A Question for Evolutionists

February 3rd, 2002 | Sabertooth

[Sabertooth]

A Question for Evolutionists

Here's where I see the crux of the Creation vs. Evolution debate, and most appear to miss it:

Forget possible transitional forms, stratigraphy, and radiological clocks... at some level, both Creationists and Evolutionists wander back to singularities and have to cope with the issue of spontaneous cause.

Creationists say "God."

• Since God has chosen not to be heavy-handed, allowing us free will,
  this is neither scientifically provable nor disprovable.
• This is more a commentary on the material limitations of science than it is about the limitations of God.
  Both Creationists and Evolutionists need to come to grips with that.

Evolutionists say "random spontaneous mutagenic speciation."

• Where has that been observed or demonstrated?

[Bonaparte]

...and I should add that, conversely and by the same rigorous methods, such things as algorithms, natural laws and random processes can be shown to have a vanishingly tiny probability of acting as first cause -- in both the origin of life and the origin of the physical universe.

[Bonaparte]

Sabertooth [to cinFLA]: "You're begging the question..."

For the past 3 years, I have seen the neo-darwinists do this on these threads. Over and over, again and again. As this one progresses (or should I say revolves?), you will see many more variations on this. Every fallacy will put in an appearance.

[nothingnew]

You ,and many others posting here, didn't go to public school, did you?

I did, but I don't recommend it for others.

Me too, but circa 1955 thru the 60's...before they got really screwy....5th grade was my turning point...(thank you Mrs. Wallace, where ever you are!).

FMCDH

[CalConservative]

The fossil record is chock-full of transitional forms.

As a trained geologist, I can assure you that this statement is just not true. As a matter of fact, one of the great enigmas of paleontology is the sudden appearance of many life forms that persist to this day in the Cambrian with little or no evidence of prior transitional life forms. Enigmas such as this are really what turned me from a believer in evolution to a creationist. When you delve into the hard scientific facts, evolution is just not supportable, even when you exclude the staggering statistical improbabilities of it occuring.

[Conservative til I die]

I've actually heard people say "Science is my God." I'm like, "Wow, if only I could have all the answers about the universe, like you do."

[Conservative til I die]

I believe in microevolution as well, if you define it as a species "naturally selecting" certain traits out of the gene pool.

I've read that the eighth day started with Christ's death and resurrection, and obviously that we are living in that day now, and that that is why we celebrate the Lord's day on Sunday (which is the first day of the new week, or the eighth day).

[Junior]

Bump.

[Nebullis]

Evidence against macroevolution exists, for example if you attempt to advance a characteristic in a species by selective breeding, that line will either become sterile or will revert back to the species norm, it is known as species statis i believe, although it might have another more common name.

Stasis isn't evidence against macroevolution. It means that macroevolution doesn't plod along with great regularity as microevolution does. Instead, occurs by leaps and bounds.

[Sir Gawain]

You seem to be unable to articulate a point without throwing in a personal attack. Your post speaks volumes about the type of person you are.

[Nebullis]

Reverting back to norm happens in the wild and it is because a species is an interbreeding population. In captivity, the limit to trait selection changes over time. Notice the recent article Best in Breed .

Speciation, on the other hand, depends entirely on isolating mechanisms, which varies between organisms. It can depend, for example, on behavioral mechanisms, as apparent for most birds, or on geographical events as apparent for many mammals. Neither mechanism works with the regularity of micromutations.

[Sabertooth]

Why is it that on every crevo thread, somebody has to repeat this "no transitional forms" lie? Land mammals -> whales, and if the dozens of transitional fossibls between aren't "macroevolution" then your head is so far up your ass it's impossible to talk with you. Does lying somehow make it more likely that your opponents will believe in your argument? You think if you repeat a lie enough that it becomes the truth? I know it's worked for thousands of years, but now we have science and God is dead. Does being an ignorant imbecile somehow make you feel good?

Thanks for such an illuminating expostion of your opinion and its weaknesses.

The transitional forms argument hinges on how closely one splits hairs, and ignores the possibility of divergent forms filling in a progression of niches, which might give the false impression of transitional forms.

TF is a grey area either way, so I generally don't go there.

That's why I posed the central question of this thread... the question you ignored...

Where is the observation or evidence of random spontaneous mutagenic speciation?

Don't worry, you weren't the first Evolutionist who couldn't or wouldn't answer.

But...

EVERYTHING about evolutionary theory depends on the origin of species, Darwin was right about that. Whether or not a species in the fossil record can be termed transitional depends on whether or not we know how species originate.

We don't.

So your snide little flurry of insults has failed in concealing your inabiliy to address this hole in your theory. Before you presume to reply, you might want to read my posts on this thread. You wouldn't want your ignorance and bad manners to make you look like a fool twice.

I won't be so pleasant to you next time.

[Nebullis]

Where is the observation or evidence of random spontaneous mutagenic speciation?

Very simply, reproductive isolation between two species are sometimes be effected by a few genes that prevent interbreeding. This is true for drosophila, and both laboratory and natural (wild) examples exist.

[Nebullis]

are sometimes be

Oh, well.

[Sabertooth]

Very simply, reproductive isolation between two species are sometimes be effected by a few genes that prevent interbreeding. This is true for drosophila, and both laboratory and natural (wild) examples exist.

Post the wild ones.

[Nebullis]

Ah, I can't help respond to such a polite request. The literature is available to all. Look it up if you are interested. I gave you the search keys.

[Sabertooth]

Ah, I can't help respond to such a polite request. The literature is available to all. Look it up if you are interested. I gave you the search keys.

Talk, talk.

I asked one reasonable question on this thread... and I have to do your work for you?

[jennyp]

This page is a good place to start.

Here's the story on the Long Beach sand worms (IMO the clearest example from the article):

5.7 Speciation in a Lab Rat Worm, Nereis acuminata In 1964 five or six individuals of the polychaete worm, Nereis acuminata, were collected in Long Beach Harbor, California. These were allowed to grow into a population of thousands of individuals. Four pairs from this population were transferred to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute. For over 20 years these worms were used as test organisms in environmental toxicology. From 1986 to 1991 the Long Beach area was searched for populations of the worm. Two populations, P1 and P2, were found. Weinberg, et al. (1992) performed tests on these two populations and the Woods Hole population (WH) for both postmating and premating isolation. To test for postmating isolation, they looked at whether broods from crosses were successfully reared. The results below give the percentage of successful rearings for each group of crosses.

WH X WH - 75%
P1 X P1 - 95%
P2 X P2 - 80%
P1 X P2 - 77%
WH X P1 - 0%
WH X P2 - 0%

They also found statistically significant premating isolation between the WH population and the field populations. Finally, the Woods Hole population showed slightly different karyotypes from the field populations.

IOW, the 2 native Long Beach samples mated successfully with each other, and the worms who had emigrated to Massachusetts could mate with their own kind, but the 2 populations could not mate with each other at all.

This took 28 years of complete isolation to happen. (I have no idea how many sand worm generations that is.)

[RaceBannon]

Actually, no, Evolution started by saying, I dont believe in God because it makes me recognize I am accountable to God because of sin, so there has to be another way.

That is religious, too. It is against a creationist religious viewpoint, and is against Christianty in general. Christianity is based on the fact of man's sin, and Christ's death on the cross to pay for that sin. Do away with Adam, you do away with sin entering the world. Do away with sin entering the world, you can do away with the need for Jesus Christ's death on the cross.