The Theory of Evolution

When it comes to polls, there are more Theistic-Evolutionists than there are Atheists (who usually accept Evolution) in America.

I am going to ask you all a question, and then I'm going to add some context...

Do you accept Evolution? Why or why not?


Keep in mind that the Scientific Definition for a "Theory" is: An explanation for a collection of facts. What is a fact? A fact is a confirmed observation.
Next, Evolution only means the change a population of Organisms experience over time... it has nothing at all to do with Abiogenesis (which is the Origin of Life) or the Big Bang.

So again I ask. Do you accept Evolution? Why or why not?

[VCURamFan]

Originally Posted by shon8121

When it comes to polls, there are more Theistic-Evolutionists than there are Atheists (who usually accept Evolution) in America.

I am going to ask you all a question, and then I'm going to add some context...

Do you accept Evolution? Why or why not?


Keep in mind that the Scientific Definition for a "Theory" is: An explanation for a collection of facts. What is a fact? A fact is a confirmed observation.
Next, Evolution only means the change a population of Organisms experience over time... it has nothing at all to do with Abiogenesis (which is the Origin of Life) or the Big Bang.

So again I ask. Do you accept Evolution? Why or why not?

I think anyone here would openly accept micro-evolution, which is the evolution within a single species (why we're taller than our great-grandparents, why there are multiple types of dogs, etc.). I do not, however, believe that there is evidence for macro-evolution (amoeba - fish - lizard - mammal - man).

[J.B.]

Originally Posted by VCURamFan

I think anyone here would openly accept micro-evolution, which is the evolution within a single species (why we're taller than our great-grandparents, why there are multiple types of dogs, etc.). I do not, however, believe that there is evidence for macro-evolution (amoeba - fish - lizard - mammal - man).

Agreed

VCURamFan - That is a good point you brought up. I am glad you did so I can expand on this idea sooner rather than later.

Micro-Evolution is what most Creationists call "Adaptation". And sure, we can go along with that. It's clearly been observed.

Macro-Evolution has been defined as "species to species" transitions. But there are a great many misconceptions about Macro-Evolution.
Technically, no species gives birth to a new species. Macro, is just many instances of Micro over time.
Has this been observed?
Yes.
I recommend that people google "Ring Species" for observed Speciation in Nature.
Note that it is not the Speciation most desire to see... because that many changes cannot possibly occur in our lifetimes.

However, if you google "20 Year E. Coli Experiment" you'd quickly discover some huge changes Scientists have documented in Bacteria. E. Coli is defined as an oganism that cannot consume Citrate... as it's essentially poisoness. 3 separate and non-related mutations after some 20,000 generations were able to consume Citrate and thrive on it.

The moral of this story? We've not only observed Speciation, but we also have Fossils that show the Species to Species Transition we were unable to witness ourselves.

And soon I feel like I'm going to be discussing the DNA evidence which is truly the smoking gun for Macro-Evolution.

Originally Posted by shon8121

VCURamFan - That is a good point you brought up. I am glad you did so I can expand on this idea sooner rather than later.

Micro-Evolution is what most Creationists call "Adaptation". And sure, we can go along with that. It's clearly been observed.

Macro-Evolution has been defined as "species to species" transitions. But there are a great many misconceptions about Macro-Evolution.
Technically, no species gives birth to a new species. Macro, is just many instances of Micro over time.
Has this been observed?
Yes.
I recommend that people google "Ring Species" for observed Speciation in Nature.
Note that it is not the Speciation most desire to see... because that many changes cannot possibly occur in our lifetimes.

However, if you google "20 Year E. Coli Experiment" you'd quickly discover some huge changes Scientists have documented in Bacteria. E. Coli is defined as an oganism that cannot consume Citrate... as it's essentially poisoness. 3 separate and non-related mutations after some 20,000 generations were able to consume Citrate and thrive on it.

The moral of this story? We've not only observed Speciation, but we also have Fossils that show the Species to Species Transition we were unable to witness ourselves.

And soon I feel like I'm going to be discussing the DNA evidence which is truly the smoking gun for Macro-Evolution.

-----Hey friend names malcom. I too was like you, loved talking science (guess i still do). I had a thread on evolution about 8 months back or so. I myself am finishing my phD in biochemistry......what science field are you in?

If you need a hand for evidence for evolution at the level of the gene, Im your man. My speciality is NOT evolutionary biology, but i know a fair bit. But you have to keep in mind that I do beleive god made man.

mscomc - I am actually just extremely interested in Evolution. To tell you the truth, I really should be going to School for this because I'm sure I'd be very well prepared! Haha.

So when you say you believe god created man, do you mean you believe god directed the Evolution of man? Or do you simply mean he created Humans in their present form?

Speaking of "Genes". Have you heard about the (relatively) recent Mitochondrial DNA sequencing of Neanderthal bones? Scientists have concluded that they contributed no genes to the modern Human population. There was speculation that they and our direct ancestors the Cro-Magnons may have have had offspring, but we have no evidence of that as of yet. As it looks right now, they descended from Ardipithicus separately from us. Very intriguing.

Originally Posted by shon8121

mscomc - I am actually just extremely interested in Evolution. To tell you the truth, I really should be going to School for this because I'm sure I'd be very well prepared! Haha.

So when you say you believe god created man, do you mean you believe god directed the Evolution of man? Or do you simply mean he created Humans in their present form?
Speaking of "Genes". Have you heard about the (relatively) recent Mitochondrial DNA sequencing of Neanderthal bones? Scientists have concluded that they contributed no genes to the modern Human population. There was speculation that they and our direct ancestors the Cro-Magnons may have have had offspring, but we have no evidence of that as of yet. As it looks right now, they descended from Ardipithicus separately from us. Very intriguing.

Gotta be careful man! if you wanna be a evo-biologist, you should know the human you are now is not the human you are 10 sec ago. Your cells and DNA are constantly mutating and turning over (cellular degredation and regeneration). I beleive that god made a human to start with yes. Do I beleive that human has changed genetically so much that its dna is not completely homologous to mine yes. But I beleive virtually all holy scripture mentions this.

you have to go back and look at many things:

1) true we now know how to study the level of the gene, but we dont know how: nucletiodes, the first genes, or how to read genes first came about. Right now, science has hypothesized that in early earth (like 60 billions years ago) quantum degeneration of an atom somehow fused to form a single cell.....which is already reallly realllllllly rare. Than we dont seem to know how we got to a functioning gene. Which is a pretty big gap.

2) Also have you seen the intricate details of a human cell? have you see how perfect it is? not just to look at, but thermodynamically and chemically, everything is so perfectly in sync. heres a link i posted for a good harvard medical school video of that -----
http://multimedia.mcb.harvard.edu/


3) Speaking of thermodynamics (men can go mad talking about this)....did you know the universe is soooooo thermo perfect, that if gravity at earth surface was even 0.1m/s (+ or -) what it is now....the universe couldnt exist? it wouldnt be stable?

-----There is alot more stuff. In the end, I dont beleive that chance was enough to make this all happen. I beleive there was a holy creator.

One more thing man. Not to change your mind on how you view religion. If you are atheist, that is cool with me man, so dont even sweat .....but i personaly have spent many years educating myself in the natural sciences. And some of my peers always mock me, why do i beleive in god? i cant see him, i cant hear him, or touch him...... I just tell them, i cant see an atom either, but i know its there.



Sorry for the long post. If you want more evolutionary evidence from the persepctive of: enzymes, bio-macromolecules, then i can help. If you are more into comparative anatomy (gorila skull vs human skull) sorry man, i aint that bright.


Take care, malcom

mscomc - Don't apologize. I enjoy long comments!
I'm aware that the body is constantly changing with cell mitosis, but I'm more interested in a population of organisms rather than just one individual. ;-)

Ok, you believe Humans were made in their present form. Have you heard of "inhibitors" governing genes? When these inhibitors shut off for whatever reason, the Junk DNA they were governing turns on and an old trait is expressed that was one fully expressed in our Ancestors. One such trait that appears is a tail.
Not just a fleshy stub... but a fully functional tail complete with bones, muscle and voluntary movement.
http://www.dimaggio.org/Eye-Openers/tails_in_humans.htm
That website has a few pictures but I don't endourse it as a "safe for work" website for some Total Recall 3 boobed image much lower down.
The point is, why do we have the blueprints in our DNA for such a gene, if we did not descend from Ape-like creatures?
And what about Chromosome 2 in the Human Genome? It appears to be a fusion of two of the Great Ape's Chromosomes (since Humans have 46 Chromosomes [23 from each parent] and all other Apes have 48).
It would make more sense to me based off of evidence like this (there is much more) that if your god exists, he had a hand in Evolution rather than creating us in our current form.

Uh... Science doesn't depict the Earth as having even been a thought 60 Billion years ago in the Universe... since the Universe has been dated to 13.7 Billion years ago, and the Earth being dated to 4.5 Billion years ago. Abiogenesis is still somewhat in the air. They have had some success in organic chemistry coming together to form very simplistic... uh... what is the word... uh, lets go with "pre-cells"... Haha. It's not quite a cell, but it's on it's way. But I don't even know why we're talking about Abiogenesis, because I'm perfectly fine if your Creator caused the first simple self replicating cells to exist. *shrug* It's the Evolution afterwards that I'm interested in. Forgive me for assuming if this isn't what you meant in your first point, but thats how I interpreted it.


Onto your second point, ah yes. Surprised you didn't use the term "Irreducible Complexity"! Haha. Uh, of course the Cell is very complex. The evidence that Science has so far is that single celled organisms might have started showing up soon after the Earth was formed and they propogated for 2 or 3 Billion years before finally becoming multi-cellular. In a few Billion years, I can see this sort of complexity arising.


Regarding point 3, Thermodynamics is often used to try and discredit Evolution... but it's not properly understood in these terms. We get an almost unlimited amount of energy from the sun so it's not a closed system on Earth. Therefor, this Law is not an issue at all.


I don't know if I like the word "chance" because there are over 100 Billion Galaxies in the Universe. Is it "chance" that at least one of the Stars in all of those galaxies has a planet nearby that has the right conditions for life? I hope there is more life out there... otherwise its an awful waste of space in my opinion.

I'm not specifically Atheist. I mean, we're all Atheist to all of the gods that Humans have come up with throughout History... I just go one further. I'm not convinced by any specific Religion... but I'm personally Agnostic. I do not know if there is a god... and I do not truly think I could possibly know. And thats my position.

[NateR]

Originally Posted by shon8121

When it comes to polls, there are more Theistic-Evolutionists than there are Atheists (who usually accept Evolution) in America.

I am going to ask you all a question, and then I'm going to add some context...

Do you accept Evolution? Why or why not?


Keep in mind that the Scientific Definition for a "Theory" is: An explanation for a collection of facts. What is a fact? A fact is a confirmed observation.
Next, Evolution only means the change a population of Organisms experience over time... it has nothing at all to do with Abiogenesis (which is the Origin of Life) or the Big Bang.

So again I ask. Do you accept Evolution? Why or why not?

Evolution as the method that life uses to adapt to its environment? Yes.

Evolution as a theory that all life on Earth is derived from one common ancestor? No.

Micro-Evolution can be observed. However, Macro-Evolution has never been observed, it can only be implied. Thus it is not a fact.

[Play The Man]

Originally Posted by mscomc

Gotta be careful man! if you wanna be a evo-biologist, you should know the human you are now is not the human you are 10 sec ago. Your cells and DNA are constantly mutating and turning over (cellular degredation and regeneration). I beleive that god made a human to start with yes. Do I beleive that human has changed genetically so much that its dna is not completely homologous to mine yes. But I beleive virtually all holy scripture mentions this.

you have to go back and look at many things:

1) true we now know how to study the level of the gene, but we dont know how: nucletiodes, the first genes, or how to read genes first came about. Right now, science has hypothesized that in early earth (like 60 billions years ago) quantum degeneration of an atom somehow fused to form a single cell.....which is already reallly realllllllly rare. Than we dont seem to know how we got to a functioning gene. Which is a pretty big gap.

2) Also have you seen the intricate details of a human cell? have you see how perfect it is? not just to look at, but thermodynamically and chemically, everything is so perfectly in sync. heres a link i posted for a good harvard medical school video of that -----
http://multimedia.mcb.harvard.edu/


3) Speaking of thermodynamics (men can go mad talking about this)....did you know the universe is soooooo thermo perfect, that if gravity at earth surface was even 0.1m/s (+ or -) what it is now....the universe couldnt exist? it wouldnt be stable?

-----There is alot more stuff. In the end, I dont beleive that chance was enough to make this all happen. I beleive there was a holy creator.

One more thing man. Not to change your mind on how you view religion. If you are atheist, that is cool with me man, so dont even sweat .....but i personaly have spent many years educating myself in the natural sciences. And some of my peers always mock me, why do i beleive in god? i cant see him, i cant hear him, or touch him...... I just tell them, i cant see an atom either, but i know its there.



Sorry for the long post. If you want more evolutionary evidence from the persepctive of: enzymes, bio-macromolecules, then i can help. If you are more into comparative anatomy (gorila skull vs human skull) sorry man, i aint that bright.


Take care, malcom

mscom, Malcolm, did you say somewhere that you study membranes? Are you familiar with Alister McGrath? He is an Oxford Professor of Theology. Prior to studying theology, he did biochemistry research. His area was "developing innovative physical methods for studying the behavior of biological membranes, including the use of fluorescent probes and positron decay to investigate temperature-dependent transitions in biological systems and their models." (I hope you know what that means, I don't). Anyway, he gave up his atheism during his research time and got his PhD in theology and became an Anglican priest and a professor. He is a very prolific writer. He has a three volume work developing a scientific theology (Theory, Reality, Nature). Recently, he is best known for taking on Dawkins about atheism. He must have dozens of books in print. You should check him out.