Why some people reject evolution

[Danmark]

[you can skip the intro and go right to the last paragraph]

Growing up, I was seldom interested in math. At first it seemed tedious and boring. I invented my own shortcuts to make it easier. Later it required discipline when it got too difficult to do in my head. So, i loved geometry, but lost interest after trig, which I didn't even try to understand. I've been thinking of trying to teach myself calculus, just to see if, at 69 I can do it. So, I looked for a free online course of study and found this:

As Henry Ford said, " Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs ". Too much of the world is complicated by layers of evolution. If you understand how each layer is put down then you can begin to understand the complex systems that govern our world. Charles Darwin wrote in 1859 in his On The Origin of Species,

"When we no longer look at an organic being as a savage looks at a ship, as at something wholly beyond his comprehension; when we regard every production of nature as one which had a history; when we contemplate every complex structure and instinct as the summing up of many contrivances, each useful to the possessor, nearly in the same as when we look at any great mechanical invention as the summing of the labour, the experience, the reason, and even the blunders of numerous workmen; when we thus view each organic being, how far more interesting, I speak from experience, will the study of natural history become! " http://www.understandingcalculus.com/

So here's the question, do people not believe in evolution just because the Bible tells them so? Or is there another factor; that rather than try to understand it in small steps, one tiny transition at a time, since the entirety of the process ("microbe to man") seems impossible to them, do they reject it out of hand without looking at it step by step?

[Danmark]

If I previously observed snow fall on the ground before, then I would be able to determine that..

1. Snow can fall on the ground
2. The snow would have fallen on the ground whether I was there to see it fall or not

Even if I didn't see the snow fall on this particular occasion, I would still know that it is possible for snow to fall on the ground based on previous observation, so the possibility of whether snow can fall would never come into question.

Exactly! In the same way evolution [your micro v. macro evolution is a false distinction*] has taken place over hundreds of millions of years whether you see it or not. We can deduce this by looking at the circumstantial evidence provided by fossils, Earth strata, genetics, various dating methods and other evidence from all the sciences. All this data points to and reinforces the same thing, the FACT of evolution.

[otseng]

I believe his point was that the genetic evidence is so powerful that even by itself it proves evolution. This was a dramatic flourish, not an admission of the lack of fossil evidence.

If there's no lack of fossil evidence, then it should by itself be able to prove evolution without the use of genetics.

Note that the nostril placement in Aetiocetus is intermediate between the ancestral form Pakicetus and the modern gray whale — an excellent example of a transitional form in the fossil record!

If this is an excellent example, then no wonder people can't readily accept evolution.

The claim is that the Aetiocetus is an intermediate from the Pakicetus to the Gray Whale because of the location of the nostrils.

Gray whales are baleen whales (Mysticeti). Aetiocetus had both teeth and baleen. It can be argued that not only is it an intermediate because of the location of the nostrils, but it demonstrates an intermediate from having teeth to baleen. However, baleen whales existed before Aetiocetus! So, it cannot be an intermediate to gray whales.

It is important, however, to make the distinction that Aetiocetus is not a transitional form in the strictest sense, that is, it cannot be an ancestor to extant Mysticeti. More derived forms, such the Cetotheriidae, a family of toothless baleen whales, are contemporaneous with Aetiocetus. Hence, whales whose feeding relied entirely on baleen made their stratigraphic appearance before Aetiocetus, meaning that “true� baleen whales existed before Aetiocetus.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aetiocetus

Let's also look at the Pakicetus. Here is a conceptual drawing of it:

Strangely, evolutionists call this the first whale. Another reason why people find it hard to accept what evolutionists claim. It certainly does not look like a whale to me.

Fossil evidence has the problem of homologies and analogies. Homologous characters result from a common ancestor. Analogous characters do not have a common ancestor. Just because nostril placement happens to be in the middle of the skull, that alone does not show ancestry. It could be a trait that had nothing to do with ancestry. Just because the Pakicetus had a long head like a whale, that doesn't prove it shares a common ancestry. There is no way to prove that a trait is homologous. At best, it is simply assumed. At worst, it is misleading and such is the case with the Aetiocetus claim.

[otseng]

Well, I hope you leave your mind open to change. Because we're collecting more evidence by the day, and it's pointing in a suspicious direction...

Of course I'm willing to change. That's how I changed from being an evolutionist to a creationist.

Did you know that the bridge from single-celled organisms to multi-cellular structures has already been crossed in a lab setting?

That is interesting. But, if it's in a lab setting, doesn't that show there's intelligence running the lab experiment? But, go ahead and present how this argues for evolution.

[H.sapiens]

If I previously observed snow fall on the ground before, then I would be able to determine that..

1. Snow can fall on the ground
2. The snow would have fallen on the ground whether I was there to see it fall or not

Even if I didn't see the snow fall on this particular occasion, I would still know that it is possible for snow to fall on the ground based on previous observation, so the possibility of whether snow can fall would never come into question.

Exactly! In the same way evolution [your micro v. macro evolution is a false distinction*] has taken place over hundreds of millions of years whether you see it or not. We can deduce this by looking at the circumstantial evidence provided by fossils, Earth strata, genetics, various dating methods and other evidence from all the sciences. All this data points to and reinforces the same thing, the FACT of evolution.

Ring species have not been brought into the conversation, they solve the issue of time depending upon geographic change of the genotype rather than temporal change.

[Neatras]

Well, I hope you leave your mind open to change. Because we're collecting more evidence by the day, and it's pointing in a suspicious direction...

Of course I'm willing to change. That's how I changed from being an evolutionist to a creationist.

Did you know that the bridge from single-celled organisms to multi-cellular structures has already been crossed in a lab setting?

That is interesting. But, if it's in a lab setting, doesn't that show there's intelligence running the lab experiment? But, go ahead and present how this argues for evolution.

Because they let a group of single-celled organisms interact in a competitive environment with realistic conditions. Does being realistic "require" intelligence? Using the fact that observers try to make sure they can observe something as a "gotcha" comment seems really petty. Have you put much thought into how "intelligence" affects an experiment's outcome? Or do you prefer to use it as a blanket dismissal of every scientific experiment ever conducted?

[DeMotts]

I don't see how the process of random mutation plus natural selection over time could have come up with the complexity we have.

So I would argue that I have tried to understand it in tiny steps.

Think about it in best case scenarios. A mutation has to give a survival advantage, it has to be so advantageous that during an extinction event it has to have allowed that creature to survive so that the gene would be dominant. And this has happened millions of times.

Edit: I just realized I've accidentally responded to a much older post than I intended. I'll leave it anyways but apologies for derailing!

When it comes to extinction events, a species generally isn't going to "evolve their way out of it". That's why they're called extinction events. They happen more rapidly than a species is able to adapt. So that species dies off. Anyone left gets to fill in the void left behind.

Hypothetical example: Meteor impact or super volcano creates enough particulate matter to block out some sunlight. Some plants can't survive, they die off. Herbivorous dinosaurs depend on plants that die off. Herbivorous dinosaurs die off. Carnivorous dinosaurs depend on herbivorous dinosaurs. Carnivorous dinosaurs die off. Small primitive mammals depend on different food sources, like insects. Small primitive mammals survive into a world that eventually stabilizes, now without dinosaurs. The mammals don't suddenly evolve the ability to survive the conditions. They already had the ability to survive, and now they inherit a world without top predators. Does that make sense?

[otseng]

There's a known gene sequence that can turn scales into rudimentary feathers.

From what I can gather, the "rudimentary feather" is simply an elongated appendage of a scale in the embryonic stage. Since the research was only in the embryonic stage, there is also no idea what it would look like when the animal is fully formed.


https://www.zmescience.com/science/news ... rs-043242/

Professor Choung said, 'Our analyses led to the identification of five morpho-regulatory modules that are essential for modern feather formation."
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/ ... thers.html

Even if feathers could be produced from scales, five modules would have need to arisen at the same time for feathers to appear. This is the minimum required just to have a feather. However, more adaptations are necessary to make the feathers useful, such as having a skin structure that can hold the feathers in place.

So, though the research is interesting, calling it a rudimentary feather is speculative. And it reveals that it is quite complex to go from scales to a feather.

[For_The_Kingdom]

There's a known gene sequence that can turn scales into rudimentary feathers. This was discovered well after reptilian evolution into birds was proposed, and further supports the case. We're finding more and more evidence of how we can progress from one gene sequence to another.

Ok, so go in a lab and get me scales-to-feathers. It is like your math teacher used to tell you; "Show your work".

Additionally, we've identified genes responsible for turning off the development of teeth in bird embryos. The very fact the teeth appear at all supports the idea that
the teeth were embryonic genes which would be inherited from distant dinosaur ancestors. Embryology has a lot to say about evolution, and diving in would give you no end of evidence to support the tree of life.

Um, not at all. You are assuming that just because birds in the past had teeth, that this is somehow evidence that birds evolved from their teeth-having reptilian ancestors some 400 million years ago. You will only interpret it that way if you presuppose evolution to be true. You are letting your presupposition interpret what you observe.

If you didn't do that, you will be more like me, and simply say..

"Maybe, just maybe, some 400 million years ago, birds actually had teeth!!"

Hmm, ever think of that? No voodoo stuff involved. A bird with teeth is still just that, a BIRD.

[Bust Nak]

Even if feathers could be produced from scales, five modules would have need to arisen at the same time for feathers to appear. This is the minimum required just to have a feather. However, more adaptations are necessary to make the feathers useful, such as having a skin structure that can hold the feathers in place.

Isn't this the typical half-a-wing is not useful to a bird argument? Why not one module at a time with incremental usefulness?

[Neatras]

It's so unlike me to just post a link, but I'm pressed for time so a full-blown analysis won't be available. But a choice selection of important excerpts will certainly keep you chaps busy for a while.

http://people.eku.edu/ritchisong/feather_evolution.htm

But this link alone supports the case for protofeathers which are not true feathers, but can be an intermediate stage between scales and true feathers.

Based on fossil evidence, we know that the first non-avian theropods with simple, single-filament feathers lived about 190 million years ago, and that non-avian theropods with feathers having a complex branching structure like those of present-day birds (pennaceous feathers) existed about 135 million years ago. This fossil evidence raises two important questions. First, if not derived from scales, how did feathers evolve and, second, how did simple, single-filament feathers evolve to become much more complex pennaceous feathers? Of course, a related question is, given that non-avian theropods did not fly, what function or functions did these feathers serve?

Both fossil and developmental evidence suggests that feathers evolved through a series of transitional stages, each the result of a developmental evolutionary novelty or, in other words, a new mechanism of growth (Prum 1999, Prum and Brush 2002, 2003). The first feathers, like those of Beipiaosaurus , were unbranched, hollow cylinders that developed from the tubular elongation (the feather germ) of a placode (Figure 9 below). The advantage of a tubular feather germ is that growth of a structure (in this case, a feather) can occur without an increase in the size of the skin itself (in contrast to, for example, scales; Prum 2005). An important step in the evolution of the first feathers was a change in characteristics of the placode. Both scales and feathers begin development from placodes, but feather development, in contrast to scale development, requires generation of suprabasal cell populations (dermal condensations) to form the follicle (see Figure 8 above). The development of placodes where dermal condensations occur, an evolutionary novelty, required changes in gene expression and timing. However, such changes are known to be an important mechanism in the origin of morphological innovations in many other organisms (True and Carroll 2002, Prum 2005).

So it starts by asking questions about the history of feathers. Questions we are all familiar with. But here's the interesting thing, from this point onward, every single hypothesis or speculation is clearly marked. Every piece of known information is supplanted with physical evidence.

Based on Prum’s (1999) model of feather evolution, the next step after the origin of the feather follicle was the differentiation of the follicle collar into barb ridges to generate barbs (Stage II; Figure 10 below). The resulting feather would consist of a tuft of barbs extending from the calamus (Figure 10 below). Such a feather is hypothesized to have evolved before the origin of the rachis (Stage IIIA) because the rachis is initially formed by the fusion of barb ridges. In addition, barbs are hypothesized to evolve before barbules because barbules develop within layers of pre-existing barb ridges (Prum 1999). Feathers comparable in structure to hypothesized Stage II feathers have been reported from fossils of non-avian theropods, such as Sinornithosaurus mellenii (Figures 11 and 12 below; Xu et al. 2001, Norell and Xu 2005).

The next step in feather evolution (Stage II) involved the differentiation of the follicle collar into barb ridges to generated unbranched barbs (From: Prum and Brush 2003).

The next step in feather evolution could have involved either the development of a rachis via fusion of barbs or the development of barbules that branched from the tufts of barbs. Perrichot et al. (2008) discovered feathers from the Early Cretaceous (and preserved in amber; Figure 15 below) that had shafts (rachis) consisting of incompletely fused, still distinguishable, partially superimposed barbs. This represents an intermediate stage between Prum’s (1999) stages II and IIIa and suggests the possibility that rachis development may have preceded barbule development (Figures 13 and 14 below).

The next step in feather evolution (Stage III) could have involved either the development of a rachis via fusion of barbs (3a) or the development of barbules that branched from the tufts of barbs (3b; From: Prum and Brush 2003). The discovery of feathers from the Early Cretaceous that had shafts (rachis) consisting of incompletely fused, still distinguishable, partially superimposed barbs suggests that that rachis development (3a) may have preceded barbule development (3b).

With the development of the rachis, the next stage in feather evolution would likely have been the development of barbules (without hooklets) to generate a bipinnate, open pennaceous structure (Stage 3a + b; Figure 16 below). Subsequent evolution of differentiated proximal and distal barbules would then generate the first closed, pennaceous vane, with distal barbules growing hooklets to attach to the simpler, grooved proximal barbules of the adjacent barb (Stage 4; Figure 16 below). Finally, lateral displacement of the new barb locus by differential new barb ridge addition to each side of the follicle led to the growth of a closed pennaceous feather with an asymmetrical vane resembling modern remiges (Stage 5; Figure 16 below).

No voodoo required, no sudden generation of 5 gene sequences simultaneously. FtK, Otseng, your absurd requirements and cheap shots have no ground to stand on, because the work has already been done, and requires nothing more than a passing understanding of science. Evolutionary theory does not presuppose voodoo or spontaneous, impossible generation of fully formed structures. It never has. The fact that you two try your best to shove your defective definitions of evolutionary theory into this discussion shows how important it is for real education to be filtered through. You are bringing strawmen, I am bringing facts.