Researchers Trace Evolution To Relatively Simple Genetic Changes

[mdwh]

Hmm interesting. Then perhaps you could tell me why they have lots and lots of things in math called THEORIES Like set THEORY and number THEORY

Words can have more than one meaning, you know.

Going back to your earlier statement: "There are many theories in mathematics which are NOT TESTABLE."

Given a set of axioms, one can always construct mathematical statements which cannot be proven or disproven. But these statements are not scientific theories!

I don't think it even makes sense to call them theories in the mathematical sense either - things like "Number Theory" refer to a set of mathematical statements which can be proven from axioms, and not unproveable statements.

 

[HighlandWarrior]

I did some browsing, and found this article explaining how eyes can have evolved, supporting what you are saying:


Source

So it seems like even complicated organs such as the eye can indeed have evolved through a series of small mutations, like you say. Many evolution sceptics claim that "5% of an eye is no good", but in light of this, it seems that this is wrong, as even the earliest form of an eye gave the animal an advantage over their competitors, and then a series of further advantageous mutations finally brought us where we are today -- the human eye.

At least this explanation suffices for me.

(...) Here's how some scientists think some eyes may have evolved: The simple light-sensitive spot on the skin of some ancestral creature gave it some tiny survival advantage, perhaps allowing it to evade a predator. Random changes then created a depression in the light-sensitive patch, a deepening pit that made "vision" a little sharper. At the same time, the pit's opening gradually narrowed, so light entered through a small aperture, like a pinhole camera.

Every change had to confer a survival advantage, no matter how slight. Eventually, the light-sensitive spot evolved into a retina, the layer of cells and pigment at the back of the human eye. Over time a lens formed at the front of the eye. It could have arisen as a double-layered transparent tissue containing increasing amounts of liquid that gave it the convex curvature of the human eye.

In fact, eyes corresponding to every stage in this sequence have been found in existing living species. The existence of this range of less complex light-sensitive structures supports scientists' hypotheses about how complex eyes like ours could evolve. The first animals with anything resembling an eye lived about 550 million years ago. And, according to one scientist's calculations, only 364,000 years would have been needed for a camera-like eye to evolve from a light-sensitive patch.

no where does it say how they actually evolved only what "some scientists think"

how is that good enough to accept? that's very poor proof. i expect much better from a rock solid theory i'd be a lunatic fundie religious zealot to not accept...

 

[Birdjaguar]

Is there a reason why discussions of evolution always focus on animals and avoid plants? Clearly, those opposed point to lack of specimens from fossils a million years old to the 3.6 billion year old beginnings of life's history. Why can't paleontologists find all those pesky misssing links. Don't they know where to look? Egad, they've been at it now for over 100 years. How much more time do they need?

The evolutionary processes would be the same for plants and animals and maybe the record is clearer. Or do some of you think that plants and animals work under different rules? I guess we don't have any paleobotanists here.

 

[HighlandWarrior]

Is there a reason why discussions of evolution always focus on animals and avoid plants? Clearly, those opposed point to lack of specimens from fossils a million years old to the 3.6 billion year old beginnings of life's history. Why can't paleontologists find all those pesky misssing links. Don't they know where to look? Egad, they've been at it now for over 100 years. How much more time do they need?

The evolutionary processes would be the same for plants and animals and maybe the record is clearer. Or do some of you think that plants and animals work under different rules? I guess we don't have any paleobotanists here.

plants? i'd like to know how flowering plants evolved! seems very random a plant would grow a pistil and stamen and an ovule and everything else all at once! if not at once what would be the benefit to the flowering plant to have a just a pistil, or just a stamen not to mention pollen itself on the stamen?

http://scitec.uwichill.edu.bb/bcs/bl14apl/flow1.htm

The flowering plants or angiosperms emerged in the Cretaceous period, some 130 million years ago. Their origin Charles Darwin described as "that abominable mystery".

school website about plant evolution...

http://www.bio.miami.edu/tom/bil160/bil160goods/12_toland.html

read for yourself, tell me if you're convinced about plant evolution after that.

 

[carlosMM]

no where does it say how they actually evolved only what "some scientists think"

how is that good enough to accept? that's very poor proof. i expect much better from a rock solid theory i'd be a lunatic fundie religious zealot to not accept...

hehe, your reading of the English language is quite poor.

'Think' here means that there's several possibilities within evolution (invertebrates, who were the first to develop eyes, fossilize notoriously badly. Thus the record is quite sketchy, thus several possible paths are favored by different people).

 

[carlosMM]

plants? i'd like to know how flowering plants evolved! seems very random a plant would grow a pistil and stamen and an ovule and everything else all at once! if not at once what would be the benefit to the flowering plant to have a just a pistil, or just a stamen not to mention pollen itself on the stamen?

http://scitec.uwichill.edu.bb/bcs/bl14apl/flow1.htm

The flowering plants or angiosperms emerged in the Cretaceous period, some 130 million years ago. Their origin Charles Darwin described as "that abominable mystery".

school website about plant evolution...

http://www.bio.miami.edu/tom/bil160/bil160goods/12_toland.html

read for yourself, tell me if you're convinced about plant evolution after that.

hehe, you fall into the same old traps again!

First of all, you use the 'all at once' thingy again. it is as dumb as it is for eyes or wings! You declare that the impossible cannot happen, thus the possible is impossible - what great logic!


maybe you could do something smart instead, and get a book on paleobotany?
Check out the many intermediate forms from the fossil record.....

and: what Darwin didn't know - is well known today. So if Darwin didn't understand something, does it mean we can't know it either?
Darwin didn't know jetliners - does that mean we today can't know how to build them?

Now, for your school website: it is not meant to contain all information. Rather, it is a summary. Actually, to a sane and educated person with some basic knowledge of plants it shows nicely the evolutionary paths. Not to someone who's uneducated, that's true.

but I doubt an internal Mercedes web page would give you the ability to build an SLK either

 

[carlosMM]

for those who like to claim that 'more and mroe scientists doubt evolution:

http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/demise.html

IN YOUR FACE, LIARS!

GOTCHA!

 

[MeteorPunch]

http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/demise.html

I just skimmed it. It seems to go both ways, right?

 

[carlosMM]

I just skimmed it. It seems to go both ways, right?

erh, if you'd read it you'd see that there is always some nutcase making the same claim - but somehow it never happenes, right?

So, how believable is this claim today, after it has been false for 162 years?

 

[MeteorPunch]

I mean it had a lot of quotes supporting the end of darwinism.

 

[carlosMM]

I mean it had a lot of quotes supporting the end of darwinism.

no, it has a lot of quotes CLAIMING the end of evolution is near (as creationists claim today). Interestingly, Darwinism (as you call it) is still going strong, despite being 'near the end' for so long.




so, what are these claims - bold faced lies? I can't really find any other explanations, they seems are correct as all then End-Of-The-World predicitons!

 

[MeteorPunch]

I don't think it will die anytime soon. It's the best theory around that seems to have some basis. Basically, I don't think there's another theory that would overtake it, so it wins by default.

So they may be lying in saying the evolution theory will end, but they mean well because evolution (in their minds and mine), isn't true.

 

[carlosMM]

I don't think it will die anytime soon. It's the best theory around that seems to have some basis. Basically, I don't think there's another theory that would overtake it, so it wins by default.

So they may be lies in saying the evolution theory will end, but they mean well because evolution (in their minds and mine), isn't true.

Well, you say there is no other theory, but evolution is not true - so what is? the bible?

 

[MeteorPunch]

Well, you say there is no other theory, but evolution is not true - so what is? the bible?

Yes.


567890

 

[carlosMM]

Yes.


567890

uh, why?

it has been proven wrong about 1,000,000 times, as oppose to evolution.

 

[MeteorPunch]

uh, why?

it has been proven wrong about 1,000,000 times, as oppose to evolution.

Name an instance of it proven wrong.

 

[carlosMM]

Name an instance of it proven wrong.

creation story, including age of the earth, appearance of animals and plants.
noah's ark
jesus lifetime (birth date)

I think this suffices to kick the main points of the bible into the realm of fairy tales or political propaganda.

 

[MeteorPunch]

creation story, including age of the earth, appearance of animals and plants.
noah's ark
jesus lifetime (birth date)

I think this suffices to kick the main points of the bible into the realm of fairy tales or political propaganda.

The bible never dates the earth. There are theories that based on the wording of phrases in Genesis that it was originally created long before man (and inhabited).

I don't think the other things you've listed are proven wrong either.

 

[carlosMM]

The bible never dates the earth. There are theories that based on the wording of phrases in Genesis that it was originally created long before man (and inhabited).

I don't think the other things you've listed are proven wrong either.

ah, now you are off into the realm of wild interpretation!

Either a day is a day, or you start interpretating stuff any way you want to! So please: did earth come into existence as described in the bible? (if so, how come all research says otherwise?) And at the specified time (genealogy of the bible is a rather simple matter, you 'theories that is was created long before man' are inaccessible, as they are based on various WAGS (wild ass guesses) on word meanings that are in no way supported by any evidence or research.

What you basically do is allow the bible freedom of inaccuracy and need of interpretation that would have you screaming bloody murder if your dentist used it to fix your teeth ('Oh, by local anesthesia I meant a hammer hit on your toe')


So please, show us how the bible gives a more accurate account of how today's plethora of animals and plants came into existence and how all the fossils came to be!

You have 12 hours until i will be back - I bet I can show your bible story wanting or simply false






(rabbits are not ruminants, btw, and there's NO WAY to argue this away)

 

[MeteorPunch]

I'll try, but it probably won't convince you.