems with the fusion theory include the fact that standard cytogenetic techniques, such as C-banding, have detected significantly less heterochromatic centromeric DNA on the long arm of human chromosome 2 than predicted by the fusion model. Evolutionists claim this is because the bulk of the centromeric repetitive DNA has been lost.13 Conversely, it is more likely that the so-called cryptic centromeric DNA never existed."

"Mutations of the magnitude needed to support a fusion event pose serious cytogenetic problems both for the organism during regular somatic cell growth related to mitosis and during the meiotic events occurring in the germ-line tissues. Proper alignment requires the near-identical structure of each pair so that each chromosome aligns only with its sister chromosome. Chromosomal fusion is one major common cause of infertility. If meiosis does occur despite the aberration, the embryo produced from fertilization of these gametes typically self-aborts."

The best evidence that mankind has no relation to any other ape and the best differentiation between an ape and man is the difference in chromosome count. I say this because a child can differentiate a human out of any bunch of apes but adult evolutionists are unable to. That is what evolutionary science does to ones mind.


Evolutionists had to scurry off when they found this difference in chromosome count and explain it in evolutionary terms. To do this they had to put their evogoggles on, ignore any difference, find 2 chimp chromosome that likely have nothing to do with the human ch2, and come up with some good story telling to explain why some humans do not carry 48 chromosomes and why they are disimilar. They pretend to see 2 centromeres, they pretend much. Of course some apes have different chomosome counts, but none have 46 like mankind. This to me demonstrates that a variety of apes were created prior to man.

From here evolutionists can only go around in cirlces and offer more and more biased nonsense, excuses and unsubstantiated stories that mean absolutely nothing more than they have to make it look like it all evolved. They do not have credible genomic evidence and they do not have fossil evidence to back their claims. It is truely a waste of time debating evolutionists. If I leave the forum for another week they will still be tail chasing when I come back.

The story is this. At some time after the separation of the human and chimpanzee lineages, two ancestral chromosomes, #12 and #13 in the chimpanzee, fused end-to-end to form a single chromosome, #2, in humans. Chimpanzee chromosome 13 forms the short arm (2p) and part of the long arm (2q) of human chromosome 2, while chimpanzee chromosome 12 forms most of the long arm (2q) of chromosome 2.

The primary evidence for this fusion is the comparative genetic content of these chromosomes. That is, most of the genes in chimpanzee chromosome 13 are found in human 2p, and most of the genes in chimpanzee chromosome 12 are in human 2q. The chromatin binding patterns line up, the sequence analysis confirms, and there have been some lovely FISH studies that show the correspondence.

What has since been done is that a prediction was made that there ought to be fragments of telomeres (the end caps of chromosomes) in the middle of chromosome 2, at the fusion site. Which has been examined. And the prediction has been confirmed.

Bergman and Tomkins ignore every single bit of that. Instead, what they do is focus on just the region of the fusion, and complain that it is a tangled mess (sound familiar?) and hard to interpret " that it is a degenerate telomeric region, rather than a complete and intact telomere, which is what they demand be present. This is an unrealistic expectation, given that every paper on the structure of the fusion region makes the point that it is degenerate.

An analogy: imagine a red Ford Mustang and a blue BMW X6 are in a head-on collision, and both have totally wrecked front ends, with bumpers and radiators and headlights interlocked and everything about their grilles in tangled confusion, and with bits and pieces torn loose and flung about. Youd be able to look at the crash and still tell by everything in and behind the engine compartment that Car #1 was a Mustang and Car #2 was an X6.

Bergman and Tomkins are the bewildered and incompetent investigators who ignore every other factor in the crash, look at a few particularly mangled bits of the wreckage, and declare that they cant identify it, thereforethe two vehicles were assembled at the factory in this particular configuration, and no crash occurred. But they use lots of sciencey language to explain this at tendentious length, which is sufficient to convince non-scientists that the interpretation of an obvious historical event has been refuted. And thats all they need to do to accomplish their goals: fling about unfounded fear, uncertainty, and doubt to win over the ignorant.

This does nothing to establish anything you provide as being empirical and irrefuteable data.

The prediction of the centromere has not been confirmed at all. You have simply repeated the biased conundrums of an assumption.

Garbling on about cars does nothing to advance and discussion.

the bulk of the centromeric repetitive DNA has been lost.

How is this explained? By assumptive convolutions that suit.

This is the truth and there is nothing you can say or do to change it..

Thus, statements of sequence homology are not generated from individual
comparative outgroup character analysis as they are in morphological analyses. Rather, the claim of sequence homology is the result of an overall best fit between an artificially reconstructed sequence and subsequent measures of phenetic similarity

http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/pdf/jbi_2141.pdf

You cannot challenge this because this is actually what happens.

[Clownboat]

Do you not tire of being wrong all the time?

If you were not indoctrinated into Christianity, it would be much easier to view the information without such a bias, but that is your burden to overcome. It took me many many years, but I was able to do it. Keep your chin up.

In addition to keeping my Christian chin up I shall keep a sharp Christian eye on what is happening in the world of modern Islam since the views of many Muslims today seem to be evolving!

http://www.iheu.org/node/2794

Notice readers, that Ned chose to quote mine me and left out the parts of my post where I showed Muslims agreeing that we came from apes. All this counter to his noise over the last several pages.

His reply is also nothing but a strawman because no one claimed that Islamic creationist don't exist.

He did not address his error and did not address his indoctrination.

[Ozgirl]

All humans are members of the great ape family, there is nothing to demonstrate.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ape

When Wiki publically states that Prophet Muhammed was an ape and that all Jews, Arabs, Muslims and Christians are also apes, then I shall accept your ludicrous claim that you are an ape too! Till then, just saying that all humans are apes is simply dogmatic rhetoric to those of us who are not apes.

You must have missed post 1195 where I showed Muslims claiming to be descended from apes. Here are the relevant points again that counter your claim (that no Muslim would consider themselves an ape):

As far as some Islamic views on evolution:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_views_on_evolution
- In the 13th century, Nasir al-Din al-Tusi explains how the elements evolved into minerals, then plants, then animals, and then humans. Tusi then goes on to explain how hereditary variability was an important factor for biological evolution of living things:[16]
- Tusi then explains how humans evolved from advanced animals:[16]
"Such humans [probably anthropoid apes] live in the Western Sudan and other distant corners of the world.

- This is what Ibn Maskawayh states and this is precisely what is written in the Epistles of Ikhwan al-Safa. The Muslim thinkers state that ape then evolved into a lower kind of a barbarian man.

- Another prominent and controversial Islamic Scholar, Ghulam Ahmad Pervez holds and defends the view that there is no contradiction between the scientific theory of evolution and Quran's numerous references to the emergence of life in the universe.

- Evolutionary biology is included in the high-school curricula of most Muslim countries. Science foundations of 14 Muslim countries, including Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, Indonesia, and Egypt, recently signed a statement by the Interacademy Panel (IAP, a global network of science academies), in support of the teaching of evolution, including human evolution.

Will you do the honorable thing and retract your claim now that you have been shown to be in error?

Muslim males think they will get virgins in the afterlife. In the afterlife we are spirits. There are no males and females because spirits do not interbreed. Only a crazed women hater would come up with such nonsense. Only crazed women haters would believe in Mohammed. Muslims believe in Allah and therefore must be as crazy as I am despite their acceptance of TOE.

Some Muslims ascibe to begats and think apes like afarensis can talk to God.

[Neandertal Ned]

Americans can observe apes in zoos, and caged apes in zoos can observe the Americans observing them, but the observation of Africans and African-Americans only reinforces the notion that black American are apes.

What's wrong with reinforcing the notion that black American are apes?

Let me check it out with Reverend Sharpton and Reverend Jackson, and I'll get back to you.

No doubt you can, but none of these Arab and Jewish evolution supporters in the biology departments of Middle Eastern/Israeli universities would dare say that any other Jew, Arab or Muslim outside of their biology department is an ape.

Can you quote one?

Would this do? This is from a researcher in Islamic studies who is also an imam: "Doesn't evolution denigrate and insult all humans, but especially the prophets of God, by insisting that we all originate from apes? I reply that the theory doesn't insult anyone, but does remind us of the humble origins of our created form." You can read his whole article here.

I am more impressed by the rise of Islamic Creationsim throughout the Islamic world than the opions of a part-time imam in Britain.

http://www.iheu.org/node/2794

[Clownboat]

and these last, what, dozen pages of The Great Ape Debate are a perfect example of the reason why defining terms in a debate is so important. Ned is hung up on the definition of "ape," and no one he is communicating with agrees with that definition. As such we have mind-numbing pages of back-and-forth where Ned and everyone he's discoursing with are talking past each other.

If everyone involved cannot agree on the definition of "ape" then the discussion is completely pointless, as the last dozen pages have proven.

Great ape is synonomous with homindae the group containing chimpanzees, gorillas, and hominids.

You are all pretenders. Why don't you refute me?

The answer is because you cant.

All you can do from here on in is chase your tail.

A human has 46 chromosomes, sophisticated language and can make meaning of the world by the use of abstract thought. A human is an obligate biped. A human does not have a fur coat.

An ape has a fur coat and is not an obligate biped.

You keep at Ned like as if you have something intelligent to say.

Until 1980, the family Hominidae contained only humans, with the great apes in the family Pongidae.

This ranking is based on the garble I spoke to in my previous post that you flatly refuse to deal with because chasing your tail is easier. Going around in cirlces is what evolutionists do and then they pretend they talk 'science'. Rubbish you do!

What you refuse to understand and are chasing your tail around in cirlces about is that any inclusion in Homindae or any other rank is arbitrary. I can also choose a suite of traits to include or exclude species into a rank that is based on TOE.

Mankind is a tailless primate that has sophisticated language is able to make sense of the world by the use of abstract thought and does not have a fur coat, and has 46 chromosomes and is an obligate primate. This suite of traits excludes any other so called ape.

An ape does not have 46 chromosomes, and is a tailless primate that has a fur coat and is not an obligate biped. This suite of traits excludes mankind from apes.

Homology is a pick a box science that can link man to any flavour of the month.

So far all you have done is repeat your self and chased your tail because you are unable to place any credibility behind any of these assumptions you speak to.

The evidence linking humans to gorillas and chimps has grown dramatically in the past two decades, especially with increased use of molecular techniques. It now appears that chimps, gorillas, and humans form a clade of closely related species; orangutans are slightly less close phylogenetically, and gibbons are a more distant branch. Here we follow a classification reflecting those relationships. Chimps, gorillas, humans, and orangutans make up the family Hominidae; gibbons are separated as the closely related Hylobatidae.
http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/a ... Hominidae/