Evolution

[keithprosser3]

Given the nature of reproduction and of natural selection isn't evolution inescapable?
How can evolution not happen?

[kenblogton]

[kenblogton]

�"In the years after Darwin, his advocates hoped to find predictable progressions. In general, these have not been found - yet the optimism has died hard, and some pure fantasy has crept into textbooks." D.M. Raup, Science, July 17,1981 p:289


�"... biologists may simply pick out species at different points in geological time that seem to fit on some line of directional modification through time. Many trends, in other words, may exist more in the minds of the analysts than in phylogenetic history." N. Eldredge "Macro-Evolutionary Dynamics: Species, Niches, and Adaptive Peaks", McGraw-Hill Pub Co: New York, 1989 p:134

Discredited articles from 1981 and 1989 don't tell us what fossils and DNA evidence have been discovered in the decades since. You'll have to provide valid evidence if you want to debunk anything we say. The Homo erectus skull, for example, was excavated, along with four others, relatively recently. Who cares what 1981 says?

What makes this evidence discredited? How have later discoveries discredited it. More of the same doesn't discredit - it's just more of the same. Because you don't agree with it doesn't make it invalid.
kenblogton

[Jashwell]

Fourth & hopefully final reply to 1. We have no evidence that spontaneous generation of life has ever occurred!

We have no evidence that divine spontaneous generation of life has ever occurred.

We know abiogenesis has never occurred. At http://darwin200.christs.cam.ac.uk/page ... page_id=f8, it states
"Secretly, Darwin did have his own ideas about how life kicked off; he thought that life probably began spontaneously from the chemical soup that existed as the earth began to calm down a bit following its violent birth. He wrote to his friend Joseph Hooker expressing this idea:

�But if (and Oh! What a big if!) we could conceive in some warm little pond, with all sorts of ammonia and phosphoric salts, lights, heat, electricity etc., present that a protein compound was chemically formed ready to undergo still more complex changes�

Darwin had actually hit the nail on the head, the origin of life is a problem for chemistry and biochemists.

In 1953 two people created Darwin�s warm little pond. Stanley Miller and Harold Urey, working at the University of Chicago mixed water, methane, ammonia and hydrogen in a glass bulb and added heat and sparks of electricity; they were trying to recreate the atmosphere that existed during earth's early days to test whether organic molecules such as amino acids, which are the building blocks of proteins, could have spontaneously formed. They ran the experiment for a week and amazingly, when they analysed their concoction, found over 10 different types of amino acids. When Miller�s old tubes were reanalysed in 2008 with new equipment, they discovered they had actually created over 20!"
The father of evolution sees the origin of life as the beginning of evolution! If you don't accept this, you don't understand evolution. I can't make my views any clearer. If you don't agree, let's agree to disagree.

Evolution requires self replicating systems.
The LITERAL ORIGIN of the systems is nothing to do with evolution.

If God made the first life form, it'd still evolve and evolutionary theory would be wholly accurate.

If you mean the origin of species or the origin of more advanced life forms like basic cells from the original self replicating systems, that would be governed by evolution, but the actual abiogenesis is nothing to do with evolution.

Arguments against naturalistic abiogenesis are not arguments against evolution.

As for your objections - we don't understand the beginning of life and there are many models, a lot of which are consistent, and your objection to a single model raised 50 years ago is not an objection to any naturalistic hypothesis. I don't see how it's an objection either to quote a single experiment that gave positive results (creation of amino acids).

Fourth & hopefully final reply to 2. You said "Every now and then, a species gradually appears, materialising out of thin air." This is the hypothesis that something can come from nothing, of which there are no real examples.
Because there are people who believe in evolution who call themselves Christian does not make evolution true. Since those same people believe in God - does that mean the existence of God is true? The scientific evidence for evolution is inadequate. Scientists prefer the theory of evolution to species big bangs, because big bang points to an unknown cause; evolution is scientifically tidier. I can't make my views any clearer. If you don't agree, let's agree to disagree.

It was just an example of no evolution but still "avoiding" God.
My question is why do they believe in evolution over other non-theistic hypotheses if it's invented to avoid God.

My other objection was misrepresented. I'm saying, there are plenty of theists who accept evolution so in what possible way is it "invented to avoid God"?

Fourth & Hopefully final reply to 3. You said "I doubt that they seriously expected to find evidence of everything. If they did, they are very bad at predication."
I'm not sure what your point is. Are you agreeing with me that that the evidence for evolution is flawed?

No, I'm saying there expectations were too high.
There are plenty of transitional fossils that you dismiss out of hand because of your faith based belief in final lifeforms which itself is an objection to evolution.

We aren't going to find a complete fossil record of everything any more than we're gonna find every footprint a man made between two places to prove he walked somewhere.

Fourth & hopefully final reply to 4. You can no way assert with confidence that Mitochondrial Eve & Y-Chromosomal Adam were NOT the only humans alive at the time. If the entire line of homo sapiens comes from them, how can you possibly say they were NOT the only 2 original humans? I can't make my views any clearer. If you don't agree, let's agree to disagree.

kenblogton

Because the entire CURRENT line of homo sapiens, not the ENTIRE line of homo sapiens descend from them.

Their contemporaries died, or their children died, or their children.

In other words, Adam is part of the only successful unbroken male line, Eve is part of the only successful unbroken female line, and the literal most recent common ancestor is part of the only unbroken line.

This is the reason they're called the most recents - because there were others before them.

[Star]

�"In the years after Darwin, his advocates hoped to find predictable progressions. In general, these have not been found - yet the optimism has died hard, and some pure fantasy has crept into textbooks." D.M. Raup, Science, July 17,1981 p:289


�"... biologists may simply pick out species at different points in geological time that seem to fit on some line of directional modification through time. Many trends, in other words, may exist more in the minds of the analysts than in phylogenetic history." N. Eldredge "Macro-Evolutionary Dynamics: Species, Niches, and Adaptive Peaks", McGraw-Hill Pub Co: New York, 1989 p:134

Discredited articles from 1981 and 1989 don't tell us what fossils and DNA evidence have been discovered in the decades since. You'll have to provide valid evidence if you want to debunk anything we say. The Homo erectus skull, for example, was excavated, along with four others, relatively recently. Who cares what 1981 says?

What makes this evidence discredited? How have later discoveries discredited it. More of the same doesn't discredit - it's just more of the same. Because you don't agree with it doesn't make it invalid.
kenblogton

If an article from 1981 states that certain evidence hasn't been found yet, is that as of 1981, or 2014? Think about it.

Much progress has been made in the last 33 years. DNA evidence has been key in corroborating the fossil record. Many new so-called "transitional" species have been found.

[kenblogton]

[Replying to post 1337 by Star]
Star said "Much progress has been made in the last 33 years. DNA evidence has been key in corroborating the fossil record. Many new so-called "transitional" species have been found."
kenblogton replied: Please show me the evidence for the complete transition from 1 specie to the next?
kenblogton

[kenblogton]

[Danmark]

[Jashwell]

[kenblogton]

[kenblogton]