A rational look at a dead horse - Evolution

This is a rational look at a topic that is hotly debated amongst people, yet generally accepted amongst the scientific community. I am here to clear up misconceptions I have about the argument, not bash either side.

A little bit of information about me so you understand where I am coming from. I am a staunch Atheist. I believe that there is no God, defined as an omnipotent being that silently watches and judges everything we do. My definition of God is the natural order of things, how the universe operates. My God is the universe and everything it contains.

Now, onto the argument.

I understand natural selection as: Creatures with desirable traits within their environment have a higher chance of survival which allows them to contribute more material to the local genetic pool. Meaning, desirable traits become the norm of a species over time due to creatures with those traits reproducing more.

Two examples of this:

1) Darwin's finches. Darwin collected a little over a dozen varieties of species during an expedition to the Galapagos Islands. He noticed that while most of the birds were almost identical, they all had different beaks. He noticed that in different environments the finches possessed beaks suited for the food source they contained. Finches that ate grubs had a beak suited for getting them. Finches that ate nuts had beaks designed to break through the shells.

So why is this? Finches that could better utilize the food source in an area reproduced more, meaning more finches with a specialized beak. Finches that couldn't utilize the food source died out of moved meaning less finches of a certain type.

2) Manchester, England. During the industrial revolution in England there was a species of moths called the "Peppered Moth" in Manchester. The moths used a "peppered" camouflage to conceal themselves on the surface of birch trees. The more coal that factories in England burned, the more the trees in the areas blackened. This change in color exposed moths of lighter color which meant more of them were killed. Moths with a darker camouflage remained hidden and had a better chance of reproducing. Meaning this trait was passed on to more offspring than a lighter camouflage color.


Now, onto Evolution. Evolution is the process of Natural Selection overtime. The more a species reproduces, the more traits are added to the genetic pool. This means, if there are two species; one has A+B+C traits and the other has A+B+D. The environment supports D and not C, through the process of Natural Selection the local species will evolve into A+B+D because the A+B+C do not reproduce much because they are dying and not contributing much to the gene pool.

What about this do people not agree with? Do people agree with the theory but suggest that it is not luck but the design of a greater power? Help me out here.

For those that just outright trash the theory because of their religious beliefs, please examine the track record of your respective church. Church usually has 0 with the rest of the points going to rational thought.

 

It is purely a function of the way the human ego identifies itself, by being special, but in doing so misses all that is precious.

 

I have nothing against natural selection. I just believe that genetics operates under a kind of software that allows a creature to continue on through changes that are already established within that code.

To me, peppered moth changed according to that code. It recognized a change in the environment then made use of that code which helped that species to adapt and survive. But at the same time, the previous species can still return just as long as the right environmental settings returns then that animal will return.

 

Yeah, the environment dictates the course of the change supporting some and letting others fall through the cracks. If previous conditions returned then the old traits might make a resurgence.

I'm just having a hard time understanding why people are against the idea in this first place. It's common sense and it's present everywhere on this Earth, and to say otherwise is like saying that space is full of flying purple elephants and unicorns.

Back when the idea of Natural Selection was still being developed the general consensus was that of 'Fixity of Species.' Which is the idea that if god had wanted to a species to change he would have done it a long time ago. Darwin came along and took a gigantic dump on the church. The church, being the church, tried to make it all go away because it made them look stoopid.

Can we please have some replies from those that are staunch opponents to evolution? I'm really curious

 

Where is Jumbuli when we really need him!

 

I dunno, arguing against gravity?

 

Munchen on his cudd.

 

I guess my main problem is with evolutionists not evolution per say and the problem is that they don't know the difference between could have and did.

As for natural selection, I pretty much agree with def zeppelin in that I believe that there is room for a great amount of genetic variation in a particular animal kind to allow for survival and variety but there seem to be boundaries that can't naturally be crossed and that would not allow for the evolution of all the animals we see around us.

 

I'm probably not who you are looking to talk to but I'd like to point out that even evolutionists have somewhat abandoned Natural Selection.

As for 'Fixity of Species', a lot of Christians still hold to that to a certain extent. Both def zeppelin and myself have already mentioned that there appears to be certain natural barriers to evolution being able to make a whole new kind of animal.

If you were to look at just the skeletons of the Maasai and those of pygmies, one might conclude that they were different kinds and that perhaps the Maasai evolved from the pygmies but the truth is simply that they are both humans and that humans are capable of a tremendous amount of variation without becoming a different kind.

 

I think the problem is that none of those examples show how mutations and natural selection could come up with the enormous amount of NEW genetic information that would be needed to turn a Microbe into a Man, because all of the given examples involve either a loss of genetic information (in other words the train is heading in the wrong direction) OR, they demonstrate nothing more than EXISTING genes simply switching on or off in response to environmental changes.

Also, your definition of God being the universe and its natural laws does not solve the problem of how the universe and its laws of physics, chemistry and biology got here in the first place, we are left still requiring a Cause adequate to explain the Effect.

 

All good posts, thank you. This topic is not about the origin of Homosapiens or the Universe though. It's about the rejection of natural phenomena based on the fact that it contradicts one's belief. The theory of evolution does not answer all of our questions, like many people contend. It gives us a better idea of where we came from, without relying on magical thinking. That being said, much knowledge about our own origins has not been answered. Turning to religion offers temporary solutions to this, but I do not think it is healthy to hold onto these beliefs when faced with overwhelming physical evidence.

@Def: Am I correct in believing that this 'code' you speak of is genetics?

@OWB: What barriers do you speak of? There are a few examples of a whole new species being created after a change in one gene.
http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pbio.0030282 if you're interested.

It's taken for granted that our planet revolves around a star. However, once upon a time we believed that the Universe revolved around our planet. When evidence was presented that contradicted the church's beliefs, they attempted to make it go away. If you met someone who still believed that the Universe revolved around the Earth, what would you think? I'm in a similar situation here

 

I would have thought that a microbe turning into a man by the Darwinian mechanisms of mutation and natural selection was the ultimate in “magical thinking” !

The problem with these new species is that birds remain birds, dogs remain dogs, frogs remain frogs, and horses remain horses. We don’t see fish changing into frogs, or lizards into birds.

Darwinists use adaptation, which can be observed, as proof of frogs to princes evolution, which is an entirely different process and has never been observed in Nature or duplicated in the Lab.

No one denies that natural selection or mutations are real, or that creatures can adapt via natural selection to new environments.

A population of bacteria adapting to an environment containing something that would normally kill them is, by itself, something that is no different from a population of dogs adapting to cold winters through having longer hair on average than their ancestors. In both instances, the issue is, does this give evidence of the sorts of changes required to transform microbes into people, if extrapolated over millions of years?

No, it does not.

As creatures diversify, gene pools become increasingly thinned out. The more organisms adapt to their surroundings by selection, i.e. the more specialized they become, the smaller the fraction they carry of the original storehouse of genetic information for their kind. Thus, there is less information available on which natural selection can act in the future to ‘readapt’ the population should circumstances change. Less flexible, less adaptable populations are obviously heading closer to extinction, not evolving.

For natural selection and mutations to be able to turn a microbe into a man requires a massive increase in new genetic information, not a loss of existing information which is what we see in the examples used by Darwinists as evidence of evolution.

It sounds like you are talking about the Galileo controversy?

Historians of science have documented that the first to oppose Galileo was the scientific establishment, not the church.

The prevailing ‘scientific’ wisdom of his day was the Aristotelian/Ptolemaic theory which had its origins in a pagan philosophical system. Galileo challenged all that, when he promoted Copernicus’s earlier idea that the Earth moved around the sun and, much like the evolutionary establishment today, the Aristotelian establishment reacted furiously and tried to silence him.

The battle against Galileo was not started by the church, but by Galileo’s colleagues and scientists, who were afraid of losing their position and influence. The representatives of the church were much more open to the Copernican system than were the scientists and Galileo’s colleagues.

So when Galileo challenged the prevailing Aristotelian scientific establishment, his scientific enemies deceitfully persuaded the Catholic Church that he was attacking the Bible, which he was not, and the Roman Catholic Order of the Jesuits, who were behind the trial against Galileo, included many of these leading scientists.


The Roman Catholic church (and more particularly the powerful Jesuit Order) did make a mistake with Galileo, but the Catholic church’s mistake was accepting the scientific majority’s opinion, which was faulty, and adjusting their theology to fit in with it instead of sticking to what the Bible did (or didn't) say on the matter.

But if what you thinking of was the Bible sometimes speaking in terms of geocentricity, Have you considered that all motion must be described with respect to a reference frame?

For earthbound people, the earth is a convenient reference frame. After all, when drivers see a speed limit sign of 100 km/hr, they know perfectly well that it means 100 km/hr relative to the ground, not the sun!

So it is absurd to attack the Biblical writers for doing the same when describing how the Sun appears to move. The Biblical writers were merely using convenient phenomenological language, just like modern day people who refer to ‘sunset’ and ‘sunrise’.

Engineering and nautical astronomers, even now, for some applications, still use earth as a reference frame, at the centre of a great celestial sphere. For example, NASA uses the Earth centered model for all space craft trajectories.

Planetarium and telescope control programs are also based on an Earth Centered Universe.

So there is no reason to be hypercritical when the Bible does likewise!

 

I read the article but I don't think it says what you think it says.

 

@Jeffd, this conversation is not about the origin of life. Still a mystery, new theories arise often.

This conversation is about the rejection of physical, MODERN, evidence in-order to protect a belief system. While I do believe that all life on Earth evolved from single-cell organisms, I do not have hard evidence to support it, so I make no claims about understanding the beginning.

That being said, I think it to be unhealthy when someone rejects hard evidence of a rational and sound theory to uphold their own magical thinking. I.E, a spaceman created the Earth 6,000 years ago and man was born as we are today. If preservation of your beliefs is what you seek, evolution and natural selection work with religion. More of a passive-God theory.

As for the Galileo comment I made, you're correct, apologies. Astronomers from his time worked closely with the church so that they could validate the teachings that they used. His 'peers' rejected the idea because it went against the information they had presented to the church, effectively smearing their image and pay. Same thing happened to Copernicus and Aristarchus in ancient Greece.

@OWB

Correct sir, I read an abstract about it somewhere, thought it was a conclusive article and not a 'possible under certain circumstances' article. My bad

 

No problem, everybody has done something similar, even me.

And honestly I enjoy reading about evolution and the pursuit of it has allowed for number of very interesting scientific discoveries.

Like I say, the only thing that bothers me is that evolutionists tend to say this is the way it happened, rather than it is a possible way it happened. Really there could be many ways it could of happened but it only happened one way and aside from a time machine and millions of years of observation there is no way to prove that evolution is the way.

 

I used to be in the boat for evolution being the only way. As time went on, I matured, came to the conclusion that we're at the beginning of a verrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrry long and arduous quest for knowledge. Evolution is a rational theory that gives us a better idea of our place on Earth. Unfortunately, it doesn't answer all our questions.

 

Beautifully pug Skizm.

A lot of people don't really understand what evolution is. THey think it tries to explain how mutations happen, if its conscious or not, etc.

Evolution is true, whether people believe it or not. If there was a disease that whiped out everyone over 4'6'' tall, pygmys would practically be the only species left. This is evolution.

 

Sorry that I'm not giving you more of an argument but so far, I pretty much agree with you.

I have to say even though, personally, I don't believe we got here by evolution; evolution has been a very useful tool for scientific discoveries that may not have been so quickly found without it. But as with all tools that have been scientifically useful, there may come a day when we will discard it for a tool that is more useful for further discovery.

 

Only time will tell.

For anyone looking to get involved in the conversation. This post is not an attempt to prove evolution as a means of creating life on Earth. Discussions held here are about practitioners of certain religions denying tangible, modern (being the key-word here), evidence of evolution in order to support a belief-system.

I am postulating that evolution is the process of natural selection over a period of time. A organism with a certain trait desirable within a certain environment survives longer, in order to reproduce more, which means that the trait becomes more common, resulting in the evolution of that species of organisms. Refer to the original post for examples

Again, not trying to argue the origin of life, that's still a big mystery.

 

Sorry for taking so long.

Yes and no. DNA itself is not the code but that DNA itself follows its own intelligence or mind (not necessarily sentient). This can either be the laws of nature (and the creative power behind it) and/or the intelligence of information that follows along a specific path that brings about creativity. Think of it kinda like the order out of chaos theory, only that chaos was intentional and was set within it a code of creativity.

Many different things can come out of this chaos that are new, but it may have reached or will reach every pattern that can be born from it to the point of reemergence.