Reasons To Doubt Evolution

[WinePusher]

In another thread a user asked for reasons to doubt evolution and, after thinking about the topic, I managed to come up with 3 objections to evolutionary theory:

1. Darwinian evolutionary theory fails to make precise, quantitative predictions. Generally speaking, a typical requirement for legitimate science is that a theory must produce precise, specific, quantitative predictions that will either bear out or falsify the theory itself. Darwinian evolutionary theory lacks this, as it only makes imprecise, abstract, qualitative predictions. Indeed, Stephen Jay Gould suggested that if all of natural history were rewound the mechanism of natural selection wouldn't produce the same species we have now.

2. The fossil record is highly discontinuous and many transitional sequences are nonexistent. Ideally, for evolutionary theory to be completely tight and sound there should be a wide array of transitional forms for every single major morphological change. The fossil record clearly lacks this.

3. Computer simulations of Darwinian evolutionary theory have yet to be successful. Inputting an appropriate algorithm into a computer is something that is done even in upper level undergrad university courses, and it is done to simulate and replicate a continuous process. It appears that attempts at encoding Darwinian mechanisms into an algorithm and inputting them into a computer have failed to yield successful results. I'm don't know much about this particular topic so input from biology experts would be extremely helpful.

Biology isn't my field so I would like to hear some input from other users (preferably those who have actually had academic training in biology like nygreenguy). Is there any truth to these three points?

[Nickman]

[Replying to post 115 by Danmark]

To add, geography also plays a huge role. If a species is never separated, it will remain intact, and evolve together. If separated into groups via geographical issues, it can and does evolve separately resulting in new species. Even with humans, we have evolved differently to our geographical locations and the breeding that occurs in that isolation. We are still human, but you can already see the changes that have occurred via evolution within each race. Creationists cannot explain why we have so many races if we all came from two people. They have to appeal to "microevolution" which is evolution none the less. They understand how evolution occurs in a short period of time, but are not willing to extend that past the historical realm.

Edit: macro=micro oops

[Jashwell]

[Replying to post 117 by Danmark]

You are a non expert so your opinion is ~= a dove's feather near a turbo jet propeller.
I hope you are ready to read (with a mind at least 5mm open):
1) the arguement for God in my signature (yes, it talks about the story of evolution).
2) http://www.christiananswers.net/q-eden/ ... tions.html
3) http://www.christiananswers.net/q-aig/aig-c029.html
4) http://www.icr.org/home/resources/resou ... evolution/
5) http://www.changinglivesonline.org/ques ... k’?.html
6) http://creation.mobi/evolution-creation ... ics-part-2
7) http://www.christiananswers.net/q-eden/ ... exity.html
8) http://www.changinglivesonline.org/ques ... sses?.html

There . . .

It's an odd coincidence that all these sources are Christian websites, but I'll answer them.

1) You reference William Lane Craig.
He believes the Big Bang model and to some extent believes in Evolution.
The Big Bang model is the entire basis of his main argument.

But anyway, to the point, I'll just give one flaw because that's all that is necessary:
1.1 and 1.2 - cosmological arguments - I don't agree that everything that begins to exist has a cause for it's existence.
1.3 - I object to both premises. Could you demonstrate even one of them?
1.4 - We have one sample Universe. Who would trust statistics from one sample?
1.5 - I don't accept the premise

2) Negative mutations don't disprove evolution. If anything, they support a requirement of evolution
3) Missing links have been addressed
4) Evolution is happening now. Obviously millions of years of evolution aren't occurring during the hundred or so years people live today.
5) Evolution doesn't address abiogenesis at all
6) a God is a violation of the second law of thermodynamics
7) Entirely aesthetic arguments from emotion
8) A protein molecule isn't known to be required for life in and of itself- modern life maybe.


As I'm sure you've read these articles in depth too, there won't be any issue with how shortly I've addressed them.

[sizzle-d]

[Replying to post 121 by Jashwell]
Um, i'm given atheist/written by atheists/random websites so try to read them.
God cannot violate the law He created. God is not made up of anything in the universe.
For evolution to occur, a tornado needs to make a Boeing 747, afterall, tornado and story of evolution are mindless and silly and a 747 doesn't nearly come close to the complexity of bacteria.

[Nickman]

[Replying to post 121 by Jashwell]
Um, i'm given atheist/written by atheists/random websites so try to read them.
God cannot violate the law He created. God is not made up of anything in the universe.
For evolution to occur, a tornado needs to make a Boeing 747, afterall, tornado and story of evolution are mindless and silly and a 747 doesn't nearly come close to the complexity of bacteria.

Gotta be a troll!

[heavensgate]

Can we talk about a specific mechanism that you feel cannot be interpreted any other way than evolution?

Natural selection is one. Let's talk about that.
[/quote]

Fine, Natural Selection (NS) it is, and in keeping with the OP.
NS is certainly not the domain of evolutionary science. Scientists that were also Creationist were discussing NS before Darwin published. They saw then as now, that NS fits beautifully into the creation model of origins, and there is no contradiction to the bible either in NS.
But creationists put a great deal of difference between NS and the evolutionary view. I know that to you NS may = evolution, but as I alluded to in previous posts is not actually supported in the science. On the other hand NS accounts for much of the change we see with kinds or 'families' which is not unexpected in a creationist model.
What does not appear to be evolutionary 'facts' in NS is that information is actually gained sufficiently through this mechanism to account for the blindingly stupendous amount of change that has arisen from the first cell to all living organisms to date, regardless of the supposed billions years of our history.
How selection is supposed to interact between environmental pressures and the genes is where evolutionary biology comes unstuck.
The facts are that there are very few mutational changes that are beneficial. We are continuing to build mutational load in our genes. Changes within species are due in the main to selection from the existing pool on genetic information, or from loss of information. The science that actually shows that there is additional information (except via mutation) added to the genetic data shows that in a natural context is degenerative, in the science lab just proves that intelligence is needed to cut and splice in a directed way. Change on the scale required for evolution and in a random fashion at that is really beyond credulity and not what we see happening in nature.

Hmmmm, someone should notify the school curricula gurus of this fact, perhaps at the professional scientific level they have moved on, but for goodness sake, recapitulation theory is still in the schools, along with the old canards of vestigial organs and so on, and so on

Is your problem with the funding of schools and the process of creating text books, or the Science of Evolution?

I hope you realize the difference. Let's stay on point.

I thought I was actually on point. I was responding to your own comment about the scientific perception of evolution. I was remarking that it seems science has done a pretty poor job of sharing that info with the non scientific community. I think that is because there have been some sacred cows that have been highly instrumental in earlier times that reinforced evolutionary theory, only later to be shown as fraudulent (as in the case of Haeckel's embryos) or that science in the case of vestigial organs simply quietly left them behind.

This is exactly what I was alluding to in my original post. Can you also tell me a specific that will take this statement further. To me, genetics are doing just the opposite. One is hard pressed to look at the irreducible complexities of the cell, ATP Synthase, kinesin, etc, etc, and they each work in an irreducible complex system, and assign all that to evolution?
It rather speaks of design.

IC is not a scientific hypothesis, why are you mentioning it?

So far here, I think I am the only one giving reasons. A simple dismiss of Intelligent Design (ID) is not a scientific answer either. It is actually a scientific Hypothesis. It is taking what any scientist takes in the data and makes some basic conclusions. Just because your paradigm relies on chance, and mine on a Designer, how does that dismiss ID from the argument in science. Check the following and tell me that there is no design, please show me how random environmental and selective processes allows for wheels in biology, and how this complex machine works symbiotically with other such motors to power or bodies?
https://www.google.com.au/?gfe_rd=cr&ei ... +animation

[heavensgate]

If two populations do not interbreed, over time, they change enough so they are not the same species.

Not really, they adapt but don't change species.
A person living in a forest adapt to it but remain human. No species changing, they are still Homo Sapiens.

The factor you are not accounting for is time. You are correct, at least for fairly advanced species, that a few thousand years will not result in dramatic differences between the populations. But over several million years our past history says otherwise. We only need go back 1 to 2 million years to find a different species of the genus homo; homo habilis.
http://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/hum ... mo-habilis
http://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledg ... n-89010983

How does this support your case. Habilis and Erectus lived side by side.
I suppose in years to come, when we find the skeletal remains of a Pygmy in the vicinity of a Plainsman we will suppose that (not sure which order) one evolved from the other and place millions of years between them. I note that even Neanderthal is now considered fully human and lived at the same time as our own relatively modern version.
What I am getting at is the Neanderthal which was much more robust in comparison to us, why should she be considered less human or a less endowed ancestor? This come form paradigm bias, not actual science.
When bones are dug up, they do not come with a tag saying how old they are. They are in fact a piece of bone.

[Nickman]

Geography also plays a huge role. If a species is never separated, it will remain intact, and evolve together. If separated into groups via geographical issues, it can and does evolve separately resulting in new species. Even with humans, we have evolved differently to our geographical locations and the breeding that occurs in that isolation. We are still human, but you can already see the changes that have occurred via evolution within each race. Creationists cannot explain why we have so many races if we all came from two people. They have to appeal to "microevolution" which is evolution none the less. They understand how evolution occurs in a short period of time, but are not willing to extend that past the historical realm.

[sizzle-d]

[Replying to post 121 by Jashwell]
Um, i'm given atheist/written by atheists/random websites so try to read them.
God cannot violate the law He created. God is not made up of anything in the universe.
For evolution to occur, a tornado needs to make a Boeing 747, afterall, tornado and story of evolution are mindless and silly and a 747 doesn't nearly come close to the complexity of bacteria.

Gotta be a troll!

[Danmark]

When bones are dug up, they do not come with a tag saying how old they are. They are in fact a piece of bone.

I didn't understand much of what you said, or at least didn't see an argument fully developed. But I understood at least one thing, quoted above.

Your remark about an age 'tag' is erroneous. Fossils do come with age 'tags.' Since radiometrics is a well established technique for dating fossils, do you have some new evidence or discovery that suggests otherwise?

[heavensgate]

[Replying to post 115 by Danmark]

To add, geography also plays a huge role. If a species is never separated, it will remain intact, and evolve together. If separated into groups via geographical issues, it can and does evolve separately resulting in new species. Even with humans, we have evolved differently to our geographical locations and the breeding that occurs in that isolation. We are still human, but you can already see the changes that have occurred via evolution within each race. Creationists cannot explain why we have so many races if we all came from two people. They have to appeal to "microevolution" which is evolution none the less. They understand how evolution occurs in a short period of time, but are not willing to extend that past the historical realm.

Edit: macro=micro oops

Creationists can and do explain these things, and the changes fit very well into the creationist model of origins. As noted before in this discussion, what you say about the geographical spread of humans across the globe has a huge bearing on our final attributes of colour, size etc, etc. Essentially though, one race, and one origin. We are all still human. We call the changes environmental selection, this is not added information in the gene pool, in fact white people have most likely suffered a loss of information, which when interbreeding occurs can be restored. That is why we should all consider ourselves one race, just different families.
Change is not evolution. Changing into something else is. It's the "something else" is where we part company.
The timeframe for evolution depends on the basic philosophy of evolution and itself is a circular argument. This is why the evolutionary time is expanding at a great rate of knots most of the time. This is why the ToE is too plastic and flexible to be called a science in its own right. (even though it is, just don't ask me to believe it).