Researchers Trace Evolution To Relatively Simple Genetic Changes

[Birdjaguar]

matter did not exist prior to the creation point? so where did the matter come from? matter does just not appear out of no where(or gases or whatever).

One unanswered question in regards to the BB is where did our universe's matter come from. There are theories, but atm it's a mystery. But keep in mind:

Virtual particle pairs are constantly being created near the horizon of the black hole, as they are everywhere. Normally, they are created as a particle-antiparticle pair and they quickly annihilate each other. But near the horizon of a black hole, it's possible for one to fall in before the annihilation can happen, in which case the other one escapes as Hawking radiation.

So we do have examples of matter coming from nothing. A whole universe of matter would appear to be trickier. The easy solution and the one you will probably gravitate towards is that god created matter from nothing. End of story. And that works as long as you don't care about understanding the details of how things actually happen. A miracle satisfies you; for others it's a cop out and denial that the universe operates under rules that are knowable. We have learned much and have much more to learn. If you compare what was a mystery 200 years ago and what we know now, the change has been dramatic. More exciting discoveries will unfold in your lifetime. Berating science because it doesn't know everything now tells me more about your intolerance, ignorance and impatience than about the success or failure of the march of knowledge. (not you specifically).

My personal position is that nothing exists except god and the universe is a finite (limited) manifestation of that infinite Reality. Nothing is created and nothing is destroyed.

I'm still waiting for those fossil records of flowering plants documenting the x number of mutations leading to the formation of the stamen.

I spoke with my brother last night about this question. He is a paleobotanist whose specialty is the evolution of plants. He works with fossils from 400 million years ago to recent times. He was rather amazed that any one could doubt the clear (to him) fossil record of plant life evolution. He has never even heard of people trying to quantify the number of mutations needed to go from A to B. He laughed. The transitions are all obvious to him even if broken. Since change only happens to something that already exists and the next successful change is totally dependent on all the other environmental issues, probabilities are silly to him.

What's the probability that I had breakfast this morning? It's 100%. What's the probability today, that I would have had breakfast for the last three mornings? Does that make sense? How can it possilbly matter?

What's the probability that I will have breakfast tomorrow? That is a useful question. You can apply your probabilities to future evolutionary changes if you want. If you try to calculate the probability of humans evolving wings in the next 500,000 years, you will get somewhere between slim and none. But we will have some new traits in 500,000 years. We just don't know what yet. At that time (500,000 years from now), the chance of having those traits will be 100%.

The earliest record of flowering plants appears about 140 mya (million years ago) at the beginning of the Cretaceous. It is in the form of pollen. Actual flowering plant fossils don't appear until later. Flowering Plants first appeared in the low latitude valleys along the rift between Africa and the Americas and in what is now china. There are only a few isolated spots where such specimens can be found. Now encapulated seeds (the pistil or carpel in flowers) dates as far back as the Silurian (430 mya) in known specimens. So the ground work for the female aspect of flowers was laid down 300 million years ahead of time. The appearance of pollen completes the picture. One theory about flowers is that the low browsing dinosaurs of the cretaceous forced a change in the reproductive strategy of plants and flowers turned out to be one that worked very well. CarlosMM may know more about this.

One thing not discussed so far in this thread is that the world has suffered several mass extinctions. At the end of the cretaceous 65 mya an extimated 70% of all species died out.

200 mya at the beginning of the Jurassic at least 50% of all species died out permitting the dinosaurs to take center stage for the next 140 million years.

Again, 250 mya at the end of the permian, an estimated 90% of all species died out and disappeared from the fossil record.

In each case life started over and rebuilt itself into new and glorious forms. I wonder how creationists explain such events. Or do they just deny they happened?

 

[carlosMM]

Give me the one for the grad students.

Read:
Origin & Evolution of Life
bz Tom(?) Fenchel

my problem is alot bigger than just the big bang, but i figured why not go to the beginning. I'm still waiting for those fossil records of flowering plants documenting the x number of mutations leading to the formation of the stamen.

this is rich: you asked whether the fossil record EXISTED, not that I POST it.
to give it to you: get a current book on paleobotany. Any one you want.


there you go.

and, btw, recent lants show ALL the encessary in-between steps.

but, say, where is your answer to my question what you know about plant anatomy and reproduction? I posted a bunch of Qs directed at you, did you really already know all this stuff? (I suspect you have no clue).
And if so - why do you keep making broad claims instead of actually reading up on the matter before trying to convince others of your uninformed laymen's dream of a POV?