Evolution Foundation Series

[DougShrapnel]

I got to thinking, bad idea i know, that in order to have a serious debate on evolution, certian foundations must be laid. I wish to learn a bit more about evolution and what foudations are needed to be able to grasp the concept of evolution. Here is a rough rough draft of an evoltuion foundation series.

1. Genetic Code.
A. When looking for evolution thru genetic code. We must understand that the changes happen over long periods of time.
I. Modern humans share more code with modern plants, around 60%, than modern humans share with prehistoric mammels.
II. The predictions that evoltuion makes can only be verified thru the fossil record, or by observation in the distant future.

2. Falsifiable predictions evolution makes.
2b Falsifiable prediction ID makes.

3. Non mutual exclusivity of evolution and god.

4. Carbon dating.

5. Definitions of species.

6. Emergance of life from non life.

7. Sexual Selection.

8. Enviormental selection.

9. Fossil records.

10. Embryonic Recapitulation, Vestigail organs, and ptimal mutations

11. Evolution vs ID.

Any interest in teaching me about these things, and having a SMP discussion about them?

Any thing that I'm missing, or should not be including?

[madnak]

It looks like a reasonable division. There are some categories that could be collapsed and others that could be added, but just about everything should be possible to cover in that context.

[MidGe]

Hiya dougShapnel,


Looks like a good one, dude. Just a small suggestion, don't restrict yourself to carbon dating (which has a limited usefulness), look at all the other methods of dating that are routinely used, as well.

[PoBoy321]

Come on guys. Everyone knows that evolution is just Satan's plan to deny the existence of God. Dinosaurs didn't live 65 million years ago, they lived 6000 years ago, along with human beings. Just like in The Flintstones.

[Copernicus]

There is another topic, but im embarassed to say I dont remember the scientific term for it...reading Sharkey has dulled my brain.

To describe it in lay terms, it is when a species exhibits characteristics that had previously been superseded by evolutionary advances, because the prior state is more suitable to the current environment.

An ID proponent got all excited about it claiming it proved evolution was wrong (are we not men, we are devo?). My response was that recapitulation was sufficient to explain the phenonmenon...the trait was never fully lost, and could easily re-appear by halting recapitulation at that point in embryonic development.

[theweatherman]

[ QUOTE ]
Come on guys. Everyone knows that evolution is just Satan's plan to deny the existence of God. Dinosaurs didn't live 65 million years ago, they lived 6000 years ago, along with human beings. Just like in The Flintstones.

[/ QUOTE ]

This guy (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2528412371399195162&q=bone+break&p l=true) tells us that Noah saved all the dinosaurs from the flood, just so that humans could ruthlessly hunt them down and kill them off.

Its very long, so check out min 26 or so.

[Copernicus]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Come on guys. Everyone knows that evolution is just Satan's plan to deny the existence of God. Dinosaurs didn't live 65 million years ago, they lived 6000 years ago, along with human beings. Just like in The Flintstones.

[/ QUOTE ]

This guy (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2528412371399195162&q=bone+break&p l=true) tells us that Noah saved all the dinosaurs from the flood, just so that humans could ruthlessly hunt them down and kill them off.

Its very long, so check out min 26 or so.

[/ QUOTE ]

Too long for me...does he also explain Jurassic Park?

[MidGe]

Whoa, initially I thought it was a send-up. But, I think the guy really believes what he says. LOL. What a joke.

Good one, mate. LOL.


Could not waste 26 minutes or, but it got me entertained for two or three.
/images/graemlins/grin.gif

[pilliwinks]

I'm interested in some of these.

Point 2 is an interesting one. If we all accept that scientific theories about the world are probably never completely accurate, and absolutely cannot be shown to be so, then we come down to what criteria do we use to discriminate between two unequally flawed theories.

Falsification is an excellent criterion inasmuch as it can be unequivocal: if my theory explicitly states that a certain result should obtain, then if we get that result the theory is unacceptable in its current form. Without getting into a long spiel about the merits of Popper, I think it is uncontroversial that having a large class of accepted potential falsifiers is a good thing for a theory, and having tested them and found no falsification is another good thing.

So when it comes to evolution, the question is: what potential falsifiers exist for the theory as it stands, and are there better alternatives?

The original theory of Darwin has manifestly been falsified. Anyone who tells you otherwise has not read the Origin of Species. He posited blending inheritence as a mechanism, and this does not happen. The replacement, neo-Darwinism, which incorporates a more modern understanding of genetics, has not yet been clearly falsified to my knowledge.

The question remains, can it be falsified, and if so by what. Darwin's answer was that if you can find a conserved adaptation that is of no benefit to the species that has developed it, he would consider his theory false.

While this potentially opens up a huge field of falsifying adaptations, the practicality of the matter is that it is virtually impossible to come up with an adaptation for which no benefit whatever can be imagined. Anything visible can be sexually selected for, and even internal defects can be explained as unavoidable if they happen to be encoded near valuable genes. This is perhaps an overstatement of the problem, but nonetheless, there is a sad history of biologists coming up with wacky explanations for the advantages of adaptations (ie the flamingos that are camouflaged by the setting sun!). If you can always make an 'explanation' for why any adaptation is an advantage, there there are no potential falsifiers.

So if deleterious adaptations are not a great class of potential falsifiers, what else is there? Since Darwin's time we have been able to build up masses of molecular evidence for relatedness by descent. Basically, if you take the DNA of any species, you will find that it is closely related to the DNA of sister species and more distantly related at the genus level, more distantly still at the family level etc. This is consistent with relatedness by descent, according to current mathematical modelling.

If we were to find a species that had no DNA, that would can the whole theory. If we were to find a duck species whose DNA was more closely related to that of a marmoset than a goose, that would also falsify the theory as it stands. I can't tell you how many species have had their DNA checked, but I can tell you that it is in the thousands. So far, I am not aware of any falsifiers, though there are some odd things out there, for sure. We have been able to construct massive trees of descent, and these are certainly falsifiable by any new bit of DNA sequencing.

This molecular data obviously parallels the fossil data, though that is a separate issue.

In terms of predictions, evolution predicts that any species examined will have DNA that allows a taxonomy to be built that is consistent with relatedness by descent. This is being constantly tested.

If God created the world, there is absolutely no neccessity for him to have made every animal with DNA consistent with relatedness by descent. I can explain this at length if anyone wishes, but the bottom line is, lots of DNA is not actually used, but still shows the family resemblance. Some may believe that God deliberately made the world in a week to look as if it was made by evolution over aeons, but with Descartes, I reject such trickery as inconsistent with the nature of God.

I'm afraid I don't know enough about ID to fairly put forward the falsifiable predictions of that set of theories.

[Lestat]

Watching that was both hilarious and horrifying at the same time.

To think people really believe that stuff just boggles my mind.

[Taraz]

[ QUOTE ]
Watching that was both hilarious and horrifying at the same time.

To think people really believe that stuff just boggles my mind.

[/ QUOTE ]

Fire Breathing Dragons. WOW. Is this for real? I just don't believe that humanity is that retarded.

"Why would they make cave drawings of dinosaurs if they never saw them?"

[PoBoy321]

[ QUOTE ]

"Why would they make cave drawings of dinosaurs if they never saw them?"


[/ QUOTE ]

I draw one eyed, one horned, flying, purple people-eaters all the time because I see them.

[vhawk01]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

"Why would they make cave drawings of dinosaurs if they never saw them?"


[/ QUOTE ]

I draw one eyed, one horned, flying, purple people-eaters all the time because I see them.

[/ QUOTE ]

DONT GO TO THE DOCTOR! They wont believe you, and they will make you take this medication that tastes icky and makes me feel funny...

[madnak]

What's horrifying is that he's an excellent speaker. What he says seems to make sense. It's also entertaining. And it uses very appealing straw men. So it looks as though he covers all the bases and makes opponents looks silly.

[theweatherman]

[ QUOTE ]
What's horrifying is that he's an excellent speaker. What he says seems to make sense. It's also entertaining. And it uses very appealing straw men. So it looks as though he covers all the bases and makes opponents looks silly.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree, of course the "letters" from the athiests dont help much.

[siegfriedandroy]

Many Creationists believe that dinosaurs existed 65 million years ago. Are you truly unaware of that?