Creation vs. Evolution

[JeffG]

I think you're right!

I'm off to get some chicken... or something that tastes like chicken.

Well, it couldn't be a coincidence.

 

[SeanQ]

Maybe chicken tastes like Archaeopteryx? Inherited traits, you know.

 

[JeffG]

Maybe chicken tastes like Archaeopteryx? Inherited traits, you know.

Do you have any studies to prove that?

 

[SeanQ]

I suppose for some that might be the case but for me it wasn't. I wasn't worried at all about going to hell because I didn't believe in it anymore than I believed there was a god. I was convinced of evolution and content in my atheism.
...
So there I was... more righteous than the christians and even more righteous than the god I didn't believe in.
...
At the same time it began to dawn on me that perhaps the god I refused to believe in might actually exist and I figured I needed to know.
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So... shortening a long story... now I know.

At which point did you decide that the theory of evolution was false? Was it a part of that spiritual realization or did you reject it because it was associated with your previous athiest beliefs?

This is probably part of the long story, but I think it's relevant.

 

[Thalassamania]

Even though it cannot be proven we are supposed to accept it as a fact? Yet we are told we need to "prove the existance of God"? Give me a break. Your's isn't science, it's faith masquerading as science.

You have had your hand held through three indepent paths of inquiry that yield the same results and "prove" evolution, "beyond a reasonable doubt." Yet there is no proof to the existence of a god except, "it would be nice," or "what else could there be?" or "I believe." Hardly of equal weight.

 

[Soggy]

My reading comprehension is fine.

The evidence clearly points otherwise since all of your flat out incorrect claims have been directly addressed a multitude of times. You are not worth my time anymore (sorry if that phrasing bothers you, Uncle Ricky).

 

[Uncle Pug]

This is probably part of the long story, but I think it's relevant.

It is and it is.

But it will have to wait for another day.

 

[rawls]

Row, row, row your boat...Gently down the stream...Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily...Life is but a dream

 

[lamont]

But they remain "dogs" (canis). Your faith assumes that over time changes will occur leading to new orders or even classes: dinosaurs to birds, for example. So far there is no evidence supporting that belief. The fossil record does not support that theory, it is only believed to support that theory.

Even though it cannot be proven we are supposed to accept it as a fact? Yet we are told we need to "prove the existance of God"? Give me a break. Your's isn't science, it's faith masquerading as science.

No, you have Faith that given a sufficiently large genetic distance between two organisms that there is no evolutionary way for them to have evolved from a common ancestor. You know that the different breeds of dogs evolved from a common ancestor so you have to accept that. You refuse to believe in any extrapolation and assert that there must be some magical genetic distance over which animals cannot inherantly change without giving any kind of quantitative analysis of why there should be such a barrier. The simplest explanation is that the barrier does not exist, and the fossil record is entirely consistent with the barrier not being there. You also cannot explain how different species come into existence constantly throughout the fossil record. We do not see canines at all in the fossil record a hundred million years ago, so where did they come from?

 

[Thalassamania]

But they remain "dogs" (canis). Your faith assumes that over time changes will occur leading to new orders or even classes: dinosaurs to birds, for example. So far there is no evidence supporting that belief. The fossil record does not support that theory, it is only believed to support that theory.

Even though it cannot be proven we are supposed to accept it as a fact? Yet we are told we need to "prove the existance of God"? Give me a break. Your's isn't science, it's faith masquerading as science.

You're stuck in a misunderstanding of what a species is. You can’t seem to shake loose of the “kind” concept. I think that most of the misunderstanding of biological science amongst the staunchly religious stems from a rigidity of outlook and a need for an authoritarian structure, that creates a disharmony in some when they are faced with the more lazie-fair realities of the way in which the universe is constructed.

There are more than one concept of “species.” What is most commonly thought of as species today, in the public mind, is really just a subset of the "Biological Species Concept" (BSC). This term was coined by Ernst Mayr and defined a species as: "species are groups of interbreeding natural populations that are reproductively isolated from other such groups." In lay discussions “natural populations” and “reproductively isolated” are oft forgot.

An offshoot of the BSC is the Recognition Species Concept which says that a species is a set of organisms that recognize one another as potential mates: they have a shared mate recognition system. For example, within a single habitat in the US, there may be 40 different species of crickets, but each female cricket will breed only with a male who sings the “song” specific to the species. The song, and the female recognition of it, constitutes a mate recognition system: the species has a specific mate recognition system by which it can be identified. The recognition concept defines species much as the BSC does: isolation combined with recognition keeps breeding within a defined group or “species.” These two concepts are sometimes jointly referred to as the Reproductive Species Concept.

The Ecological Species Concept (which I favor) is a bit more mathematically sophisticated and lends itself to ecological modeling, a species is viewed as a set of organisms adapted to a particular set of resources, a niche. Hutchinson in 1957 defined niche as: “A region (n-dimensional hypervolume) in a multidimensional space of environmental factors (abiotic and biotic) that affect the welfare of a species.” Think of the niche as the sum total of where, when and how an organism lives. Populations are viewed as forming clusters that we recognize as species only because the ecological and evolutionary processes controlling how the resource states are divided up produce those clusters. It is often seen in closely related species living in the same area, that differences between species in form and behavior can be related to differences in the hypervolume that each species fills.

The third, and last, is the Cladistic Species Concept, a species is simply a lineage of populations between two branch points in the family tree.. Species are recognized by branch points, regardless of how much change occurs between them.

The BSC is useful for placing limits on the boundary of where a “species” is found (e.g., the puma lives in the Western Hemishphere) but is often interpreted too loosely and requires the introduction of subspecies to differentiate between animals that could breed but don’t because of time or space (e.g., Florida Panther and Argentine Puma. There is the additional problem that fertile hybrids of Mountain Lions with Leopards, Ocellots and Jaguars have been reported)

The Cladistic Species Concept is of great use to taxonomists, paleontologists and such since it breaks the branches off the family tree and permits each of the finest branching to be discussed as a separate species.

So, for me, the Ecological Species Concept covers it all and provides the best framework for discussion and modeling.

The way in which evolution works is really rather simple: Niche space is in constant flux and organisms are constantly adapting to best fill it. What that means that the organisms with the best set of genes, make the most out of their immediate environment have more offspring. In time the entire species comes to resemble those who had the best set of genes. Today’s best set may not be tomorrows best set. This is an ongoing process, all the time, 24 x 7. It is only “static” from the perspective of a short lived human. There can be sudden changes in the gene pool (once thought to only occur by slow micro evolution steps but now seen to also occur in rapid steps though processes such as hybridization, see Science Daily, translocation, polyploidy or even extra cellular transmission via micro organisms) as well as sudden or gradual changes in the environment. It is the interaction between the changes in the blueprint and niche that result in the creation of new breeding populations, new subspecies, new species and on to higher taxa as the breeding populations continue to go their separate ways.