What facts are there AGAINST Evolution? no religion please

[CTho9305]

Originally posted by: WinkOsmosis

Originally posted by: pnho

Originally posted by: glen

Originally posted by: pnho
Evolution does not explain why life goes contrary to the laws of thermodynamics. Why would an organism go from disorder to order when the law of entropy states the opposite? Another aspect of the theory of evolution is that different species are not able to breed, however horses and donkeys can interbreed eventhough they are different species.

The laws are not violated; you are misunderstanding Thermodynamics. Things can and do become more ordered, but something else in the system becomes less ordered. Think of salt disolved in watter. The sun evaporates the water, and you see salt crystals - clearly more ordered than before. Well, your water is evaporated, wihc is the system that became more disordered.

yes that is true, but evolution does not provide an explanation for why life maintains this relative state of order. Why did life originate from base chemicals and then maintain and propagate this?

What the hell does thermodynamics and "state of order" have to do with anything???

Nothing, pnho doesn't understand that local entropy can decrease as long as overall it increases (e.g. the sun is rapidly creating disorder, animals create a TINY amount of order). You also increase entropy when you eat something.

Why does life propagate? Think about that for a minute. You have something that replicates imperfectly. Once you have a very simple replicator, it can ONLY continue to propagate and adapt to its situation to replicate better (by adapt, I mean, "have most of its copies die, except the ones that happen to be better in some way").

 

[CTho9305]

Originally posted by: gopunk

However, I think the argument goes that some complex organs had to evolve quickly; otherwise they would have been weeded out because they would have lacked all the necessary parts to function. I'm not convinced by it but it does seem to pose problems for the idea that something like the human eye developed over millions of years, or something.

it's not hard at all to imagine how the human eye could develop over millions of years... look into it a little further. in fact, that's a WHOLE lot more believable than god coming up with such a complicated, inefficient (stupid imo) design.

and as for complex organs,

a.) a particular organ did not necessarily evolve from one ancestor, it's possible for a number of primitive mechanisms to come together to form an organ. think about object oriented programming 😛

b.) the primitive life forms that would have had the primitive organs might not have needed the complexity present in the complex organs we have today

thinking that organs need to spontaneously appear is like thinking that all software can only be compiled and run without crashing after all the code has been written.

IIRC, chloraphyll may be an example of point a (maybe also mitochondria? not sure though). Reptilian and amphibian hearts are an example of b. If you look at them, you can see how the lower two don't have fully separated chambers, reducing efficiency, but obviously it still helps them out. Organs do not spontaneously have to pop into existence fully optimized, so long as the intermediate states don't present a disadvantage.

 

[CTho9305]

Originally posted by: yellowperil

Originally posted by: WinkOsmosis

Originally posted by: yellowperil

Originally posted by: Eli

Originally posted by: ReiAyanami
basically its hard to "evolve" an organ, or organ system, or even half an organ.

evolution is dependant on simultaneous genetic mutations. if the rate of genetic mutations is large, the result is cancer and death. normal mutation rates observed in living cells is 1 mutation per million, while it is noted that the guranteed cancer threshold rate is 1/1000, that is if the organism is at that rate it is guaranteed to die by cancer if not far sooner.

the example is the flagella of a single-cell organism, pretty basic but it amazingly looks exactly like a machine thru a microscope. it takes 16 new genes to form a flagella which means probability is at minimum (1/1000)^16. all must be simultaneous, having half of them would be disvantageous as reproduction rates would be decreased exponentially as it doesn't have many genes to begin with, so the addition of a few extra useless genes means it takes much longer time to divide and conquer...

at the fastest division rate of reproduction at each cell replicating itself every 20 minutes, you could fill the entire ocean of these and wait for quite some time before you have the magic single cell 2.0 w/ flagella upgrade. that is empty all the oceans and fill it from bottom to brim with nothing but this single one type of single cell organism and let it reproduce until the oceans are full (max capacity) and it would still take you tens of billions of year.

evolution is good at explaining the improvement of organs but bad at showing how organs form in the first place.

how did cocoon based insect come about, such as the butterfly. why can't it continute on as a fully functional catepillar?

or for that matter a venus fly trap, did a plant accidently eat an insect somehow one day and get better at it?

LOL....

All this says is that you do not understand. Nothing more.

On the contrary, I think he raises some valid points. I don't consider myself a creationist but evolution theory doesn't seem to explain the formation of complex organs well.

The only difference between simple organs and complex organs is complexity, and therefore time. It is difficult for the human mind to grasp, whereas an invisible, magical father figure is easier I suppose.

However, I think the argument goes that some complex organs had to evolve quickly; otherwise they would have been weeded out because they would have lacked all the necessary parts to function. I'm not convinced by it but it does seem to pose problems for the idea that something like the human eye developed over millions of years, or something.

What organs? Pick some that you don't think could have arisen over a long time. The eye provides benefit in its intermediate states - from simple light-detecting cells, to superblurry images, eventually to a modern eye. At every point, having some visual information is better than having none. If you read the eye link provided above, you'd see how stupid of a design the human eye is - not something a god should be proud of. See my reply above for an example with the heart 😉.

 

[ClueLis]

Originally posted by: Schadenfroh

Originally posted by: ClueLis
The most common critcism is evolution's seeming "jumps," creating drastic changes in features in a very short time. One example often given was the feather, a very complex feature that seemed to appear out of nowhere in early birds. Recently, however, evidence has been found that many bird-hipped dinosaurs had feathers (including the Velociraptor and T. Rex).

Edited for clarity.

Pics or ban!

Here's one of the first non-flying dinsaur to have feathers. There was a more recent SciAm article, but I can't get to it without a subscription.

 

[BullsOnParade]

i think the only real anti evolution type work that i've heard of lately are from Michael Behe and William Dembski.

Here's an interesting article cutting through the ideas that they've proposed, namely irreducible complexity, an idea
that has been mentioned here in this thread as well.

I think the failing is not that evolution fails to account for how complex systems arise, rather it's a misunderstanding of the whole evolutionary fitness model. in evolution, bar none the only thing that matters is that an organism reproduce. When it comes to efficiency and elegance all bets are off. So while it may take levels of complexity to achieve an elegant and efficient system, that system may start out as inefficient and useless, so long as it doesn't impede normal reproduction rates. Now common sense dictates that these beginning systems must prove some reproductive benefit to be kept, so the idea is that they provide some ancillary benefit that doesn't need to directly relate to its function further down the road when it is identified.

~bulls

 

[SirFshAlot]

I appreciate all the responses, lots of good info to sift through.

I was kinda skeptical; I haven't posted here for a while because of all the crap that overcomes decent topics, but I am pleasantly surprised this time.
Thanks, folks.

 

[gopunk]

Originally posted by: BullsOnParade
i think the only real anti evolution type work that i've heard of lately are from Michael Behe and William Dembski.

Here's an interesting article cutting through the ideas that they've proposed, namely irreducible complexity, an idea
that has been mentioned here in this thread as well.

I think the failing is not that evolution fails to account for how complex systems arise, rather it's a misunderstanding of the whole evolutionary fitness model. in evolution, bar none the only thing that matters is that an organism reproduce. When it comes to efficiency and elegance all bets are off. So while it may take levels of complexity to achieve an elegant and efficient system, that system may start out as inefficient and useless, so long as it doesn't impede normal reproduction rates. Now common sense dictates that these beginning systems must prove some reproductive benefit to be kept, so the idea is that they provide some ancillary benefit that doesn't need to directly relate to its function further down the road when it is identified.

~bulls

yea, as mentioned earlier, that argument is obviously flawed.

btw, those beginning systems do not necessarily have to provide any reproductive benefit. as you said right before that, as long as it doesn't impede reproduction, it's cool. and even then, there's still weird freak factors that might keep it there (rarely though).

 

[DrPizza]

Originally posted by: ReiAyanami
basically its hard to "evolve" an organ, or organ system, or even half an organ.

evolution is dependant on simultaneous genetic mutations. if the rate of genetic mutations is large, the result is cancer and death. normal mutation rates observed in living cells is 1 mutation per million, while it is noted that the guranteed cancer threshold rate is 1/1000, that is if the organism is at that rate it is guaranteed to die by cancer if not far sooner.

the example is the flagella of a single-cell organism, pretty basic but it amazingly looks exactly like a machine thru a microscope. it takes 16 new genes to form a flagella which means probability is at minimum (1/1000)^16. all must be simultaneous, having half of them would be disvantageous as reproduction rates would be decreased exponentially as it doesn't have many genes to begin with, so the addition of a few extra useless genes means it takes much longer time to divide and conquer...

at the fastest division rate of reproduction at each cell replicating itself every 20 minutes, you could fill the entire ocean of these and wait for quite some time before you have the magic single cell 2.0 w/ flagella upgrade. that is empty all the oceans and fill it from bottom to brim with nothing but this single one type of single cell organism and let it reproduce until the oceans are full (max capacity) and it would still take you tens of billions of year.

evolution is good at explaining the improvement of organs but bad at showing how organs form in the first place.

how did cocoon based insect come about, such as the butterfly. why can't it continute on as a fully functional catepillar?

or for that matter a venus fly trap, did a plant accidently eat an insect somehow one day and get better at it?

That's an excellent point (although, I tend to think your math is off a bit... I think at least 2 orders of magnitude... it should be hundreds of millions of years.) But, that's besides the point. It's based on what did happen, rather than what's the probability of a successful group of mutations that was beneficial.
Example to make my point: I just successively flipped a coin 100 times. Here are the results:

hhthtttththtttthhhthhhthhhthhtttttttthtthtthhthhtthtthtththhththhtthhhtthhhtthtthhttthhthtthhtthttht

Now, find the probability of flipping a dime and getting those results. The answer is 1 in 2^100 (about 1 in 1x10^30). Now, empty all of the world's oceans and start flipping dimes into the ocean. You would fill the oceans up with dimes and probably still never get the same order that I got with a flips of 100 consecutive dimes. In fact, you'd expect to get this order once if you filled the oceans 100,000 times.
Therefore, it's so unlikely that I would get that order, that it probably didn't happen. No matter what order you get, the likelihood that it occurred is practically zero. Nonetheless, the probability of getting some combination of 100 heads and tails is much much better than the probability of getting some combination (p=1, of course). With your analysis, you seem to forget this point, and only concentrate on the fact that the probability of the flagella occurring is so remote that it wouldn't have occurred.

 

[Legendary]

Still waiting on that "research" from UC Berkeley...

 

[phatj]

Just to clear some things up, the vast majority of Christians/Catholics do believe in evolution. In fact, the vatican officially supported the theory many years ago. Just an FYI for everyone saying "Jesus freaks don't believe in evolution".

 

[bandana163]

For me, the evolving of complicated systems like photosynthesis or complicated organs like brain seem incomprehendable. How could brain or vision be created by an error during the copying of the DNA? In multiple steps? Then how could self-consciousness or communication evolve?
Probably our current knowledge of the whole process is insufficent to explain it 100% to everyone. Maybe years later, it will all be clear. Too many missing links are around now.

In addition, we are nearing the technical level where we could alter DNA knowing the possible results and create evolution ourselves. There are already new "breeds" of wheat and corn around which resist certain chemicals or have other benefical abilities. Genetically altered food is not really uncommon.

Edit: the origins of instincts are still unclear. Animals behave like scripted programs. No real thinking, just reactions based on the environment, no goals, just to reproduce and stay alive. No consciousness.

How were viruses created? No answer yet.

 

[amcdonald]

Has there been a documented case of a profoundly beneficial mutation? just wondering... because I can understand animals getting stronger & resistant to disease through selective breeding/natural selection, but it seems ridiculous that a Bat would develop radar out of nowhere (relatively speaking).
Also, excuse my ignorance, but how are genetically recessive mutant traits developed? For instance, with genetic diseases... does this mean that there was heavy inbreeding at some point for the trait to show up down the road?

 

[monotony]

thinking that organs need to spontaneously appear is like thinking that all software can only be compiled and run without crashing after all the code has been written.

Faulty logic, unless I am misunderstanding, but lets use your software example. Your lines of code have a purpose that you created for them which is your program... Now, if I go in and start throwing random characters throughout all of your code, is it a realistic assumption that the next time you run that code that there will be some badass new hax0rific features that will generate some P. Diddy dollas? Or is it realistic to think your program will be buggy as hell and soon everyone will toss it? The answer would seem to hold true in this instance as well, as I understand it.

As far as that eye article is concerned, the first paragraph threw me for a loop:

"As an organ developed via the opportunistic twists and turns of evolutionary processes, the human eye is explainable. As an organ designed and created by an infinitely wise deity, the human eye is inexcusable. For unlike the invertebrate eyes ..., the human eye is constructed upon the foundation of an almost incredible error: The retina has been put together backwards! Unlike the retinas of octopuses and squids, in which the light-gathering cells are aimed forward, toward the source of incoming light, the photoreceptor cells (the so called rods and cones) of the human retina are aimed backward, away from the light source. Worse yet, the nerve fibers which must carry signals from the retina to the brain must pass in front of the receptor cells, partially impeding the penetration of light to the receptors. Only a blasphemer would attribute such a situation to divine design!"

On the one hand, he says that the human eye is not 'perfect' enough for a supreme being to create, and on the other hand he talks about how great the eyes are of octopus and invertabrates. So our eyes DEvolved then? Or is it that our retinas evolved this way because as humans this is the way it needs to be for us? Well, if that's the case - then it's not a design flaw and we are back to square one. Regardless, all this article says is that the eye was not "created" because it's not perfect. I'm no scholar, but I could probably think of something on the spot that is more relevant that that argument. Who is to say what a perfect eye is, and how is the fact that it may or may not be perfect even relevant to the theory that it evolved?

 

[gopunk]

Originally posted by: monotony
thinking that organs need to spontaneously appear is like thinking that all software can only be compiled and run without crashing after all the code has been written.

Faulty logic, unless I am misunderstanding, but lets use your software example. Your lines of code have a purpose that you created for them which is your program... Now, if I go in and start throwing random characters throughout all of your code, is it a realistic assumption that the next time you run that code that there will be some badass new hax0rific features that will generate some P. Diddy dollas? Or is it realistic to think your program will be buggy as hell and soon everyone will toss it? The answer would seem to hold true in this instance as well, as I understand it.

i'm not sure at this point whether you misunderstand what i wrote, have a misunderstanding of evolution, or possibly both. if there are preset rules as to how the code can be changed, and some sort of reproduction method that allowed only successful code to propagate, etc, etc, then yes, given enough time you would have a piece of improved code. in fact people use this method (they're called genetic algorithms) to optimize parameters and settings (for example the settings for a compiler).

but i suspect you missed the point of my comment, which is to say that just as we don't expect windows to be written with all the features all at once, we shouldn't expect biological organisms to spontaneously appear.

On the one hand, he says that the human eye is not 'perfect' enough for a supreme being to create, and on the other hand he talks about how great the eyes are of octopus and invertabrates. So our eyes DEvolved then? Or is it that our retinas evolved this way because as humans this is the way it needs to be for us?

seeing as our eyes are more complex than they probably need to be, it's hard to imagine that they could have devolved. nor is it likely that our eyes need to be so complicated, this is just a good example of how evolution does not necessarily produce the most efficient structures (a common misconception).

Well, if that's the case - then it's not a design flaw and we are back to square one. Regardless, all this article says is that the eye was not "created" because it's not perfect. I'm no scholar, but I could probably think of something on the spot that is more relevant that that argument. Who is to say what a perfect eye is, and how is the fact that it may or may not be perfect even relevant to the theory that it evolved?

it's not so much relevant to the theory of evolution as it is to creationism. the only way god could have created our eyes is if one or more of the following were true:

a.) he's incredibly stupid
b.) he takes joy in making inefficient things

 

[sandorski]

Originally posted by: amcdonald
Has there been a documented case of a profoundly beneficial mutation? just wondering... because I can understand animals getting stronger & resistant to disease through selective breeding/natural selection, but it seems ridiculous that a Bat would develop radar out of nowhere (relatively speaking).
Also, excuse my ignorance, but how are genetically recessive mutant traits developed? For instance, with genetic diseases... does this mean that there was heavy inbreeding at some point for the trait to show up down the road?

Not really an answer, but a few instances where adaptation:

1) Communities exposed to certain harmful organisms develop immunity over time. This immunity can even be passed from mother to child through the mothers' breast milk. This developed immunity can be seen in recent history where Europeans passed diseases onto various aboriginal tribes which had little to no effect to Europeans but wiped out huge aboriginal populations.

2) People who lose their sight compensate for the loss by becoming more audibly astute. They often can perceive who a person is by recognizing the sound of their footsteps and other audio signatures. They also develop an ability to know approximately where they are by memorizing patterns. These certainly are not Evolutionary and anyone could develop these traits, but they show that an organism can use what senses it has in ways that are not commonly considered.

 

[gopunk]

Originally posted by: Vaerilis
For me, the evolving of complicated systems like photosynthesis or complicated organs like brain seem incomprehendable. How could brain or vision be created by an error during the copying of the DNA? In multiple steps? Then how could self-consciousness or communication evolve?
Probably our current knowledge of the whole process is insufficent to explain it 100% to everyone. Maybe years later, it will all be clear. Too many missing links are around now.

our current knowledge and theories are more than sufficient to explain photosynthesis, etc. its not a single mutation that occurs, and there are many many generations over a long period of time. read a book about it.

Edit: the origins of instincts are still unclear. Animals behave like scripted programs. No real thinking, just reactions based on the environment, no goals, just to reproduce and stay alive. No consciousness.

well first off, i'd like to know how you arrived at the conclusion that animals have no consciousness or "real thinking" (one can argue that "real thinking" is just reactions, etc). secondly, it's pretty obvious how instincts came about. you take two animals, one with instincts and one without. which one do you think will be more likely to survive?

How were viruses created? No answer yet.

just because you're not aware of one, doesn't mean it doesn't exist

 

[gopunk]

Originally posted by: amcdonald
Has there been a documented case of a profoundly beneficial mutation? just wondering... because I can understand animals getting stronger & resistant to disease through selective breeding/natural selection, but it seems ridiculous that a Bat would develop radar out of nowhere (relatively speaking).

well it used to be that most humans were lactose intolerant

and it's not that rediculous, not any more so than the development of vision, or tactile sense.... there is a discussion about bats and echo-location in richard dawkin's "the blind watchmaker"... it'll become clear if you read that.

 

[VictorLazlo]

Originally posted by: ed21x
I think one of the main facts seen is that evolution claims that there comes a point where divergent evolution creates out of a single organism two of them that cannot reproduce with one another. This phenomena however has never been observed in nature (ie, we have seen microevolution where a birds beak gets bigger, etc), but we have never seen any animal successfully diverge into two different species. Tests have proven that all of darwin's finches from every different island can still reproduce with one another despite reproductive isolation. Thus the limit to evolution is that it is only capable of creating minute variations (like 200 variations of dogs), but not new species.

I wanted to make a commment about this. I recall an article in Discover Magazine, or some such, that talks about a species of small lizard that lives in the desert of California and Arizona. If you start at the northern end of their range, the lizards are very similar, and as you move south you notice that the features of the lizards change very slightly, due to climate or whatever. All the lizards can breed with near neighbors, but if you take a lizard from the northernmost end and another from the southernmost end of their range, they are significantly different that they cannot reporduce, and can be classified as two different species.

If I find the article, I'll post it.

 

[Bitek]

First off, evolution is far more well understood than many (if not most) other scientific theories. Gravity, for instance, is not understood at all, at least why and how it exists, yet never do I see anyone arguing that the theory of gravity should not be believed because of lack of understanding.

The idea of evolution is very new in a relative sense, but what I find most interesting is that this theory, where founded on very crude scientific evidence, has withstood every challange improving scientific thought and techinical capability have put to it. DNA, the very heart of evolution, was only discovered 50 yrs ago (~100 after theory was first postulated!) and our ability to work with and analyze DNA has only come about in the last 20. The result of all this increase in knowledge and ability has been evolution has been more solid and well proven than it has ever been. This is not a "conspiracy" as some would like to claim, as the person who could disprove it would surely win the nobel and instantly become a historical figure.

Evolution remains so robust not only because of the biological data which supports it, but the fact that this theory unifies a diverse array of otherwise unrelated scientific fields. Geology, paleontology, archeology, physiology, astronomy, chemistry and physics, to name a few (hell, even psycology, sociology, etc.) are all consistant with the biological data and only mesh and re-inforce each other.

To answer the question, afaik (which can only ever be the case, 🙂 ) there is no evidence AGAINST evolution. At least no scientific evidence anyway. All that exists is a lack of full understanding, or as a famous quote once ~put it: " A lack of imagination does not constitute a lack of evidence." Follow this back to my point about gravity. The mechanisms of evolution are billions of years in the making, and only of recent can they truely be explored. I do not doubt that any further evidence will only result in a better understanding of evolution and its processes, but no doubt there will be some surprizes along the way.

 

[monotony]

i'm not sure at this point whether you misunderstand what i wrote, have a misunderstanding of evolution, or possibly both. if there are preset rules as to how the code can be changed, and some sort of reproduction method that allowed only successful code to propagate, etc, etc, then yes, given enough time you would have a piece of improved code. in fact people use this method (they're called genetic algorithms) to optimize parameters and settings (for example the settings for a compiler).

but i suspect you missed the point of my comment, which is to say that just as we don't expect windows to be written with all the features all at once, we shouldn't expect biological organisms to spontaneously appear.

But that is the problem. There are no rules on what could be changed and what is considered an "improvement" in humans as it relates to a complex organ. That's the point of those types of arguments. I mean, once again assuming I'm understanding the argument correctly, lets say for the sake of simplicity that eye = w + x + y + x. As it relates to evolution, why would x stick around if there were no w, y, z? X isn't an improvement by itself, and neither is w, y or z. And they never will be...ever. But put them all together and you've got an eye which is enormous improvement to no eye.

seeing as our eyes are more complex than they probably need to be, it's hard to imagine that they could have devolved. nor is it likely that our eyes need to be so complicated, this is just a good example of how evolution does not necessarily produce the most efficient structures (a common misconception).

I think I need someone to define for me exactly what evolution does produce, b/c I don't understand this point.

t's not so much relevant to the theory of evolution as it is to creationism.

Ok, that's what I thought.

the only way god could have created our eyes is if one or more of the following were true:

a.) he's incredibly stupid
b.) he takes joy in making inefficient things

The only way? I don't know if I would agree with that statement...seems extremely non-scientific. Regardless, it's all irrelevant to what I'm trying to understand anyway. I'd like to get a good strong understanding of evolution so I can decide if I buy it =)

 

[gopunk]

But that is the problem. There are no rules on what could be changed and what is considered an "improvement" in humans as it relates to a complex organ. That's the point of those types of arguments.

no, there are rules on what can be changed (laws of biology and chemistry), and an "improvement" as we use it in this thread, is simply anything that gives the creature a reproductive advantage.

I mean, once again assuming I'm understanding the argument correctly, lets say for the sake of simplicity that eye = w + x + y + x. As it relates to evolution, why would x stick around if there were no w, y, z? X isn't an improvement by itself, and neither is w, y or z. And they never will be...ever. But put them all together and you've got an eye which is enormous improvement to no eye.

how do you know w,x,y,z were not improvements by themselves? think about the cornea and lense... you could have had an eye without these, everything would just be a huge blur. but you would still be able to perceive the difference between light and no light. that would still give you an advantage over a creature that had no perception of light at all.

The only way? I don't know if I would agree with that statement...seems extremely non-scientific. Regardless, it's all irrelevant to what I'm trying to understand anyway. I'd like to get a good strong understanding of evolution so I can decide if I buy it =)

it is non-scientific... but you get my point.

just check out some books from the library... "the blind watchmaker" by richard dawkins explains just about everything that has come up in this thread. i personally prefer a textbook style book, but i think most people find dawkins easier to read (it's more like one big rambling imo). it's pretty in-depth though, if you're just starting out, i would go for a book like "evolution: the triumph of an idea" by carl zimmer. it covers most of the basics fairly quickly. dawkins is just fun to read because you're like "yes, exactly!"

 

[alkemyst]

The problem with most of these debates is 1) you have people not qualified speaking on religion and 2) you have people not qualified speaking on evolution and 3) you have people bringing up side issues that have nothing to do with the issue at hand in an attempt to discredit (incorrectly).

 

[Siddhartha]

Originally posted by: Cyberian

Originally posted by: Dr Smooth
It is the best explanation for what we see around us so far.

I guess I misunderstood the question.

What facts are there AGAINST Evolution? no religion please

Evolution does not offer absolute certainty. People who do not understand science expect certainty.

 

[willboxer]

my 2 cents on this.

1. the fact that Evolution is a theory should already imply that it cannot give you a certainty, if that was the case we would call it the LAW of evolution.

2. however, evolution being referred as a theory does not mean it's all a speculation, this theory applied to evolution should not be confused with the meanings of theories applied to "general relativity" or "quantum mechanics" because we can actually observe evolution and gather emperical evidence that has made evolution a fact. however evolution is so broad and focuses on different areas, thereby it has theories within a theory. but as a broad, evolution itself is a fact - it happens (whether you like it or not).

3.a evidence of evolution - well there's plenty, not sure where i should begin. micro evolution has of course been proved (the small changes within a small period of time). no questions asked

3.b then we have macro evolution - we cannot quite give certainty to macro evolution by using experiments that shows us perfect results with all information needed. however, i'd say a good way of conducting emperical evidence for macro evolution is through fossils, with the extinct species fossilized we have a line up that shows a macro evolution, we see drastic changes from one to another, but as mentioned before there are missing links in this line up as not all species was fossilized.

4. knowing this what is the purpose or reason behind evolution? somebody asked what the point was, well to describe it in the simplest form, it is simply survival of the fittest, i'm sure you all have heard of this term, and it is simply those that mutated or had random changes to them which beneffited them, were most fit to surviving and reproducing and passing on their "new" genes to their off spring which would then go through the same process, of course mutations doesnt kick in every generation, it is a random act and may do so, as the name suggest, randomly. and given the time span the first organism had 4 billion years to evolve into what is now. taking it that the first organism was a single celled dating back to around 3.7 billion years to be a fact.

5. my opinion on this, it probably have already been implied by what i've stated, i personally believe evolution to be a fact in itself, it happens, as of all the theories being presented to be true or not matters very little, as they are only theories based on certain facts and evidence.

 

[amcdonald]

Originally posted by: alkemyst
The problem with most of these debates is 1) you have people not qualified speaking on religion and 2) you have people not qualified speaking on evolution and 3) you have people bringing up side issues that have nothing to do with the issue at hand in an attempt to discredit (incorrectly).

I think this thread is just a microcosm of the internet.