Conservapedia - User contributions [en]

Alan Turing

2007-03-19T05:20:42Z

Plunge:

Alan Turing (1912 - 1954) was a British mathematician considered to be the founder of modern computer science and cryptography.<ref>Http://www.turing.org.uk/bio</ref>

In the 1930s Turing proposed the concept of a "Universal Turing Machine". Turing had, first, proposed that the calculations needed to calculate any formula could be broken down into a base set of instructions that could in principle be followed by a machine: the "Turing Machine". Once fully formalized the calculations needed to derive the instructions themselves were capable of being run by a Turing Machine. The looped logic allowed the conception of a Turing Machine that could create its own instruction and, in principle, run a huge variety of calculations.

During World War II Turing was assigned to the military code breaking unit at Bletchley Park. Working on the decoding of the German's "Enigma" and, later, "Ultra" codes the group came to place increasing reliance on the formalization of computational procedures. The combination of this formalization of the work they were doing and Turing's earlier concept of the "Universal Turing Machine" lead to his proposal of creating an actual, rather than theoretical, electronic "Universal Turing Machine": the first electronic computer. Turing and his colleagues played a significant role in the Allied victory in WW2, allowing Allied forces access to German communication networks throughout much of the war.

In his 1950 paper "Computing Machinery and Intelligence" (Mind 49: 433-460) Turing proposed a test (apparently heavily influenced by Logical Positivism) for establishing whether a computer could think.

His arrest in 1952 for homosexuality and the subsequent withdrawal of his security clearance appears to have contributed to his suicide by cyanide poisoning in 1954.<ref>http://www.turing.org.uk/turing/index.html</ref>

==References==
Online biography: http://www.turing.org.uk/bio/

Computing Machinery and Intelligence: http://cogprints.org/499/00/turing.html

[[Category:Biographies]]

Conservapedia:Ask questions

2007-03-18T18:40:08Z

Plunge: /* Bias */

Hi! Leave any questions you have for us here.

A STRATEGIC QUESTION: 1) All Wikipedia information is free for copying, as long as the the GNU FDL licence is scrupulously applied; 2) Wikipedia contains an enormous amount of information. Now: Why don't we start a massive program of copying information from Wikipedia into Conservapedia, obviously selectively, that is removing what is un-acceptable for us? In this way we would no loger be ridiculed for our many "skeleton-like" entries, and at the same time we will achieve more influence on users. Seems to be perfectly legal to me.

On the matter of our influence: Since we (hopefully) want to have a global impact, would it not be reasonable to give up on our commandment pertaining to the American-only spelling? I am not sure if the following argument is approppriate, but Jesus Christ, as well as His Apostles, insisted on spreading the Truth to entire humanity, not just to own Nation.

== Christianapedia ==

Why not just call it "Christianapdeia" and be done with it? The bias in this site is astounding! Came here hoping for less bias, and have been shocked at the lack of information and citing of crackpot sources.

Also, why is "sex" deleted when so many conservatives (teens included) need this type of factual information. Studies show that many conservative teens receive terrible information when it comes to sexual education. There are so many sources that are poor, this is a good opportunity to provide solid, factual information.{{Unsigned|Ensie}}

----

== Bias ==

If wikipedia is "liberal biased" I assume it would be because that's the way the world is biased because the people who write for it are not censored unless it is blatantly wrong. I came to this site and thought that as the homepage calls it "more accurate" info. Unfortunately, I seemed to have stumbled on less accurate information. Note, that some articles leave out anything that doesn't have to do with a specific biased message. (Example: the abortion article doesn't even explain what it is, just why it's bad.)

My real question is, why will this be deleted, instead of talked about and addressed on your site?

:Users are probably less likely to get blocked here than on Wikipedia. But as to you central claim, bias arises most easily in unrestrained groups of people, like gangs, mobs and political parties. We have a set of simple, clear rules to keep us from ending up like Wikipedia. Check out our list of [[Bias in Wikipedia]]. Thanks and hope you can contribute. By the way, the abortion page does define what it is, though I expect everyone knows that already.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 20:38, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

::I don't see how you could possibly claim that this site is currently less biased than wikipedia. This site on many topics only even mentions the Biblical literalist Protestant point of view, let alone allows facts that contradict things like the YEC view to even be mentioned. Wikipedia may or may not be biased, but it is at least more objective in the sense that it mostly just describes things. This sites articles push a very very specific point of view in nearly every single article.[[User:Plunge|Plunge]] 14:40, 18 March 2007 (EDT)

:Not censored? Please see this [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Pravknight&diff=prev&oldid=85523670#Question:_Why_is_Leftism_NPOV.3F] Recently when an editor pointed out "Dominionism", as defined by Wikipedia is "a trend in Protestant Christian evangelicalism", didn't apply to Paul Weyrich because he is Roman Catholic, he nonetheless received a community ban so the pejoratives aimed at Paul Weyrich will stick. [[User:RobS|RobS]] 14:55, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

American spelling is descended from illiterates who left england/europe to colonise the 'new world'. E.g. Favor should be spelled Favour, nite should be spelled Night. After all the language is English and therefore the spellings should be English. Yet another example of American terretorialism and intolerance - if it 'aint American it's bad, if it 'aint Christian - it's bad. your claim that the abortion issue is biased on Wikipedia is just a joke. One of the founding fathers, Thomas Jefferson, made the following statements.

"History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes."

-Thomas Jefferson to Alexander von Humboldt, Dec. 6, 1813.

"Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law."

-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, February 10, 1814

There are a multitude of similar statements, Religion never was, nor was meant to be enshrined in law. He believed in a society where Government and Religion were a seperate. If Christian values are enforced by law - then surely when you get to heaven, you will be judged on deeds that you committed voluntarily, not those you were 'told' to do. God gave man free will for a purpose, surely to not use free will and judgement is an insult to God for this gift.

By the way, I am an American Christian, not liberal nor conservative nor any other 'term' that pigeonholes someone - I am a free thinker, and use the brain that was bestowed upon me by God to question, research etc. So many of the worlds religions share the same facts/events (Jesus is mentioned in the Bible, Koran and the Torah). Maybe, these religions started out as one, but disversified/split as different sects had different beliefs. We all worship one God, just in our different way. Maybe it's time we focused on the 'true' meaning of Christ, when was the last time you invited a homeless person to share your home for a while? When was the last time you went out looking for a drug-user to help? How many times have you looked with disdain upon someone because they 'were'nt Christian'? Christ deliberately whould seek out those at the bottom, to help and nurture them - when was the last time, as a Christian, you did that? I have done these things, and continue to do so, I don't preach, proletize or lecture, I help - surely a better way of spreading gods word than empty talk and posturing.

I fully expect this post to be deleted, after all, it saddens me to say our once great Country had become so intolerant and abusive of anyone different. Who would be lesser in the eyes of God - The Christian who only helps/deals with/associates with Christians or the Atheist who helps people in need because they need help, regardless of their faith.

Thankyou

== Scope ==

What is the proposed scope of Conservapedia? You currently have articles on History, Economics, Science, and Law. Do you intend to expand this list in future?--[[User:Smalltownhick|Smalltownhick]] 20:23, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

::'Expanding', I'd argue 'Inflating' is a more appropriate semantic.

== Parochial language commandment ==

I just reflexively corrected (at least) 5 spelling errors in the above paragraphs.

I am curious why the American version of spellings is considered so important that it is a "commandment" rather than simply an editorial policy?

I think it is acceptable for you to pick and use any English dialect you wish as a policy, and American English is one of the more popular ones, but I think it capricious that you would ban otherwise valuable contributions from someone for using their own. Simply edit the articles for spelling as you see fit, as I did above.

[[User:Brian Wilson|Brian Wilson]] 20:30, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

== Historical Bias ==

The basis of Conservapedia seems to be solidly in History. If you search Rome it tells you of the peninsula that housed an empire rather than the capital of a modern country. We need to get busy getting this site up to date.

== Purpose? ==

I'm genuinely confused on what the true purpose of this project is. Is the intention to actually to build an actual encyclopedia which is balanced, accurate and free of superfluous information or is the intention to "balance out" wikipedia by providing an oppositely biased viewpoint? For example, the [[Gun control]] article seems to at least be written in a bias tone and it doesn't cite any sources.
[[User:BalancedBudget|BalancedBudget]] 22:32, 12 March 2007 (EDT)

Yet another example of American terretorialism and intolerance - if it 'aint American it's bad, if it 'aint Christian - it's bad. your claim that the abortion issue is biased on Wikipedia is just a joke. One of the founding fathers, Thomas Jefferson, made the following statements.

"History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes."

-Thomas Jefferson to Alexander von Humboldt, Dec. 6, 1813.

"Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law."

-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, February 10, 1814

There are a multitude of similar statements, Religion never was, nor was meant to be enshrined in law. He believed in a society where Government and Religion were a seperate. If Christian values are enforced by law - then surely when you get to heaven, you will be judged on deeds that you committed voluntarily, not those you were 'told' to do. God gave man free will for a purpose, surely to not use free will and judgement is an insult to God for this gift.

By the way, I am an American Christian, not liberal nor conservative nor any other 'term' that pigeonholes someone - I am a free thinker, and use the brain that was bestowed upon me by God to question, research etc. So many of the worlds religions share the same facts/events (Jesus is mentioned in the Bible, Koran and the Torah). Maybe, these religions started out as one, but disversified/split as different sects had different beliefs. We all worship one God, just in our different way. Maybe it's time we focused on the 'true' meaning of Christ, when was the last time you invited a homeless person to share your home for a while? When was the last time you went out looking for a drug-user to help? How many times have you looked with disdain upon someone because they 'were'nt Christian'? Christ deliberately whould seek out those at the bottom, to help and nurture them - when was the last time, as a Christian, you did that? I have done these things, and continue to do so, I don't preach, proletize or lecture, I help - surely a better way of spreading gods word than empty talk and posturing.

I fully expect this post to be deleted, after all, it saddens me to say our once great Country had become so intolerant and abusive of anyone different. Who would be lesser in the eyes of God - The Christian who only helps/deals with/associates with Christians or the Atheist who helps people in need because they need help, regardless of their faith.

Thankyou

EDT 13th March 2007 {{Unsigned|Mr flibble}}

:Where are you getting your "true meaning of [[Jesus Christ]]"? You're not getting it out of the [[Bible]]. Sure, Jesus encouraged people to be charitable. But He also said,<blockquote>The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them any time you want. But you will not always have me.</blockquote><ref>{{Bible ref|book=Mark|chap=14|verses=7|version=NIV}}</ref> And BTW: the context under which He said that was that [[Judas Iscariot]] had just complained about a woman breaking a three-hundred-[[denarius|dinar]] vial of fragrant oil over Jesus' head. (Well, everyone was complaining about it, but Judas the loudest.) Judas didn't care about the poor; he just wanted to make up the deficit in the apostolic treasury, which he had emptied out earlier.<ref>{{Bible ref|book=John|chap=12|verses=6|version=NASB}}</ref>

:Now you're not the kind of embezzler that Judas was. But what shall we call one who wants to be awfully generous--with ''other people's money?'' I hardly think that Jesus would approve of that.--[[User:TerryH|TerryH]] 12:17, 13 March 2007 (EDT)

== References ==
<references/>
'''Bold text'''
Is this a joke?? I've never seen anything so absurd.

:The Mark quote is from Jesus, the John cite was talking about Judas Iscariot. --[[User:Cracker|Cracker]][[User_Talk:Cracker|talk]] 10:27, 17 March 2007 (EDT)

== Site acting up? ==

I keep seeing two things happen: Pages come up completely blank (usually article), and pages try to download instead of display. (Usually when I try to save after editing).
Anyone else get this? --[[User:Scrap|Scrap]] 02:01, 17 March 2007 (EDT)

:I've seen it, too. I thought my Internet connection was at fault. This site must be seeing so much traffic that it can't always keep up!--[[User:TerryH|TerryH]] 10:14, 17 March 2007 (EDT)

:The site was displaying blank pages for me yesterday. When I refreshed them, they would come up. As you can see, the look of the site has been modified. Perhaps that caused the slowness, because everything is normal for me now. As for trying to download pages, in your user preferences, under the Editing tab, make sure "Use external editor by default" is unchecked. ~ [[User:SharonS|SharonS]] [[User talk:SharonS|Talk!]] 10:19, 17 March 2007 (EDT)

::I've been having th same problems for a few days. I'm guessing it's a bandwidth issue; also checking in with a dns server checker showed some minor problems between the two dns that conservapedia runs. If the traffic gets higher they may want to think about adding another server or four.

::From the "recent changes page" it looks like the site was manually taken down to prevent vandalism. But that's just speculation on my part. --[[User:Cracker|Cracker]][[User_Talk:Cracker|talk]] 10:22, 17 March 2007 (EDT)

User talk:Plunge

2007-03-18T18:32:31Z

Plunge:

If you would like to change the [[Theory of Evolution]] page please propose your change and let it be debated before making the change. This should be done on the pages "Talk" page. Thanks a lot! [[User:PhilipB|PhilipB]] 19:44, 21 February 2007 (EST)

:Judging from your comments on that page's talk page, you're a biased, liberal evolutionist. What are you doing here? This is a conservative site, so geroff it if you don't like it and go edit Wikipedia. You have plenty of friends there. [[User:Scorpionman|Scorpionman]] 10:27, 7 March 2007 (EST)

:: You are confused. Not all conservatives reject science. The YEC position is not "the" conservative position at all. [[User:Plunge|Plunge]] 14:32, 18 March 2007 (EDT)

Talk:Dinosaur

2007-03-01T18:36:03Z

Plunge: /* Anti-Christian Bias */

How absurd!

What are "Old-Earth Evolutionists"? Is there another kind of "evolutionist"? Is evolutionist a word?

Why is the word "evolved" in inverted commas in the second sentence?

Why are the creationists referred to as scientists whereas the "Old-Earth Evolutionists" are not?

Why does it say that the "Creation scientists" have beliefs based on evidence when it says no such thing about the "Old-Earth Evolutionists"? (who you might think have a better claim to beliefs based on evidence).

Why doesn't the article tell me anything about dinosaurs?

I will be back to do some editing. --[[User:Horace|Horace]] 20:27, 22 February 2007 (EST)

:Note Horace's use above of the Britishism "inverted commas" instead of the proper American "quotation marks". This shibboleth makes his contributions look rather suspiciously like the work of a Wikipedia agitator. [[User:Rich P|Dr. Richard Paley]] 17:21, 23 February 2007 (EST)

::You, sir, are a bounder. Oops. Did it again. I would have thought that the substance of my contributions can speak for themselves. I am not any sort of agitator other than perhaps an agitator for accurate articles. --[[User:Horace|Horace]] 18:25, 25 February 2007 (EST)

There, that's a start. --[[User:Horace|Horace]] 20:49, 22 February 2007 (EST)

== Courtesy ==

How about some discussion before editing Rich? --[[User:Horace|Horace]] 21:45, 22 February 2007 (EST)

== Anti-Christian Bias ==

Why was all information based on the Creation worldview removed from this article? I thought this was precisely the sort of anti-Christian bias that Conservapedia was created to combat. Are people from Wikipedia trying to undermine this site? Well, nevermind; those interested to hear non-PC discussions of [http://creationwiki.org/Dinosaur dinosaurs] and Origins in general are welcome to come to [http://creationwiki.org/Main_Page CreationWiki] instead. [[User:Rich P|Dr. Richard Paley]] 01:41, 23 February 2007 (EST)

:I removed this information because it does not speak for all Christians, and none of the sources even claimed to speak for most Christians.

::Leaving aside the question of rampant apostasy in the modern Church re: Biblical Creation, I had originally clearly labeled those views as belonging to "Creation Scientists" -- for whom those sources do speak -- not "all Christians" or "most Christians". This was altered to "Creationists" in general (which is vague enough to include any number of errant views, including Hindu creation myths and Raelian extraterrestrial genetic-engineering delusions), and then the entire section was cut, leaving only the views of Darwinists. I do not see how these changes are consonant with the mission statement of Conservapedia (i.e. the elimination of Liberal bias which suppresses the Biblical worldview). Although it pains me to do so, I feel I must question whether those making these suspicious changes are working for the forces of Wikipedia to sneakily impose that project's PC, anti-Christian bias on this project. [[User:Rich P|Dr. Richard Paley]] 16:56, 23 February 2007 (EST)

::Furthermore, let me note that if this were merely a question of the views being presented in that paragraph only belonging to "some Christians", then why not ''add'' additional paragraphs explaining the views of the other so-called Christians instead of simply silencing the views of the (clearly labeled) subset of Christianity? Nothing is gained by this change except to give the false impression that all Christians agree with Darwinian views on dinosaurs. Was this the intent? [[User:Rich P|Dr. Richard Paley]] 17:08, 23 February 2007 (EST)

:::I am a Christian, and I accept evolution as a fact. I think that it is clearly demonstratable in the real-world. I know dozens of other Christians who also accept evolution. I think it is out of place for a website that is supposed to reflect all Christian views to only promote the views of a minority of Christians called "Creation Scientists". They should be relegated to the fringes, as they do not represent most Christians views.

:::Rich, there is a difference between writing from the creationist viewpoint and honesty. An article that claims, for instance, that Helder has documented "fresh" dinosaur remains may or may not be creationist in nature, but one thing it certainly is is dishonest, because no such documentation has stood up to any sort of scrutiny. Anyone can make claims, but if you don't care about the actual validity of those claims, only what views they purport to support, then you are not engaging in true scholarly citation practices.[[User:Plunge|Plunge]] 13:36, 1 March 2007 (EST)

Debate:Is the theory of macroevolution true?

2007-03-01T12:08:32Z

Plunge:

Post Your Thoughts

== Yes ==

Arguments for * All life on Earth shares common ancestor

*All life on Earth shares common ancestor
#All life on Earth shares molecular features.
#*'''Counter:''' This is not a scientific argument for evolution. First, this argument says nothing about a *process* of evolution. It does not reveal any transitional forms between species, for examples. In fact, lots of DNA evidence tends to disprove transitions from one species to another. Second, there is no objective or scientific way to say one thing is like another. If you insist there is, then you'd have to agree that intelligent design is science also. Note, by the way, that all of Shakespeare's plays "share" similar features, but one play did not evolve by itself into another.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 23:54, 21 December 2006 (EST)
#*:::What DNA evidence disproves transitions between species?
##Same macromolecules (DNA, RNA, protein)
##Same monomers for those macromolecules (five nucleotides, twenty standard amino acids)
##Same chirality of molecules. DNA in all complex life forms is right-handed, research suggests[http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&res=9802E1DB1F3DF936A15751C0A9659C8B63] that left-handed DNA would work just as well.
###If life forms did not have common ancestors we would expect to see a fairly even distribution of left and right handed DNA.
##Genetic system:
##*Ribosome structure
##*tRNA structure
##*The universal genetic code (and slight deviations from it)
##*Information encoded in nucleotide polymers (DNA or RNA).
#Differences between organisms can be explained by known mechanisms of genetic mutation.
#*'''Counter:''' There has not been enough time for mutation to generate existing biological diversity.
#**'''Counter:''' There has been enough time enough time to generate existing biological diversity.
#***'''Counter:''' The time argument doesn't help. Decay, scattering, extinction, defects, disasters, etc., all INCREASE over time. Besides, all mutations are harmful.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 23:54, 21 December 2006 (EST)
#****'''Counter:''' Mutations are ''mostly'' harmful, but not always.

NATURAL genetic changes can only account for diversity within a species. Mendellian genetics has demonstrated the existence of a closed field of genetic changes which can occur through the reproductive process.

#*#The speed of evolution is measured by the [[w:Darwin (unit)|darwin]] (change in an organism's character by a factor of e per million years.) [http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/section5.html#morphological_rates]
#*#Evolution in the lab can be as high as 200,000 darwins.
#*#As measured by the fossil record, the average evolutionary rate in the wild is 370 darwins.
#*#A rate of 400 darwins is capable of turning a mouse into an elephant in just 10,000 years.
#*No other (non-human) process has been observed to generate biological diversity.
#*Extensive biological diversity existed before humans had the ability to create new forms by molecular recombination.

Counter- The argument concerning rate of change assumes that biological evolution is described by a linear equation. However, observation and Mendellian genetics theory suggest that evolutionary change is better described by a rational function bounded by an assymptote. For example, it is relatively easy to crossbreed a pure bred dog so that you obtain a mutt or a nearly pure bred dog of another species. However, it will take an infinite amount of time to entirely replace the traits of the original breed with those of the new breed- the graph of evolutionary change, with change on the y-axis and time on the x-axis, has reached a horizontal assymptote. The dog remains a dog.
-Chris J
::: Um, what? I'm a bit of a mathy person and have some background in genetics as well, and the above doesn't seem to be anything but an assertion dressed up in mathematical terminology. [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 14:06, 13 February 2007 (EST)

Which part is unclear? The statements concerning the fossil record and crossbreeding within a species are simple, factual observations. If the argument concernig rate of change in units of Darwins is not based on a linear function, what is it based on? And to clarify- by saying that Change approaches a horizontal assymptote, I mean that change continues over time, but becomes infinitely small and and never exceeds a fixed point. The dog may, through natural reproduction, become another kind of dog. But observation tells us that it will never sprout wings and become a bird.
-Chris J
:::: Ok, for starters, you refer "observation and Mendellian genetics theory suggest that evolutionary change is better described by a rational function bounded by an assymptote" - it isn't clear what your relevant vairable is that is being bounded. Continuing, your next sentence claims that "it is relatively easy to crossbreed a pure bred dog so that you obtain a mutt or a nearly pure bred dog of another species." I'm not even sure what to make of this sentence since dog breeds aren't separate species. You furthermore assert that "it will take an infinite amount of time to entirely replace the traits of the original breed with those of the new breed" if anything this is what one might have thought before Mendel. Since alleles come in discrete entities and one does not have genetic continua, this is false. Not only is it false, it is irrelevant, since whether we are able to breed something to be identical to some pre-existing similar organism is irrelevant. Your summary remarks that "The dog remains a dog" and your rephrase that "observation tells us that it will never sprout wings and become a bird" are simply assertions and not very relevant ones anyways(evolution wouldn't expect a dog to "sprout wings" although there are excellent examples of transitionals between true flyers and others). The terminology is so vague as to make it unclear exactly you mean that a dog will always remain a dog. Do you mean there will be never be a reproductive barrier? Do you mean that it will fit what your intuitive notion of what a dog looks like?. (Also, while we are on the topic of defintions, you use both "species" in a non-standard way, and use "kind" in a way that isn't even standard for creationists. If you are going to use terms in a non-standard fashion, defining them would be good). [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 14:40, 13 February 2007 (EST)

:::::Chris, I think you have a misconception of how common descent works. The claim that no dog will become anything other than another kind of dog is, in fact, true, according to evolutionary theory, not a challenge of it. The statement is essentially no different than the claim that mammals never become anything other than mammals, or eukaryotes will never be anything other than eukaryotes. Common descent specifies that evolution happens via nested clades: groups within groups, not one group becoming another. This can be confusing because Linnean taxonomy is static, not cladistic.[[User:Plunge|Plunge]] 18:22, 20 February 2007 (EST)

::::::Evolution proposes that complexity increases such that more advanced species somehow emerge from less sophisticated ones. This is has never been observed, has never been duplicated in a laboratory, and requires a reduction in entropy at constant energy that contradicts all observations. All observations are of devolution, or the disappearance or reduction in complexity.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 18:34, 20 February 2007 (EST)

::::::: That's incorrect. Evolution does not make any claims about some species being more or less advanced. Evolution does not work on a ladder. Also, I'm not sure what you mean when you claim that increases in complexity have never been observed. As in many cases, this may depend on what you mean by complexity. However, regardless of what you mean a variety of mutations have been observed in humans and other species which add essentially new functions to the species. One common example of this is bacteria becoming immune to antibiotics. [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 19:07, 20 February 2007 (EST)

I specified that evolutionary change is the dependent variable, or Y-value, bounded by a horizontal assymptote, with time as the independent variable, or X-value. Your second remark is entirely correct- I misused the word "species" when I meant to refer only to changes between breeds. Observation has shown that some dominant genetic traits tend to be passed on to an organism's offspring, but alleles place boundaries on the change that can occur through this process. It is true that it is difficult to quantify evolutionary change, since it does not appear to progress in any certain direction- another challenge to the above argument concerning the progress of evolutionary change over time. I chose a rational graph with the dependent variable bounded by a horizontal assymptote as an illustration because the aforementioned argument seemed to assume that evolutionary change could be expressed with respect to time or reproductive cycles by a linear graph. I chose the example of cross breeding because it is an example of the reproductive cycle being manipulated to produce maximum evolutionary change. The natural rate of change would be much slower, if indeed there were any measurable change. My statements about a dog "remaining a dog" and not changing species were meant only as examples of the genetic limitations of evolutionary change through natural reproduction, which is generaly limited by species, though somtimes by more inclusive levels of biological classification.

: I'm not sure I completely follow some of what you said such as "Observation has shown that some dominant genetic traits tend to be passed on to an organism's offspring"- alleles are passed on just as frequently whether they are dominant or recessive. We are however, getting to the crux of the matter (although I incidentally note that you ignored the issue of discrete genetics), saying that change is "generaly limited by species, though somtimes by more inclusive levels of biological classification" is not useful. Beyond the species level all classification has a highly arbitrary element to it, at which point it isn't at all clear *why* you would presume that evolution at that level wouldn't occur (there is no sign of any magic barrier or such). This has also the incidental problem that speciation is in fact common. There are possibly hundreds of observed speciation events and I could easily provide (if you wanted) 10 or 15 of them and the relevant citations. (Also, many creationists support not just that speciation has occured but that rapid speciation occured right after the Deluge(indeed, in AIG's account this speciation happened far more uniformily and far faster than any biologist would ever predict and far faster than any observed level). To some extent this reflects a changing of the goalposts- 100 years ago no creationist acknowledged any form of evolution, then in the 1960s the evidence got overwhelming enough that the creationists conceded "microevolution" meaning evolution within species, and more recently many creationists now agree that evolution above the species level can occur, but not much above it. [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 16:14, 13 February 2007 (EST)

'''Reply:'''
:::The boundry that defines into what an organism can and cannot evolve is not a "magic barrier" but its own DNA. An organism can only lose genetic information. There has never been an observed exception to this rule. What Chris tried to demonstrate (I think) by his example of a dog is that a dog can change but it cannot become anything beyond the limit set by its own genes; it cannot "sprout wings and become a bird"

:::--[[User:BenjaminS|BenjaminS]] 21:00, 13 February 2007 (EST)

::::: Ben, this doesn't help at all. This is yet more vague assertions with undefined terms. And almost any defintion of the terms will in fact render the statements false. For example the claim that "an organism can only lose genetic information" - so in this context what do you mean by information? Do you mean in terms of Shannon's measure of information? This is easily seen to be false. Do you mean in terms of Kolmogorov complexity? Again, the claim is false. Indeed, by any reasonable defintion the claim is false. To see why consider the following: Consider some function f that is a function of the current genetic makeup of some creature and turns out some non-negative real number representing how much information there is in that genome. Now, suppose creature A through either mutation or recombination has offspring A' and f(A') < f(A) (that is, A' has lost information). Then the mutation that goes from A' to something with genome A is an example of a gain in information. Since all mutations are reversible, we've established that for any reasonable defintion of information, information can be gained (modulo the essentially trivial case of all genomes having the same information value) [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 22:27, 13 February 2007 (EST)

#*'''Counter:''' Despite a century of teaching evolution in American schools, the majority of Americans still reject it. The burden of proof is on the evolutionists, and the proof just isn't there. Darwinists would be better off looking for another theory to try to replace Christianity.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 23:54, 21 December 2006 (EST)

>95% of academic biologists support it.

Those who argue against it have a poor understanding of biology.

:'''Comment on logic''': I am sorry, but your answer is an appeal to authority, a common logical mistake. But its ok. I am sure there is still more evidence to support your point? [[User:David R|David R]]

: '''Reply''': You say that "95% of academic biologists support it." What evidence do you have to support this statement? I have often wondered if there was a place were one could view this sort of information. It would be most helpful.

: You go on to say that "Those who argue against it have a poor understanding of biology." Again, what evidence do you have to support this statement? Here are some creation biologists, to name a few:

* Dr. Raymond G. Bohlin, Biologist
* Dr. Andrew Bosanquet, Biology, Microbiology
* Prof. Chung-Il Cho, Biology Education
* Dr. Chris Darnbrough, Biochemist
* Dr. David A. DeWitt, Biology, Biochemistry, Neuroscience
* Dr. Dudley Eirich, Molecular Biologist
* Prof. Carl B. Fliermans, Professor of Biology
* Prof. Robert H. Franks, Associate Professor of Biology
* Dr. Duane Gish, Biochemist
* Dr. D.B. Gower, Biochemistry
* Dr. Bob Hosken, Biochemistry

: All of them have doctoral degrees in some sort of biology and all argue against macro-evolution and for creationism. Are you claiming that all of them have a poor understanding of biology? [[User:PhilipB|PhilipB]] 23:29, 17 December 2006 (EST)

: '''Another Reply''': I assume that you have a better understanding of biology upon which to base this attack? Please enlighten us; how would a wise biologist refute the facts that seemingly disprove evolution? Where is the host of intermediate links? When have biologists observed an organism acctually '''''gain''''' genetic information through a mutation rather than lose it? [[User:BenjaminS|BenjaminS]]

:: '''Response''': I take it your claim is that all mutations cause a loss of genetic information. This claim is false. Consider: if all mutations cause a loss of genetic information, then point mutations cause a loss of genetic information. But all point mutations are reversible—that is, the nucleotide that changes can change back. So if the original point mutation caused a loss of information, the reversed mutation must cause a gain in information.--[[User:Stereotypical A|Stereotypical A]] 20:36, 20 February 2007 (EST)

::: REPLY: It requires intelligent intervention to reverse a mutation. Lost genetic information will not be restored simply by chance.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 20:52, 20 February 2007 (EST)

:::: Absolutely false. Point mutations can go either way (and frequently do). In fact, there are a number of tests which measure how mutagenic various mutagens are by using this property. Basically, you take a type of bactera which has a point mutation that leaves it unable to synthesize a necessary amino acid and then you grow a colony of that bacterium and expose them to the desired mutagen. Then you measure what fraction of the colony can survive if you remove the necessary amino acid from the medium. This sort of test has been done for about 30 years now. [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 22:58, 20 February 2007 (EST)
Having studied and worked with scientists for a decade, and spending another decade debating armchair evolutionists, I've found that it is usually someone unsuccessful in the hard sciences (physical, chemistry, biology and you might add mathematics) who is drawn most to evolution. The late evolution-promoter Stephen Jay Gould, for example, was merely a geology major at Antioch College. Big evolution promoter Richard Dawkins was an assistant professor at Berkeley, and then a lecturer, and then it's not clear to me what his academic status was for a while. Meanwhile, real experts, such as Richard Sternberg who has TWO PhDs in evolution fields, have been critical of the theory. But Sternberg was harshly disciplined for daring to question the theory, and few are anxious to risk similar retaliation.

>It is at least a puzzle to understand how Creationism accounts for seemingly-badly-designed aspects of anatomy and physiology. For example, the eyes of cephalopods (squid, octopus) and those of vertebrates (mammals, including humans) are strikingly similar in their general "design" with one conspicuous exception. In the cephalopod eye, the retina is structured exactly as one would expect: the light-sensitive receptors face forward, toward the lens, and the nerve fibers that join to form the optic nerve exit in the back.

In the human eye, however, the retina is structured in a very surprising way that is exactly the reverse. The receptors face ''backwards,'' and not only the nerve fibers that collect to form the optic nerve but also all of the blood vessels that nourish it are in ''front,'' where they block the view and cast shadows on the retina. The result is that the human eye has a large and seemingly unnecessary blind spot, and that very intricate processing by the brain is necessary to hide the image of the shadows of the blood vessels.

It all works, of course, but it is puzzling as to why an intelligent creator would design it this way, particularly given that the much older cephalopod eye does it the "right" way. No doubt it is ''possible'' to explain this (just as it is ''possible'' to explain fossils by saying that God created the fossils along with everything else in 4004 BC).

It seems much easier to explain this as a series of incremental adaptations rather than as being "designed" the way a human engineer would design a camera. Of course that does not mean that the incremental adaptations were necessarily guided by pure natural selection as envisioned by Darwin, either. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 14:01, 18 December 2006 (EST)

: '''Reply''': I don't know where you got the thing about creationists believing that God created the fossils in 4004 B.C., but I believe that the vast majority of fossils are the product of Noah's flood as it is described in Genesis. [[User:ChrisS|ChrisS]]

:: The fossil and geological record is entirely inconsistent with this belief. Even if everything was, against all other evidence to the contrary, laid down in a single flood event, how come not even a single Cambrian fossil floated up into what mainstream geologists think of as modern strata, or a dinosaur sunk down into the Cambrian strata? Why are fossils laid out in the column in a very particular nested pattern of change over time rather than sorted according to which bodies float best or worst? [[User:Plunge|Plunge]] 07:08, 1 March 2007 (EST)

: '''Reply''': I believe that almost everything you say here provides evidence '''for''' creation. Let me explain... in you first paragraph you state that mammals "are strikingly similar in their general 'design'". This is true but does this support macro-evolution? I think not. Wouldn't macro-evolution produce many different types of "eyes" that would work? Why are they all so similar?

::In fact, there ARE many different "evolutions" of eyes in the animal kingdom: many different sorts, in fact. However, the expectation that there would be many completely different types of eyes in one particular sub-branch that already started out having one particular SORT of eye is not what evolution would suggest, and isn't what we see. Common descent proposes descent via modification, not complete past-disregarding innovation. As such, we would expect that all mammal eyes would be nested variations of the same basic origin, and in fact that is exactly what we find. 07:08, 1 March 2007 (EST)

: You go on to say that in the human the eye is just different from all these other eyes. You say this provides evidence against creation because, if it were true, why is it not the same as the others. Well, doesn't this also support creationism? Why would just one be different? Because our creator was original, he was an artist, not a robot. As for the "very intricate processing by the brain <nowiki>[that]</nowiki> is necessary to hide the image of the shadows of the blood vessels." This is more evidence for creation. Why would natural selection create a process like this? It seems pointless to us, but those "intricate" processes were intricately '''designed'''. Maybe our creator was trying to show that he existed... He created this one eye that wouldn't work; if it not for these amazing brain processes. [[User:PhilipB|PhilipB]] 15:11, 18 December 2006 (EST)

::It's certainly a point of view... but didn't you feel that you needed to work just a bit to arrive at it?

::Although it's certainly ''possible,'' I don't believe that God involves himself in the design details of vertebrate anatomy, and I certainly don't believe he goes to the effort of putting in deliberate design errors as a trick to test peoples' faith. I think a lot more likely that God created the general conditions under which evolution by natural selection takes place, and the "wrong" anatomy of the vertebrate retina is the result of the constraints of having evolved in gradual steps. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 11:48, 19 December 2006 (EST)

: '''Reply:''' There is nothing to indicate that the human eye is an "error"; it works wonderfully. Also under the belief that God is omnipotent, I have no trouble as you do in believing that God would design the details of vertebrate anatomy, especially in light of the arguments against evolution below (with the possible exception of argument #7). Why would he let life progress at random when he could create every thing "fearfully and wonderfully" to reflect his awesome greatness?

[[User:BenjaminS|BenjaminS]]

'''3''' There is a double nested hierarchy. That is, all life forms two nested hierarchies, one morphological and one genetic and these hierarchies correspond to how they evolved. While it is true that when designers as we know them design things they design them with similarities, they do not design them in nested hierarchies. Human designers will use an idea in one place and then copy that section over somewhere else. (For example, one would not expect an engineer to design the panda's thumb but rather expect the engineer use the pre-existing thumb design from primates). [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 16:01, 13 February 2007 (EST)

==No==

If you have questions about Evolution/Creationism see the articles on this website [http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/]

I would just like to say that the "theory" of Evolution ''does not even qualify as a theory!!'' According to the scientific method, after you make a hypothesis, if '''''ANY''''' data comes up that contradicts you hypothesis than it must either be revised or discarded! How come even though there is much evidence that contradicts evolution it is still considered a theory? [[User:ChrisS|ChrisS]]

:You need to actually cite some of this information, not just claim that there is some. The evidence is remarkably consistent with evolution, in fact, in a way known as evidential convergence. [[User:Plunge|Plunge]] 07:08, 1 March 2007 (EST)

'''No'''
: 1. No credible transitional forms (fossils reflecting evolution between species) have ever been found.
::'''Counter:''' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_transitional_fossils Some transitional forms]
:::'''Counter:'''

:::All of these examples given in the above about the evolution of the whale are nonsense:

:::* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pakicetus Pakicetus] -- What makes this a "link"? It was nothing but a land mammal gone extinct.

:::* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambulocetus Ambulocetus] -- The reason given that this is a link is complete nonsense. It resembles a whale??? Most trees resemble eachother, they all have a trunk, branches, leaves, etc. Does this mean that all trees are somehow missing links between each other?

:::* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorudon Dorudon] -- I guess Wikipedia supposes this is a missing link because it uses sonar??? Same as example above.

:::* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basilosaurus Basilosaurus] -- Another extinct species called a link because it "resembles" a whale.

:::* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurhinodelphis Eurhinodelphis] -- No reason given that is may be a missing link.

:::* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mammalodon Mammalodon colliveri] -- The article just makes an unsupported statement. I would consider this article for deletion (no notability).

:::[[User:PhilipB|PhilipB]] 11:46, 3 January 2007 (EST)

:::: '''Counter''' This may be an example of where going to specialized sources rather than relying on Wikipedia would be in order. However, some of these do in fact make clear why they are considered transitionals. For example, Pakicetus (as discussed in the Wikipedia article) had an inner ear structure that was very cetacean.(Not mentioned in the article but also relevant, Pakicetus had teeth that were very similar to some of the later transitionals in this list although not quite of the standard cetacean form) Proceeding, ambulectus had a bone structure consistent with something which spent time both walking and swimming and bears some similarities to Pakicetus. Basilosaurus looks almost like a modern whale except for the vestigial limbs. I'm not going to go into the others in detail but that should make it clear that there is good reason to see these as transitionals. [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 15:49, 13 February 2007 (EST)

: 2. There is no plausible explanation for the evolution of the whale, which is a mammal. Darwin suggested that the whale somehow came from black bears swimming with their mouths open!
:: Darwin was just speculating, and said so, and it hardly matters whether he was right or not anyway. As it happens though, he wasn't all that far off regardless: whales and dolphins are indeed descendants of land mammals (their closest living genetic relative is the hippo). All dolphins and whales form embryonically, just like other mammals, in such a way that "leg buds" appear on the embryo. However, in their case, these legs are later reabsorbed again. However, this process is not always perfect: some whales have even been discovered with atavisms of hind legs, legs attached, amazingly, to the remnants of their vestigial pelvis. [[User:Plunge|Plunge]] 07:08, 1 March 2007 (EST)

: 3. Evolution cannot be reconciled with the evidence of a massive flood.
::And what evidence would that be?

: 4. All mutations are harmful.
::'''Counter''' This is a false argument. Firstly, it is estimated 1/3 of point mutations (mutations affecting one link in the DNA and no others) are not harmful. Secondly, though the number is small, there are documented cases of mutations being beneficial - an example is sickle cell anemia. This mutation is a flaw in the hemoglobin gene of humans, causing these molecules to covalently bond into long, bristly fibers inside the red blood cell that distort them into a sickle cell shape. This mutation makes sickle cell individuals immune to malaria, and many of the people residing in countries where this disease is prevalent have this mutation. The people affected by this mutation have lived and multiplied, thereby disproving this myth. Also see Counter argument to #5. [[User:PhyllisS|PhyllisS]]

'''Reply:''' Phyllis, I don't know where you got your information on sickle cell anemia but it was certainly a biased source. You have not given the full story; 25% of those with sickle cell anemia die prematurely! '''''This is not a good mutation.''''' As the closest thing to a good mutation that evolutionists can come up with this is not supportive of evolution at all.
--[[User:BenjaminS|BenjaminS]] 23:40, 13 January 2007 (EST)

'''Further Reply:''' Overall the mutation sickle cell anemia is obviously harmful. The same is true for all mutations. Simple probability predicts this: a random mutation is far more likely to reach a less desirable form. The odds are overwhelming. It is the same reason that heat always flows to cooler places. If you think mutations can be beneficial, then do you also think heat can sometimes "by chance" flow to a hotter place? That if we added billions of years it must happen sometimes? Of course not. It never happens.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 23:01, 14 January 2007 (EST)

::I don't see how you can claim that it is overall harmful. It confers immunity to a highly destructive disease to the majority of the population that has the trait. The price of the acute disorder is not a bar to it being an overall benefit for a population, especially since even those sufferers often live long enough to reproduce. Beneficial and detrimental are generally contextual and environmental, not absolute. The recent mutation (we was tracked back to a single man in Italy) that causes immunity to LDH cholesterol (and thus to many forms of heart disease caused by fatty modern diets) is certainly beneficial in modern society. Tetrachromatism in women (four color vision) is likewise a very neat mutational development, but it's not clear that it confers any selective advantage. In a different environment it might be beneficial or even detrimental for some reason.07:08, 1 March 2007 (EST)

'''Further Reply:''' Heat flowing to cooler places is entirely irrelevant to our discussion. Please elaborate. --[[User:PhyllisS|PhyllisS]]

'''Comment:''' You should try to bear with Mr. Schlafly's abstract analogies (I know that they rarely make sense) and respond to his points that are doing you any harm; e.g. "Overall the mutation sickle cell anemia is obviously harmful. The same is true for all mutations."

--[[User:BenjaminS|BenjaminS]] 18:21, 17 January 2007 (EST)

*This is not '''exactly''' a counter to [[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]]. But... Darwin was writing in the days when breeders were starting to do amazing things with selective breeding, which was one of the things that impressed him. Selective breeding is still going on and it is still amazing. In 1910 the average domesticated chickens laid 80 eggs a year; by 1999 292 eggs a year. There are similar stories for milk production per cow, meat per chicken, etc. Some of the improvement is due to changes in feed, antibiotics, hormones, whatever, but most of it is from selective breeding. So the question I would ask is: if all mutations are harmful, then where do breeders find the slightly improved animals to select as the progenitors of the next generation? [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 18:46, 22 January 2007 (EST)

: The vast majority of mutations are neutral or have no observable phenotypic change. Furthermore, of those mutations which are not in those categories, for most mutations whether or not the mutation is beneficial is highly connected to the environment which the relevant organism is found (sickle-cell anemia provides a vivid demonstration of this). However, other examples which are more directly beneficial. For example, many bacteria have gained mutations for immunity to various antibiotics, while other bacteria have gained mutations that allow them to eat nylon (a purely synthetic material). A more prosaic example is lactose tolerance. [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 22:43, 6 February 2007 (EST)

: 5. Species have being going extinct rather than being generated.
::'''Counter''' This is not true. For example, through a specific type of sympatric speciation, new species of plants are able to form and have formed in abundance. It occurs from meiosis not occuring properly in the production of gametes. These "mutant" offspring are a new species and cannot produce offspring with the species they came from, yet can produce fertile offspring with other plants that were mutated the same way. --[[User:PhyllisS|PhyllisS]]

'''Reply:''' This is true; the statement above is only a general rule. What can be said for sure is that though mutations occur, there has never been a documented example of a organism '''''gaining''''' genetic information.--[[User:BenjaminS|BenjaminS]] 23:40, 13 January 2007 (EST)
:Nonsense. There is only one precise measure of information, and that is Shannon information. By that metric, virtually any change at all to an organism is an increase in genetic information. If that's not what you meant by information, however, then there are other ways to frame the question, and countless observed cases for every one. In fact, if say you accept microevolution then I'm sorry to say that you by definition accept that genetic information can increase. Anytime a gene pool is skewed via natural selection to alter the frequency of alleles in some adaptive way, the gene pool is clearly _gaining_ information about the particular environment it is in!

'''Further reply:''' Right. The mutant offspring devolved, not evolved.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 23:01, 14 January 2007 (EST)
:'''Further reply:''' The organism did not devolve. Please explain this reply further. --[[User:PhyllisS|PhyllisS]]
::'''Comment:''' I think that by "devolve" he is trying to point out that organisms only ''lose'' genetic information through mutation; evolution relies upon the ''gain'' genetic information.--[[User:BenjaminS|BenjaminS]] 18:21, 17 January 2007 (EST)

: 6. All unaided things become more disordered and scattered over time.
::'''Counter''' Which is an argument against the existence of technology, cities, cars and everything advanced. This is a (rather embarrassing) misconception about the second law of thermodynamics. It states that entropy increases in a closed system. The earth is not a closed system, as processes here are powered by the energy originating from the sun. Order can increase in a system as long as more energy is inserted. A '''closed''' system is a system that doesn't receive such outside energy.
::::'''Comment on "closed system":''' So what you are saying that the order and energy of the Earth is dependent and derived from the Sun. Where does the Sun get its energy? What happens when it runs out of fuel, whether that be millions or even billions of years away? Molecules are ''still'' breaking down within the Sun. No matter how you look at it, the entire universe, "closed system" or not, is a slave of the second law of thermodynamics. [[User:David R|David R]]

:::::'''Further comment:''' That's right, David. By the way, the injection of energy into a system ''increases'' entropy. The only way to decrease entropy is intelligent ordering or intervention. Without that, entropy and disorder always increase. Whatever species existed 5000 years ago, in the absence of divine intervention there must be less ordered, less advanced, fewer species today. We see many examples of this: species go extinct each year, breeds of dogs degrade (e.g., Golden Retriever), even humans have increased incidence of asthma and other health problems from generation to generation. Take a look at how smart humans were just 100 or 200 years ago by looking at their writings, and compare that to the average human writings today. Entropy predicts degradation of everything over time in the absence of intelligent intervention.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 22:26, 14 January 2007 (EST)
::::::The injection of energy into a system increases enthalpy, not entropy, Aschlafly. DNA, proteins, and other highly-ordered macromolecules stay together not because of intelligent intervention, but because of enthalpic contributions that offset the entropic cost. Also, you state that "Entropy predicts degradation... in the absence of intelligent intervention", just after you comment that everything is degrading. Wouldn't that imply, then, the absence of intelligent intervention?
::'''Counter:'''"All unaided things become more disordered and scattered over time." This is just false. We know living things become more complex and organized over time, because we can see it happening, e.g. a seed growing into a tree.

: 7. There is vast beauty in the world which would not exist in a purely evolutionary world. "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament shows his handiwork" (Psalm 19:1)
::'''Counter''' This is an irrelevant argument. What evidence exists to say that evolution cannot produce beauty? Besides that, what is the definition of beauty? Beauty can be a life form adapted to its environment, beauty can be a beneficial mutation, beauty can be monomers spontaneously forming polymers when dripped on hot clay...all examples of evolution. [[User:PhyllisS|PhyllisS]]

:::This argument "against" evolution is terrible! Though evolution is false this isn't why. Unfortunately for evolutionists everywhere your counter argument does no better supporting evolution than the first one did disproving it.--[[User:BenjaminS|BenjaminS]] 23:40, 13 January 2007 (EST)

:::: Brilliant autumn foliage is beautiful. You won't find anyone who sincerely denies it, exact perhaps the most hardened evolutionist. But it is impossible for the beauty in brilliant autumn foliage to have evolved before humans even existed.

:::: Evolutionists generally deny that there is intrinsic beauty in nature. Over 99% of Americans think there is beauty in nature. Take your pick. Count me as part of the over 99% majority.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 22:47, 14 January 2007 (EST)

:::::I don't think "evolutionists generally deny that there is intrinsic beauty in nature." Where did you get that? (Not a rhetorical question, I'm curious to know. Do creationists go around saying such a thing?) Stephen Jay Gould wrote "Shall we appreciate any less the beauty of nature because its harmony is unplanned?" Darwin wrote
::::::"The view seen when crossing the hills behind Praia Grande was most beautiful; the colours were intense, and the prevailing tint a dark blue; the sky and the calm waters of the bay vied with each other in splendour;" "The number of beautiful fishing birds, such as egrets and cranes, and the succulent plants assuming most fantastical forms, gave to the scene an interest which it would not otherwise have possessed." "The beautiful view of the distant wooded hills, reflected in the perfectly calm water of an extensive lagoon, quite refreshed us." etc. etc. etc.
:::::Maybe you think that evolutionists must seal their minds into logic-tight compartments in order to appreciate the beauty of nature while at the same time trying to explain it from natural causes, but they do it nonetheless. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 15:55, 22 January 2007 (EST)

'''Reply:''' I personally believe that God purposefully created nature for humans to enjoy and care for and that he purposefully made it beautiful as a blessing for us. nevertheless, from an evolutionary standpoint, beauty can still be explained; if we all came from a common ancestor, especially given our reliance on nature for suvival, I don't see why the theory of evolution cannot be reconciled with the fact that 99% of Americans find beauty in autumn foliage.--[[User:BenjaminS|BenjaminS]] 23:57, 14 January 2007 (EST)

: 8. Abiogenesis is impossible. Even the simplest life form possible would be way too complicated to spring from nothing.
::'''Counter''' Regardless if it's possible or not, it's not an argument against macroevolution.
::'''Counter''' You don't know that it's impossible. No one knows what the simplest life form is, but pretending that abiogenesis concerns the simplest MODERN life (i.e. a modern cell) is nonsense: that's not what's being suggested at all. Besides, talking about stacking chemical reactions that observably naturally occur is not "springing from nothing."[[User:Plunge|Plunge]] 23:49, 20 February 2007 (EST)

'''No''': In short... no. In long... there is much evidence against the theory that proves it is false. First of all there is the classic argument that the "missing links" are '''''still''''' missing. Here is what Darwin had to say on the subject. <blockquote>"Geological research, though it has added numerous species to existing and extinct genera, and has made the intervals between some few groups less wide then they otherwise would have been, yet has done scarcely anything in breaking the distinction between species, by connecting them together by numerous, fine, intermediate varieties; and this having been affected, is probably the gravest and most obvious of all the many objections which can be raised against my views." (''[[The Origin of Species]]'', 6th edition, 1962, Collier Books, NY, p.462.)</blockquote>
:So wait, you are citing as your most recent survey of the fossil evidence something written in the '''1800s'''??? It's also more than a little dishonest to quote someone introducing a problem and then pretend that they didn't, as Darwin did, go on to answer the objection at great length. Finally, there are also no such things as "missing links" in a biological sense: this is a misconception. We will never have a fossil of every single species, let alone individual, that ever lived. And we don't need to. The fossils we do have are already more than enough to map out the overall picture and general relations of species, and all these fossils are consistent with the very specific pattern of geologic and geographic distribution that common descent demands of them. [[User:Plunge|Plunge]] 07:08, 1 March 2007 (EST)

Since when you are looking for data from the earth's history the first place you would look is the fossil record. What does the fossil record say? It says macroevolution '''''never''''' happened. There are even less documented "missing links" today then there were in Darwin's day. Obviously, macro-evolutionists want these "missing" links to be found desperately based on the elaborate measures they have gone through to try and fake the public out into believing one has been found. Take, for example, the famous Nebraska Man. He was supposed "evidence" for macro-evolution but in reality he was based entirely on a tooth from an extinct species of pig found among some ancient tools![http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/a_nebraska.html] This is only the beginning of the evidence against macro-evolution and I will be adding more to this edit as I get the time! [[User:PhilipB|PhilipB]] 11:06, 17 December 2006 (EST)

:: ''''Counter''' The above claims are simply false. We have hundreds of major transitional fossils(which is what I presume you mean by "missing link") between a variety of different groups. Examples include Australopithecus as transitional between humans ape like ancestors and humans, hasiophis terrasanctus (sp?) a transitional snake with hind limbs and many others. Name almost any major grouping and we will have transitional fossils between the various groups. For some groups we have very detailed transitional sequences. For example, between fish and tetrapods is a particularly good example, and the transitions between land mammals and whales have become well developed over the last 20 years. [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 14:14, 13 February 2007 (EST)

: 9. The "Anthro-Simianic Paradox" -- If great apes evolved into humans, why are there still great apes? The inherent inconsistency in the pro-Darwinistical position can be verified scientifically, using the foam dinosaurs that grow larger in water. Place a package of tiny foam dinosaurs (representing apes) into a sink (representing evolution). All the dinosaurs will grow to giant proportions (representing humans) and no tiny foam dinosaurs will be left. Clearly, scientists must examine alternate hypotheses for the evolution of giant foam dinosaurs (human beings).

:: I'm presuming this is a parody. [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 21:39, 21 February 2007 (EST)

== Evolution is a Racist Philosophy ==

*"At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace the savage races throughout the world. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes ... will no doubt be exterminated. The break between man and his nearest Allies will then be wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilized state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as the baboon, instead of as now between the Negro or Australian and the gorilla." (Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man 2nd ed (New York: A. L. Burt Co., I 874), p. 178)."

*"The Negroid stock is even more ancient than the Caucasian and Mongolian, as may be proved by an examination not only of the brain, of the hair, of the bodily characters. such as the teeth, the genitalia, the sense organs, but of the instincts, the intelligence. The standard of intelligence of the average Negro is similar to that of the eleven-year-old youth of the species Homo sapiens. (Henry Fairfield Osborn, "The Evolution of the Human Races," Natural History, Jan./Feb. 1926. Reprinted in Natural History 89 (April 1980): 129.)" -evolutionist Henry Fairfield Osborn

*The full title of Darwin's book is ''On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life''
**It's worth noting though that "races" in the title refers to kinds of animals: it's never used to refer to people and in fact the book never mentions human beings at all until the very end, and then only briefly. It's rather dishonest to try and imply that this particular book says anything about human races.[[User:Plunge|Plunge]] 18:44, 20 February 2007 (EST)

*Hitler's atrocities were based on evolutionary philosophy.

::Evolution has certainly been used by racists in support of their views. Racists have used many things, including Christianity, in support of their views. Think of the burning crosses of the Ku Klux Klan.

::And, yes, Darwin shared the common prejudices of his day... which was the time when the British Empire was busily colonizing places inhabited by dark-skinned people. You would have been hard-pressed to find many people in Darwin's England who were ''not'' racists, by today's standards.

::I think the point being raised here is an appropriate one to raise. But I think "evolution is a racist philosophy" is an exaggeration. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 15:36, 22 January 2007 (EST)

:::Christianity is not racist at its core, yet it is made to seem racist by some. Jesus came to save all, not just more "advanced races." Evolution '''is''' racist at its core, yet it is made to seem like it's not. Dpbsmith, you say that "Darwin shared the common prejudices of his day," this is true, but what does that have to do with he argument? Are you saying that racism influenced him when he came up with evolution, in the way that he uses evolution to support racism? [[User:PhilipB|PhilipB]] 16:09, 22 January 2007 (EST)

:::1) I'm acknowledging that the quotation from Darwin ''can'' fairly be described as racist. 2) I'm saying that many evil things are done in the name of many causes, and that people who do evil things will usually find a way to justify them. 3) I'm saying that I think more people have been killed by people claiming to be acting in the name of Jesus than by people claiming to be acting in the name of Darwin.

:::It is sometimes difficult to believe just how prevasive racism was from, perhaps, the mid-1800s through the mid-1900s. When The New York Times reviewed Longfellow's ''Song of Hiawatha'' in 1855, the reviewer said that Longfellow had "embalm[ed] pleasantly enough the monstrous traditions of an uninteresting, and, one may almost say, a justly exterminated race." That doesn't excuse Darwin. But it does put it into context. I think I agree with you to the extent that Darwin said things that can be fairly called "racist" and that Jesus did not. I don't agree that that makes evolution "racist at the core." OK, I think I've made my point clearly enough... I'll leave you to get in the last word if you like. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 18:26, 22 January 2007 (EST)

:::: Also note that racism on Darwin's part in no way matters for whether the modern theory of evolution is either racist or correct. First, in general, the truth or falsity of any idea is independent of who it came from (if Darwin were a serial killer who liked to steal candy from babies it would not change the validity of his ideas in the slightest (if you don't believe me, perform the same thought experiment with [[Newton]] or [[Josiah Willard Gibbs]])). Second, the modern neo-synthesis is far removed from Darwin's original notions. [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 22:34, 6 February 2007 (EST)

:::: As a matter of fact, Darwin's attitudes on race were far more enlightened than most of his religious critics. Darwin was a dedicated and outspoken abolitionist, and advocate of rights for African Americans, and he argues in his works that African Americans and Europeans are actually far MORE ALIKE than most people thought at the time. Don't forget that the religious beliefs of his day were that either black people had been specially created separately from white people, or that they were a severely decayed form of white people. Darwin argued instead that all races were of very recent common origin. It's no co-incidence that millenia of racism collapsed almost overnight after the biological revolution that Darwin sparked showed that race is a relatively minor and confused factor.[[User:Plunge|Plunge]] 07:08, 1 March 2007 (EST)

Charles Darwin

2007-03-01T11:29:06Z

Plunge: most of what was there was contradictory and incoherent, I tried to give a more biological feel

[[Image:darwin.jpg|thumb|150px|right|Charles Darwin]]
Charles Darwin was a famous naturalist born in [[England]] to a Christian family on February 12, [[1809]]. He is best known for [[the theory of evolution]], which suggest that biological species develop over time via natural selection, branching from common origins. Outside of evolution in particular, he was regarded as an expert on barnacles as well as credited with discovering how coral atolls were formed.

==Early Career==

Darwin was originally in training for the clergy, but in doing so became the protege of the Reverend John Stevens Henslow, a professor of botany, and the Reverend Adam Sedgwick, a geologist. Henslow and Sedgwick spurred Darwin to pursue his interests as a naturalist.

After touring the [[Galapagos Islands]] and studying the animals that lived there, Darwin developed an interest in the patterns of species distribution he had documented on the journey, as well as his realization that the economic theories of Thomas Malthus might have some application in the biological world. Researching this issue on a global scale, he slowly developed his theory of [[natural selection]] and finally published [[''The Origin of Species'']] in [[1859]]. Darwin had not originally meant to publish his work so early in his life, and in fact was quite fearful of what the reception might be, but was prompted to do so after being contacted by another naturalist, Alfred Russel Wallace, who had developed similar ideas.

==Religious Beliefs==

Darwin's upbringing was a mix of Unitarian and Anglican Christianity. Throughout his life, he steadily began to drift away from Christianity and in particular trusting the accounts of the Old Testament, a process which began as early as his journey on the Beagle. Late in life he described himself as an agnostic, but always rejected the idea that he did not believe in God, accepting instead that there must have been some Prime Mover. He also remained actively involved in his local parish and never officially left his church. His wife, Emma, was throughout her life a faithful Unitarian.

Debate:Is the theory of macroevolution true?

2007-02-21T05:04:39Z

Plunge:

Post Your Thoughts

== Yes ==

Arguments for * All life on Earth shares common ancestor

*All life on Earth shares common ancestor
#All life on Earth shares molecular features.
#*'''Counter:''' This is not a scientific argument for evolution. First, this argument says nothing about a *process* of evolution. It does not reveal any transitional forms between species, for examples. In fact, lots of DNA evidence tends to disprove transitions from one species to another. Second, there is no objective or scientific way to say one thing is like another. If you insist there is, then you'd have to agree that intelligent design is science also. Note, by the way, that all of Shakespeare's plays "share" similar features, but one play did not evolve by itself into another.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 23:54, 21 December 2006 (EST)
#*:::What DNA evidence disproves transitions between species?
##Same macromolecules (DNA, RNA, protein)
##Same monomers for those macromolecules (five nucleotides, twenty standard amino acids)
##Same chirality of molecules. DNA in all complex life forms is right-handed, research suggests[http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&res=9802E1DB1F3DF936A15751C0A9659C8B63] that left-handed DNA would work just as well.
###If life forms did not have common ancestors we would expect to see a fairly even distribution of left and right handed DNA.
##Genetic system:
##*Ribosome structure
##*tRNA structure
##*The universal genetic code (and slight deviations from it)
##*Information encoded in nucleotide polymers (DNA or RNA).
#Differences between organisms can be explained by known mechanisms of genetic mutation.
#*'''Counter:''' There has not been enough time for mutation to generate existing biological diversity.
#**'''Counter:''' There has been enough time enough time to generate existing biological diversity.
#***'''Counter:''' The time argument doesn't help. Decay, scattering, extinction, defects, disasters, etc., all INCREASE over time. Besides, all mutations are harmful.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 23:54, 21 December 2006 (EST)

NATURAL genetic changes can only account for diversity within a species. Mendellian genetics has demonstrated the existence of a closed field of genetic changes which can occur through the reproductive process.

#*#The speed of evolution is measured by the [[w:Darwin (unit)|darwin]] (change in an organism's character by a factor of e per million years.) [http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/section5.html#morphological_rates]
#*#Evolution in the lab can be as high as 200,000 darwins.
#*#As measured by the fossil record, the average evolutionary rate in the wild is 370 darwins.
#*#A rate of 400 darwins is capable of turning a mouse into an elephant in just 10,000 years.
#*No other (non-human) process has been observed to generate biological diversity.
#*Extensive biological diversity existed before humans had the ability to create new forms by molecular recombination.

Counter- The argument concerning rate of change assumes that biological evolution is described by a linear equation. However, observation and Mendellian genetics theory suggest that evolutionary change is better described by a rational function bounded by an assymptote. For example, it is relatively easy to crossbreed a pure bred dog so that you obtain a mutt or a nearly pure bred dog of another species. However, it will take an infinite amount of time to entirely replace the traits of the original breed with those of the new breed- the graph of evolutionary change, with change on the y-axis and time on the x-axis, has reached a horizontal assymptote. The dog remains a dog.
-Chris J
::: Um, what? I'm a bit of a mathy person and have some background in genetics as well, and the above doesn't seem to be anything but an assertion dressed up in mathematical terminology. [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 14:06, 13 February 2007 (EST)

Which part is unclear? The statements concerning the fossil record and crossbreeding within a species are simple, factual observations. If the argument concernig rate of change in units of Darwins is not based on a linear function, what is it based on? And to clarify- by saying that Change approaches a horizontal assymptote, I mean that change continues over time, but becomes infinitely small and and never exceeds a fixed point. The dog may, through natural reproduction, become another kind of dog. But observation tells us that it will never sprout wings and become a bird.
-Chris J
:::: Ok, for starters, you refer "observation and Mendellian genetics theory suggest that evolutionary change is better described by a rational function bounded by an assymptote" - it isn't clear what your relevant vairable is that is being bounded. Continuing, your next sentence claims that "it is relatively easy to crossbreed a pure bred dog so that you obtain a mutt or a nearly pure bred dog of another species." I'm not even sure what to make of this sentence since dog breeds aren't separate species. You furthermore assert that "it will take an infinite amount of time to entirely replace the traits of the original breed with those of the new breed" if anything this is what one might have thought before Mendel. Since alleles come in discrete entities and one does not have genetic continua, this is false. Not only is it false, it is irrelevant, since whether we are able to breed something to be identical to some pre-existing similar organism is irrelevant. Your summary remarks that "The dog remains a dog" and your rephrase that "observation tells us that it will never sprout wings and become a bird" are simply assertions and not very relevant ones anyways(evolution wouldn't expect a dog to "sprout wings" although there are excellent examples of transitionals between true flyers and others). The terminology is so vague as to make it unclear exactly you mean that a dog will always remain a dog. Do you mean there will be never be a reproductive barrier? Do you mean that it will fit what your intuitive notion of what a dog looks like?. (Also, while we are on the topic of defintions, you use both "species" in a non-standard way, and use "kind" in a way that isn't even standard for creationists. If you are going to use terms in a non-standard fashion, defining them would be good). [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 14:40, 13 February 2007 (EST)

:::::Chris, I think you have a misconception of how common descent works. The claim that no dog will become anything other than another kind of dog is, in fact, true, according to evolutionary theory, not a challenge of it. The statement is essentially no different than the claim that mammals never become anything other than mammals, or eukaryotes will never be anything other than eukaryotes. Common descent specifies that evolution happens via nested clades: groups within groups, not one group becoming another. This can be confusing because Linnean taxonomy is static, not cladistic.[[User:Plunge|Plunge]] 18:22, 20 February 2007 (EST)

::::::Evolution proposes that complexity increases such that more advanced species somehow emerge from less sophisticated ones. This is has never been observed, has never been duplicated in a laboratory, and requires a reduction in entropy at constant energy that contradicts all observations. All observations are of devolution, or the disappearance or reduction in complexity.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 18:34, 20 February 2007 (EST)

::::::: That's incorrect. Evolution does not make any claims about some species being more or less advanced. Evolution does not work on a ladder. Also, I'm not sure what you mean when you claim that increases in complexity have never been observed. As in many cases, this may depend on what you mean by complexity. However, regardless of what you mean a variety of mutations have been observed in humans and other species which add essentially new functions to the species. One common example of this is bacteria becoming immune to antibiotics. [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 19:07, 20 February 2007 (EST)

I specified that evolutionary change is the dependent variable, or Y-value, bounded by a horizontal assymptote, with time as the independent variable, or X-value. Your second remark is entirely correct- I misused the word "species" when I meant to refer only to changes between breeds. Observation has shown that some dominant genetic traits tend to be passed on to an organism's offspring, but alleles place boundaries on the change that can occur through this process. It is true that it is difficult to quantify evolutionary change, since it does not appear to progress in any certain direction- another challenge to the above argument concerning the progress of evolutionary change over time. I chose a rational graph with the dependent variable bounded by a horizontal assymptote as an illustration because the aforementioned argument seemed to assume that evolutionary change could be expressed with respect to time or reproductive cycles by a linear graph. I chose the example of cross breeding because it is an example of the reproductive cycle being manipulated to produce maximum evolutionary change. The natural rate of change would be much slower, if indeed there were any measurable change. My statements about a dog "remaining a dog" and not changing species were meant only as examples of the genetic limitations of evolutionary change through natural reproduction, which is generaly limited by species, though somtimes by more inclusive levels of biological classification.

: I'm not sure I completely follow some of what you said such as "Observation has shown that some dominant genetic traits tend to be passed on to an organism's offspring"- alleles are passed on just as frequently whether they are dominant or recessive. We are however, getting to the crux of the matter (although I incidentally note that you ignored the issue of discrete genetics), saying that change is "generaly limited by species, though somtimes by more inclusive levels of biological classification" is not useful. Beyond the species level all classification has a highly arbitrary element to it, at which point it isn't at all clear *why* you would presume that evolution at that level wouldn't occur (there is no sign of any magic barrier or such). This has also the incidental problem that speciation is in fact common. There are possibly hundreds of observed speciation events and I could easily provide (if you wanted) 10 or 15 of them and the relevant citations. (Also, many creationists support not just that speciation has occured but that rapid speciation occured right after the Deluge(indeed, in AIG's account this speciation happened far more uniformily and far faster than any biologist would ever predict and far faster than any observed level). To some extent this reflects a changing of the goalposts- 100 years ago no creationist acknowledged any form of evolution, then in the 1960s the evidence got overwhelming enough that the creationists conceded "microevolution" meaning evolution within species, and more recently many creationists now agree that evolution above the species level can occur, but not much above it. [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 16:14, 13 February 2007 (EST)

'''Reply:'''
:::The boundry that defines into what an organism can and cannot evolve is not a "magic barrier" but its own DNA. An organism can only lose genetic information. There has never been an observed exception to this rule. What Chris tried to demonstrate (I think) by his example of a dog is that a dog can change but it cannot become anything beyond the limit set by its own genes; it cannot "sprout wings and become a bird"

:::--[[User:BenjaminS|BenjaminS]] 21:00, 13 February 2007 (EST)

::::: Ben, this doesn't help at all. This is yet more vague assertions with undefined terms. And almost any defintion of the terms will in fact render the statements false. For example the claim that "an organism can only lose genetic information" - so in this context what do you mean by information? Do you mean in terms of Shannon's measure of information? This is easily seen to be false. Do you mean in terms of Kolmogorov complexity? Again, the claim is false. Indeed, by any reasonable defintion the claim is false. To see why consider the following: Consider some function f that is a function of the current genetic makeup of some creature and turns out some non-negative real number representing how much information there is in that genome. Now, suppose creature A through either mutation or recombination has offspring A' and f(A') < f(A) (that is, A' has lost information). Then the mutation that goes from A' to something with genome A is an example of a gain in information. Since all mutations are reversible, we've established that for any reasonable defintion of information, information can be gained (modulo the essentially trivial case of all genomes having the same information value) [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 22:27, 13 February 2007 (EST)

#*'''Counter:''' Despite a century of teaching evolution in American schools, the majority of Americans still reject it. The burden of proof is on the evolutionists, and the proof just isn't there. Darwinists would be better off looking for another theory to try to replace Christianity.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 23:54, 21 December 2006 (EST)

>95% of academic biologists support it.

Those who argue against it have a poor understanding of biology.

:'''Comment on logic''': I am sorry, but your answer is an appeal to authority, a common logical mistake. But its ok. I am sure there is still more evidence to support your point? [[User:David R|David R]]

: '''Reply''': You say that "95% of academic biologists support it." What evidence do you have to support this statement? I have often wondered if there was a place were one could view this sort of information. It would be most helpful.

: You go on to say that "Those who argue against it have a poor understanding of biology." Again, what evidence do you have to support this statement? Here are some creation biologists, to name a few:

* Dr. Raymond G. Bohlin, Biologist
* Dr. Andrew Bosanquet, Biology, Microbiology
* Prof. Chung-Il Cho, Biology Education
* Dr. Chris Darnbrough, Biochemist
* Dr. David A. DeWitt, Biology, Biochemistry, Neuroscience
* Dr. Dudley Eirich, Molecular Biologist
* Prof. Carl B. Fliermans, Professor of Biology
* Prof. Robert H. Franks, Associate Professor of Biology
* Dr. Duane Gish, Biochemist
* Dr. D.B. Gower, Biochemistry
* Dr. Bob Hosken, Biochemistry

: All of them have doctoral degrees in some sort of biology and all argue against macro-evolution and for creationism. Are you claiming that all of them have a poor understanding of biology? [[User:PhilipB|PhilipB]] 23:29, 17 December 2006 (EST)

: '''Another Reply''': I assume that you have a better understanding of biology upon which to base this attack? Please enlighten us; how would a wise biologist refute the facts that seemingly disprove evolution? Where is the host of intermediate links? When have biologists observed an organism acctually '''''gain''''' genetic information through a mutation rather than lose it? [[User:BenjaminS|BenjaminS]]

:: '''Response''': I take it your claim is that all mutations cause a loss of genetic information. This claim is false. Consider: if all mutations cause a loss of genetic information, then point mutations cause a loss of genetic information. But all point mutations are reversible—that is, the nucleotide that changes can change back. So if the original point mutation caused a loss of information, the reversed mutation must cause a gain in information.--[[User:Stereotypical A|Stereotypical A]] 20:36, 20 February 2007 (EST)

::: REPLY: It requires intelligent intervention to reverse a mutation. Lost genetic information will not be restored simply by chance.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 20:52, 20 February 2007 (EST)

:::: Absolutely false. Point mutations can go either way (and frequently do). In fact, there are a number of tests which measure how mutagenic various mutagens are by using this property. Basically, you take a type of bactera which has a point mutation that leaves it unable to synthesize a necessary amino acid and then you grow a colony of that bacterium and expose them to the desired mutagen. Then you measure what fraction of the colony can survive if you remove the necessary amino acid from the medium. This sort of test has been done for about 30 years now. [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 22:58, 20 February 2007 (EST)
Having studied and worked with scientists for a decade, and spending another decade debating armchair evolutionists, I've found that it is usually someone unsuccessful in the hard sciences (physical, chemistry, biology and you might add mathematics) who is drawn most to evolution. The late evolution-promoter Stephen Jay Gould, for example, was merely a geology major at Antioch College. Big evolution promoter Richard Dawkins was an assistant professor at Berkeley, and then a lecturer, and then it's not clear to me what his academic status was for a while. Meanwhile, real experts, such as Richard Sternberg who has TWO PhDs in evolution fields, have been critical of the theory. But Sternberg was harshly disciplined for daring to question the theory, and few are anxious to risk similar retaliation.

>It is at least a puzzle to understand how Creationism accounts for seemingly-badly-designed aspects of anatomy and physiology. For example, the eyes of cephalopods (squid, octopus) and those of vertebrates (mammals, including humans) are strikingly similar in their general "design" with one conspicuous exception. In the cephalopod eye, the retina is structured exactly as one would expect: the light-sensitive receptors face forward, toward the lens, and the nerve fibers that join to form the optic nerve exit in the back.

In the human eye, however, the retina is structured in a very surprising way that is exactly the reverse. The receptors face ''backwards,'' and not only the nerve fibers that collect to form the optic nerve but also all of the blood vessels that nourish it are in ''front,'' where they block the view and cast shadows on the retina. The result is that the human eye has a large and seemingly unnecessary blind spot, and that very intricate processing by the brain is necessary to hide the image of the shadows of the blood vessels.

It all works, of course, but it is puzzling as to why an intelligent creator would design it this way, particularly given that the much older cephalopod eye does it the "right" way. No doubt it is ''possible'' to explain this (just as it is ''possible'' to explain fossils by saying that God created the fossils along with everything else in 4004 BC).

It seems much easier to explain this as a series of incremental adaptations rather than as being "designed" the way a human engineer would design a camera. Of course that does not mean that the incremental adaptations were necessarily guided by pure natural selection as envisioned by Darwin, either. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 14:01, 18 December 2006 (EST)

: '''Reply''': I don't know where you got the thing about creationists believing that God created the fossils in 4004 B.C., but I believe that the vast majority of fossils are the product of Noah's flood as it is described in Genesis. [[User:ChrisS|ChrisS]]

: '''Reply''': I believe that almost everything you say here provides evidence '''for''' creation. Let me explain... in you first paragraph you state that mammals "are strikingly similar in their general 'design'". This is true but does this support macro-evolution? I think not. Wouldn't macro-evolution produce many different types of "eyes" that would work? Why are they all so similar?

: You go on to say that in the human the eye is just different from all these other eyes. You say this provides evidence against creation because, if it were true, why is it not the same as the others. Well, doesn't this also support creationism? Why would just one be different? Because our creator was original, he was an artist, not a robot. As for the "very intricate processing by the brain <nowiki>[that]</nowiki> is necessary to hide the image of the shadows of the blood vessels." This is more evidence for creation. Why would natural selection create a process like this? It seems pointless to us, but those "intricate" processes were intricately '''designed'''. Maybe our creator was trying to show that he existed... He created this one eye that wouldn't work; if it not for these amazing brain processes. [[User:PhilipB|PhilipB]] 15:11, 18 December 2006 (EST)

::It's certainly a point of view... but didn't you feel that you needed to work just a bit to arrive at it?

::Although it's certainly ''possible,'' I don't believe that God involves himself in the design details of vertebrate anatomy, and I certainly don't believe he goes to the effort of putting in deliberate design errors as a trick to test peoples' faith. I think a lot more likely that God created the general conditions under which evolution by natural selection takes place, and the "wrong" anatomy of the vertebrate retina is the result of the constraints of having evolved in gradual steps. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 11:48, 19 December 2006 (EST)

: '''Reply:''' There is nothing to indicate that the human eye is an "error"; it works wonderfully. Also under the belief that God is omnipotent, I have no trouble as you do in believing that God would design the details of vertebrate anatomy, especially in light of the arguments against evolution below (with the possible exception of argument #7). Why would he let life progress at random when he could create every thing "fearfully and wonderfully" to reflect his awesome greatness?

[[User:BenjaminS|BenjaminS]]

'''3''' There is a double nested hierarchy. That is, all life forms two nested hierarchies, one morphological and one genetic and these hierarchies correspond to how they evolved. While it is true that when designers as we know them design things they design them with similarities, they do not design them in nested hierarchies. Human designers will use an idea in one place and then copy that section over somewhere else. (For example, one would not expect an engineer to design the panda's thumb but rather expect the engineer use the pre-existing thumb design from primates). [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 16:01, 13 February 2007 (EST)

==No==

If you have questions about Evolution/Creationism see the articles on this website [[http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/qa.asp]]

I would just like to say that the "theory" of Evolution ''does not even qualify as a theory!!'' According to the scientific method, after you make a hypothesis, if '''''ANY''''' data comes up that contradicts you hypothesis than it must either be revised or discarded! How come even though there is much evidence that contradicts evolution it is still considered a theory? [[User:ChrisS|ChrisS]]

'''No'''
: 1. No credible transitional forms (fossils reflecting evolution between species) have ever been found.
::'''Counter:''' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_transitional_fossils Some transitional forms]
:::'''Counter:'''

:::All of these examples given in the above about the evolution of the whale are nonsense:

:::* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pakicetus Pakicetus] -- What makes this a "link"? It was nothing but a land mammal gone extinct.

:::* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambulocetus Ambulocetus] -- The reason given that this is a link is complete nonsense. It resembles a whale??? Most trees resemble eachother, they all have a trunk, branches, leaves, etc. Does this mean that all trees are somehow missing links between each other?

:::* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorudon Dorudon] -- I guess Wikipedia supposes this is a missing link because it uses sonar??? Same as example above.

:::* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basilosaurus Basilosaurus] -- Another extinct species called a link because it "resembles" a whale.

:::* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurhinodelphis Eurhinodelphis] -- No reason given that is may be a missing link.

:::* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mammalodon Mammalodon colliveri] -- The article just makes an unsupported statement. I would consider this article for deletion (no notability).

:::[[User:PhilipB|PhilipB]] 11:46, 3 January 2007 (EST)

:::: '''Counter''' This may be an example of where going to specialized sources rather than relying on Wikipedia would be in order. However, some of these do in fact make clear why they are considered transitionals. For example, Pakicetus (as discussed in the Wikipedia article) had an inner ear structure that was very cetacean.(Not mentioned in the article but also relevant, Pakicetus had teeth that were very similar to some of the later transitionals in this list although not quite of the standard cetacean form) Proceeding, ambulectus had a bone structure consistent with something which spent time both walking and swimming and bears some similarities to Pakicetus. Basilosaurus looks almost like a modern whale except for the vestigial limbs. I'm not going to go into the others in detail but that should make it clear that there is good reason to see these as transitionals. [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 15:49, 13 February 2007 (EST)

: 2. There is no plausible explanation for the evolution of the whale, which is a mammal. Darwin suggested that the whale somehow came from black bears swimming with their mouths open!

: 3. Evolution cannot be reconciled with the evidence of a massive flood.
::And what evidence would that be?

: 4. All mutations are harmful.
::'''Counter''' This is a false argument. Firstly, it is estimated 1/3 of point mutations (mutations affecting one link in the DNA and no others) are not harmful. Secondly, though the number is small, there are documented cases of mutations being beneficial - an example is sickle cell anemia. This mutation is a flaw in the hemoglobin gene of humans, causing these molecules to covalently bond into long, bristly fibers inside the red blood cell that distort them into a sickle cell shape. This mutation makes sickle cell individuals immune to malaria, and many of the people residing in countries where this disease is prevalent have this mutation. The people affected by this mutation have lived and multiplied, thereby disproving this myth. Also see Counter argument to #5. [[User:PhyllisS|PhyllisS]]

'''Reply:''' Phyllis, I don't know where you got your information on sickle cell anemia but it was certainly a biased source. You have not given the full story; 25% of those with sickle cell anemia die prematurely! '''''This is not a good mutation.''''' As the closest thing to a good mutation that evolutionists can come up with this is not supportive of evolution at all.
--[[User:BenjaminS|BenjaminS]] 23:40, 13 January 2007 (EST)

'''Further Reply:''' Overall the mutation sickle cell anemia is obviously harmful. The same is true for all mutations. Simple probability predicts this: a random mutation is far more likely to reach a less desirable form. The odds are overwhelming. It is the same reason that heat always flows to cooler places. If you think mutations can be beneficial, then do you also think heat can sometimes "by chance" flow to a hotter place? That if we added billions of years it must happen sometimes? Of course not. It never happens.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 23:01, 14 January 2007 (EST)

::I don't see how you can claim that it is overall harmful. It confers immunity to a highly destructive disease to the majority of the population that has the trait. The price of the acute disorder is not a bar to it being an overall benefit for a population, especially since even those sufferers often live long enough to reproduce. Beneficial and detrimental are generally contextual and environmental, not absolute. The recent mutation (we was tracked back to a single man in Italy) that causes immunity to LDH cholesterol (and thus to many forms of heart disease caused by fatty modern diets) is certainly beneficial in modern society. Tetrachromatism in women (four color vision) is likewise a very neat mutational development, but it's not clear that it confers any selective advantage. In a different environment it might be beneficial or even detrimental for some reason.

'''Further Reply:''' Heat flowing to cooler places is entirely irrelevant to our discussion. Please elaborate. --[[User:PhyllisS|PhyllisS]]

'''Comment:''' You should try to bear with Mr. Schlafly's abstract analogies (I know that they rarely make sense) and respond to his points that are doing you any harm; e.g. "Overall the mutation sickle cell anemia is obviously harmful. The same is true for all mutations."

--[[User:BenjaminS|BenjaminS]] 18:21, 17 January 2007 (EST)

*This is not '''exactly''' a counter to [[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]]. But... Darwin was writing in the days when breeders were starting to do amazing things with selective breeding, which was one of the things that impressed him. Selective breeding is still going on and it is still amazing. In 1910 the average domesticated chickens laid 80 eggs a year; by 1999 292 eggs a year. There are similar stories for milk production per cow, meat per chicken, etc. Some of the improvement is due to changes in feed, antibiotics, hormones, whatever, but most of it is from selective breeding. So the question I would ask is: if all mutations are harmful, then where do breeders find the slightly improved animals to select as the progenitors of the next generation? [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 18:46, 22 January 2007 (EST)

: The vast majority of mutations are neutral or have no observable phenotypic change. Furthermore, of those mutations which are not in those categories, for most mutations whether or not the mutation is beneficial is highly connected to the environment which the relevant organism is found (sickle-cell anemia provides a vivid demonstration of this). However, other examples which are more directly beneficial. For example, many bacteria have gained mutations for immunity to various antibiotics, while other bacteria have gained mutations that allow them to eat nylon (a purely synthetic material). A more prosaic example is lactose tolerance. [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 22:43, 6 February 2007 (EST)

: 5. Species have being going extinct rather than being generated.
::'''Counter''' This is not true. For example, through a specific type of sympatric speciation, new species of plants are able to form and have formed in abundance. It occurs from meiosis not occuring properly in the production of gametes. These "mutant" offspring are a new species and cannot produce offspring with the species they came from, yet can produce fertile offspring with other plants that were mutated the same way. --[[User:PhyllisS|PhyllisS]]

'''Reply:''' This is true; the statement above is only a general rule. What can be said for sure is that though mutations occur, there has never been a documented example of a organism '''''gaining''''' genetic information.--[[User:BenjaminS|BenjaminS]] 23:40, 13 January 2007 (EST)

'''Further reply:''' Right. The mutant offspring devolved, not evolved.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 23:01, 14 January 2007 (EST)

'''Further reply:''' The organism did not devolve. Please explain this reply further. --[[User:PhyllisS|PhyllisS]]

'''Comment:''' I think that by "devolve" he is trying to point out that organisms only ''lose'' genetic information through mutation; evolution relies upon the ''gain'' genetic information.

--[[User:BenjaminS|BenjaminS]] 18:21, 17 January 2007 (EST)

: 6. All unaided things become more disordered and scattered over time.
::'''Counter''' Which is an argument against the existence of technology, cities, cars and everything advanced. This is a (rather embarrasing) misconception about the second law of thermodynamics. It states that entropy increases in a closed system. The earth is not a closed system, as processes here are powered by the energy originating from the sun. Order can increase in a system as long as more energy is inserted. A '''closed''' system is a system that doesn't receive such outside energy.
::::'''Comment on "closed system":''' So what you are saying that the order and energy of the Earth is dependent and derived from the Sun. Where does the Sun get its energy? What happens when it runs out of fuel, whether that be millions or even billions of years away? Molecules are ''still'' breaking down within the Sun. No matter how you look at it, the entire universe, "closed system" or not, is a slave of the second law of thermodynamics. [[User:David R|David R]]

:::::'''Further comment:''' That's right, David. By the way, the injection of energy into a system ''increases'' entropy. The only way to decrease entropy is intelligent ordering or intervention. Without that, entropy and disorder always increase. Whatever species existed 5000 years ago, in the absence of divine intervention there must be less ordered, less advanced, fewer species today. We see many examples of this: species go extinct each year, breeds of dogs degrade (e.g., Golden Retriever), even humans have increased incidence of asthma and other health problems from generation to generation. Take a look at how smart humans were just 100 or 200 years ago by looking at their writings, and compare that to the average human writings today. Entropy predicts degradation of everything over time in the absence of intelligent intervention.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 22:26, 14 January 2007 (EST)
::::::The injection of energy into a system increases enthalpy, not entropy, Aschlafly. DNA, proteins, and other highly-ordered macromolecules stay together not because of intelligent intervention, but because of enthalpic contributions that offset the entropic cost. Also, you state that "Entropy predicts degradation... in the absence of intelligent intervention", just after you comment that everything is degrading. Wouldn't that imply, then, the absence of intelligent intervention?
: 7. There is vast beauty in the world which would not exist in a purely evolutionary world. "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament shows his handiwork" (Psalm 19:1)
::'''Counter''' This is an irrelevant argument. What evidence exists to say that evolution cannot produce beauty? Besides that, what is the definition of beauty? Beauty can be a life form adapted to its environment, beauty can be a beneficial mutation, beauty can be monomers spontaneously forming polymers when dripped on hot clay...all examples of evolution. [[User:PhyllisS|PhyllisS]]

:::This argument "against" evolution is terrible! Though evolution is false this isn't why. Unfortunately for evolutionists everywhere your counter argument does no better supporting evolution than the first one did disproving it.--[[User:BenjaminS|BenjaminS]] 23:40, 13 January 2007 (EST)

:::: Brilliant autumn foliage is beautiful. You won't find anyone who sincerely denies it, exact perhaps the most hardened evolutionist. But it is impossible for the beauty in brilliant autumn foliage to have evolved before humans even existed.

:::: Evolutionists generally deny that there is intrinsic beauty in nature. Over 99% of Americans think there is beauty in nature. Take your pick. Count me as part of the over 99% majority.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 22:47, 14 January 2007 (EST)

:::::I don't think "evolutionists generally deny that there is intrinsic beauty in nature." Where did you get that? (Not a rhetorical question, I'm curious to know. Do creationists go around saying such a thing?) Stephen Jay Gould wrote "Shall we appreciate any less the beauty of nature because its harmony is unplanned?" Darwin wrote
::::::"The view seen when crossing the hills behind Praia Grande was most beautiful; the colours were intense, and the prevailing tint a dark blue; the sky and the calm waters of the bay vied with each other in splendour;" "The number of beautiful fishing birds, such as egrets and cranes, and the succulent plants assuming most fantastical forms, gave to the scene an interest which it would not otherwise have possessed." "The beautiful view of the distant wooded hills, reflected in the perfectly calm water of an extensive lagoon, quite refreshed us." etc. etc. etc.
:::::Maybe you think that evolutionists must seal their minds into logic-tight compartments in order to appreciate the beauty of nature while at the same time trying to explain it from natural causes, but they do it nonetheless. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 15:55, 22 January 2007 (EST)

'''Reply:''' I personally believe that God purposefully created nature for humans to enjoy and care for and that he purposefully made it beautiful as a blessing for us. nevertheless, from an evolutionary standpoint, beauty can still be explained; if we all came from a common ancestor, especially given our reliance on nature for suvival, I don't see why the theory of evolution cannot be reconciled with the fact that 99% of Americans find beauty in autumn foliage.

--[[User:BenjaminS|BenjaminS]] 23:57, 14 January 2007 (EST)

: 8. Abiogenesis is impossible. Even the simplest life form possible would be way too complicated to spring from nothing.
::'''Counter''' Regardless if it's possible or not, it's not an argument against macroevolution.
::'''Counter''' You don't know that it's impossible. No one knows what the simplest life form is, but pretending that abiogenesis concerns the simplest MODERN life (i.e. a modern cell) is nonsense: that's not what's being suggested at all. Besides, talking about stacking chemical reactions that observably naturally occur is not "springing from nothing."[[User:Plunge|Plunge]] 23:49, 20 February 2007 (EST)

'''No''': In short... no. In long... there is much evidence against the theory that proves it is false. First of all there is the classic argument that the "missing links" are '''''still''''' missing. Here is what Darwin had to say on the subject. <blockquote>"Geological research, though it has added numerous species to existing and extinct genera, and has made the intervals between some few groups less wide then they otherwise would have been, yet has done scarcely anything in breaking the distinction between species, by connecting them together by numerous, fine, intermediate varieties; and this having been affected, is probably the gravest and most obvious of all the many objections which can be raised against my views." (''[[The Origin of Species]]'', 6th edition, 1962, Collier Books, NY, p.462.)</blockquote>

Since when you are looking for data from the earth's history the first place you would look is the fossil record. What does the fossil record say? It says macroevolution '''''never''''' happened. There are even less documented "missing links" today then there were in Darwin's day. Obviously, macro-evolutionists want these "missing" links to be found desperately based on the elaborate measures they have gone through to try and fake the public out into believing one has been found. Take, for example, the famous Nebraska Man. He was supposed "evidence" for macro-evolution but in reality he was based entirely on a tooth from an extinct species of pig found among some ancient tools![http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/a_nebraska.html] This is only the beginning of the evidence against macro-evolution and I will be adding more to this edit as I get the time! [[User:PhilipB|PhilipB]] 11:06, 17 December 2006 (EST)

: ''''Counter''' The above claims are simply false. We have hundreds of major transitional fossils(which is what I presume you mean by "missing link") between a variety of different groups. Examples include Australopithecus as transitional between humans ape like ancestors and humans, hasiophis terrasanctus (sp?) a transitional snake with hind limbs and many others. Name almost any major grouping and we will have transitional fossils between the various groups. For some groups we have very detailed transitional sequences. For example, between fish and tetrapods is a particularly good example, and the transitions between land mammals and whales have become well developed over the last 20 years. [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 14:14, 13 February 2007 (EST)

== Evolution is a Racist Philosophy ==

*"At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace the savage races throughout the world. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes ... will no doubt be exterminated. The break between man and his nearest Allies will then be wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilized state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as the baboon, instead of as now between the Negro or Australian and the gorilla." (Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man 2nd ed (New York: A. L. Burt Co., I 874), p. 178)."

*"The Negroid stock is even more ancient than the Caucasian and Mongolian, as may be proved by an examination not only of the brain, of the hair, of the bodily characters. such as the teeth, the genitalia, the sense organs, but of the instincts, the intelligence. The standard of intelligence of the average Negro is similar to that of the eleven-year-old youth of the species Homo sapiens. (Henry Fairfield Osborn, "The Evolution of the Human Races," Natural History, Jan./Feb. 1926. Reprinted in Natural History 89 (April 1980): 129.)" -evolutionist Henry Fairfield Osborn

*The full title of Darwin's book is ''On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life''
**It's worth noting though that "races" in the title refers to kinds of animals: it's never used to refer to people and in fact the book never mentions human beings at all until the very end, and then only briefly.[[User:Plunge|Plunge]] 18:44, 20 February 2007 (EST)

*Hitler's atrocities were based on evolutionary philosophy.

::Evolution has certainly been used by racists in support of their views. Racists have used many things, including Christianity, in support of their views. Think of the burning crosses of the Ku Klux Klan.

::And, yes, Darwin shared the common prejudices of his day... which was the time when the British Empire was busily colonizing places inhabited by dark-skinned people. You would have been hard-pressed to find many people in Darwin's England who were ''not'' racists, by today's standards.

::I think the point being raised here is an appropriate one to raise. But I think "evolution is a racist philosophy" is an exaggeration. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 15:36, 22 January 2007 (EST)

:::Christianity is not racist at its core, yet it is made to seem racist by some. Jesus came to save all, not just more "advanced races." Evolution '''is''' racist at its core, yet it is made to seem like it's not. Dpbsmith, you say that "Darwin shared the common prejudices of his day," this is true, but what does that have to do with he argument? Are you saying that racism influenced him when he came up with evolution, in the way that he uses evolution to support racism? [[User:PhilipB|PhilipB]] 16:09, 22 January 2007 (EST)

:::1) I'm acknowledging that the quotation from Darwin ''can'' fairly be described as racist. 2) I'm saying that many evil things are done in the name of many causes, and that people who do evil things will usually find a way to justify them. 3) I'm saying that I think more people have been killed by people claiming to be acting in the name of Jesus than by people claiming to be acting in the name of Darwin.

:::It is sometimes difficult to believe just how prevasive racism was from, perhaps, the mid-1800s through the mid-1900s. When The New York Times reviewed Longfellow's ''Song of Hiawatha'' in 1855, the reviewer said that Longfellow had "embalm[ed] pleasantly enough the monstrous traditions of an uninteresting, and, one may almost say, a justly exterminated race." That doesn't excuse Darwin. But it does put it into context. I think I agree with you to the extent that Darwin said things that can be fairly called "racist" and that Jesus did not. I don't agree that that makes evolution "racist at the core." OK, I think I've made my point clearly enough... I'll leave you to get in the last word if you like. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 18:26, 22 January 2007 (EST)

:::: Also note that racism on Darwin's part in no way matters for whether the modern theory of evolution is either racist or correct. First, in general, the truth or falsity of any idea is independent of who it came from (if Darwin were a serial killer who liked to steal candy from babies it would not change the validity of his ideas in the slightest (if you don't believe me, perform the same thought experiment with [[Newton]] or [[Josiah Willard Gibbs]])). Second, the modern neo-synthesis is far removed from Darwin's original notions. [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 22:34, 6 February 2007 (EST)

Debate:Is the theory of macroevolution true?

2007-02-21T04:49:56Z

Plunge:

Post Your Thoughts

== Yes ==

Arguments for * All life on Earth shares common ancestor

*All life on Earth shares common ancestor
#All life on Earth shares molecular features.
#*'''Counter:''' This is not a scientific argument for evolution. First, this argument says nothing about a *process* of evolution. It does not reveal any transitional forms between species, for examples. In fact, lots of DNA evidence tends to disprove transitions from one species to another. Second, there is no objective or scientific way to say one thing is like another. If you insist there is, then you'd have to agree that intelligent design is science also. Note, by the way, that all of Shakespeare's plays "share" similar features, but one play did not evolve by itself into another.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 23:54, 21 December 2006 (EST)
##Same macromolecules (DNA, RNA, protein)
##Same monomers for those macromolecules (five nucleotides, twenty standard amino acids)
##Same chirality of molecules. DNA in all complex life forms is right-handed, research suggests[http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&res=9802E1DB1F3DF936A15751C0A9659C8B63] that left-handed DNA would work just as well.
###If life forms did not have common ancestors we would expect to see a fairly even distribution of left and right handed DNA.
##Genetic system:
##*Ribosome structure
##*tRNA structure
##*The universal genetic code (and slight deviations from it)
##*Information encoded in nucleotide polymers (DNA or RNA).
#Differences between organisms can be explained by known mechanisms of genetic mutation.
#*'''Counter:''' There has not been enough time for mutation to generate existing biological diversity.
#**'''Counter:''' There has been enough time enough time to generate existing biological diversity.
#***'''Counter:''' The time argument doesn't help. Decay, scattering, extinction, defects, disasters, etc., all INCREASE over time. Besides, all mutations are harmful.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 23:54, 21 December 2006 (EST)

NATURAL genetic changes can only account for diversity within a species. Mendellian genetics has demonstrated the existence of a closed field of genetic changes which can occur through the reproductive process.

#*#The speed of evolution is measured by the [[w:Darwin (unit)|darwin]] (change in an organism's character by a factor of e per million years.) [http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/section5.html#morphological_rates]
#*#Evolution in the lab can be as high as 200,000 darwins.
#*#As measured by the fossil record, the average evolutionary rate in the wild is 370 darwins.
#*#A rate of 400 darwins is capable of turning a mouse into an elephant in just 10,000 years.
#*No other (non-human) process has been observed to generate biological diversity.
#*Extensive biological diversity existed before humans had the ability to create new forms by molecular recombination.

Counter- The argument concerning rate of change assumes that biological evolution is described by a linear equation. However, observation and Mendellian genetics theory suggest that evolutionary change is better described by a rational function bounded by an assymptote. For example, it is relatively easy to crossbreed a pure bred dog so that you obtain a mutt or a nearly pure bred dog of another species. However, it will take an infinite amount of time to entirely replace the traits of the original breed with those of the new breed- the graph of evolutionary change, with change on the y-axis and time on the x-axis, has reached a horizontal assymptote. The dog remains a dog.
-Chris J
::: Um, what? I'm a bit of a mathy person and have some background in genetics as well, and the above doesn't seem to be anything but an assertion dressed up in mathematical terminology. [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 14:06, 13 February 2007 (EST)

Which part is unclear? The statements concerning the fossil record and crossbreeding within a species are simple, factual observations. If the argument concernig rate of change in units of Darwins is not based on a linear function, what is it based on? And to clarify- by saying that Change approaches a horizontal assymptote, I mean that change continues over time, but becomes infinitely small and and never exceeds a fixed point. The dog may, through natural reproduction, become another kind of dog. But observation tells us that it will never sprout wings and become a bird.
-Chris J
:::: Ok, for starters, you refer "observation and Mendellian genetics theory suggest that evolutionary change is better described by a rational function bounded by an assymptote" - it isn't clear what your relevant vairable is that is being bounded. Continuing, your next sentence claims that "it is relatively easy to crossbreed a pure bred dog so that you obtain a mutt or a nearly pure bred dog of another species." I'm not even sure what to make of this sentence since dog breeds aren't separate species. You furthermore assert that "it will take an infinite amount of time to entirely replace the traits of the original breed with those of the new breed" if anything this is what one might have thought before Mendel. Since alleles come in discrete entities and one does not have genetic continua, this is false. Not only is it false, it is irrelevant, since whether we are able to breed something to be identical to some pre-existing similar organism is irrelevant. Your summary remarks that "The dog remains a dog" and your rephrase that "observation tells us that it will never sprout wings and become a bird" are simply assertions and not very relevant ones anyways(evolution wouldn't expect a dog to "sprout wings" although there are excellent examples of transitionals between true flyers and others). The terminology is so vague as to make it unclear exactly you mean that a dog will always remain a dog. Do you mean there will be never be a reproductive barrier? Do you mean that it will fit what your intuitive notion of what a dog looks like?. (Also, while we are on the topic of defintions, you use both "species" in a non-standard way, and use "kind" in a way that isn't even standard for creationists. If you are going to use terms in a non-standard fashion, defining them would be good). [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 14:40, 13 February 2007 (EST)

:::::Chris, I think you have a misconception of how common descent works. The claim that no dog will become anything other than another kind of dog is, in fact, true, according to evolutionary theory, not a challenge of it. The statement is essentially no different than the claim that mammals never become anything other than mammals, or eukaryotes will never be anything other than eukaryotes. Common descent specifies that evolution happens via nested clades: groups within groups, not one group becoming another. This can be confusing because Linnean taxonomy is static, not cladistic.[[User:Plunge|Plunge]] 18:22, 20 February 2007 (EST)

::::::Evolution proposes that complexity increases such that more advanced species somehow emerge from less sophisticated ones. This is has never been observed, has never been duplicated in a laboratory, and requires a reduction in entropy at constant energy that contradicts all observations. All observations are of devolution, or the disappearance or reduction in complexity.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 18:34, 20 February 2007 (EST)

::::::: That's incorrect. Evolution does not make any claims about some species being more or less advanced. Evolution does not work on a ladder. Also, I'm not sure what you mean when you claim that increases in complexity have never been observed. As in many cases, this may depend on what you mean by complexity. However, regardless of what you mean a variety of mutations have been observed in humans and other species which add essentially new functions to the species. One common example of this is bacteria becoming immune to antibiotics. [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 19:07, 20 February 2007 (EST)

I specified that evolutionary change is the dependent variable, or Y-value, bounded by a horizontal assymptote, with time as the independent variable, or X-value. Your second remark is entirely correct- I misused the word "species" when I meant to refer only to changes between breeds. Observation has shown that some dominant genetic traits tend to be passed on to an organism's offspring, but alleles place boundaries on the change that can occur through this process. It is true that it is difficult to quantify evolutionary change, since it does not appear to progress in any certain direction- another challenge to the above argument concerning the progress of evolutionary change over time. I chose a rational graph with the dependent variable bounded by a horizontal assymptote as an illustration because the aforementioned argument seemed to assume that evolutionary change could be expressed with respect to time or reproductive cycles by a linear graph. I chose the example of cross breeding because it is an example of the reproductive cycle being manipulated to produce maximum evolutionary change. The natural rate of change would be much slower, if indeed there were any measurable change. My statements about a dog "remaining a dog" and not changing species were meant only as examples of the genetic limitations of evolutionary change through natural reproduction, which is generaly limited by species, though somtimes by more inclusive levels of biological classification.

: I'm not sure I completely follow some of what you said such as "Observation has shown that some dominant genetic traits tend to be passed on to an organism's offspring"- alleles are passed on just as frequently whether they are dominant or recessive. We are however, getting to the crux of the matter (although I incidentally note that you ignored the issue of discrete genetics), saying that change is "generaly limited by species, though somtimes by more inclusive levels of biological classification" is not useful. Beyond the species level all classification has a highly arbitrary element to it, at which point it isn't at all clear *why* you would presume that evolution at that level wouldn't occur (there is no sign of any magic barrier or such). This has also the incidental problem that speciation is in fact common. There are possibly hundreds of observed speciation events and I could easily provide (if you wanted) 10 or 15 of them and the relevant citations. (Also, many creationists support not just that speciation has occured but that rapid speciation occured right after the Deluge(indeed, in AIG's account this speciation happened far more uniformily and far faster than any biologist would ever predict and far faster than any observed level). To some extent this reflects a changing of the goalposts- 100 years ago no creationist acknowledged any form of evolution, then in the 1960s the evidence got overwhelming enough that the creationists conceded "microevolution" meaning evolution within species, and more recently many creationists now agree that evolution above the species level can occur, but not much above it. [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 16:14, 13 February 2007 (EST)

'''Reply:'''
:::The boundry that defines into what an organism can and cannot evolve is not a "magic barrier" but its own DNA. An organism can only lose genetic information. There has never been an observed exception to this rule. What Chris tried to demonstrate (I think) by his example of a dog is that a dog can change but it cannot become anything beyond the limit set by its own genes; it cannot "sprout wings and become a bird"

:::--[[User:BenjaminS|BenjaminS]] 21:00, 13 February 2007 (EST)

::::: Ben, this doesn't help at all. This is yet more vague assertions with undefined terms. And almost any defintion of the terms will in fact render the statements false. For example the claim that "an organism can only lose genetic information" - so in this context what do you mean by information? Do you mean in terms of Shannon's measure of information? This is easily seen to be false. Do you mean in terms of Kolmogorov complexity? Again, the claim is false. Indeed, by any reasonable defintion the claim is false. To see why consider the following: Consider some function f that is a function of the current genetic makeup of some creature and turns out some non-negative real number representing how much information there is in that genome. Now, suppose creature A through either mutation or recombination has offspring A' and f(A') < f(A) (that is, A' has lost information). Then the mutation that goes from A' to something with genome A is an example of a gain in information. Since all mutations are reversible, we've established that for any reasonable defintion of information, information can be gained (modulo the essentially trivial case of all genomes having the same information value) [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 22:27, 13 February 2007 (EST)

#*'''Counter:''' Despite a century of teaching evolution in American schools, the majority of Americans still reject it. The burden of proof is on the evolutionists, and the proof just isn't there. Darwinists would be better off looking for another theory to try to replace Christianity.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 23:54, 21 December 2006 (EST)

>95% of academic biologists support it.

Those who argue against it have a poor understanding of biology.

:'''Comment on logic''': I am sorry, but your answer is an appeal to authority, a common logical mistake. But its ok. I am sure there is still more evidence to support your point? [[User:David R|David R]]

: '''Reply''': You say that "95% of academic biologists support it." What evidence do you have to support this statement? I have often wondered if there was a place were one could view this sort of information. It would be most helpful.

: You go on to say that "Those who argue against it have a poor understanding of biology." Again, what evidence do you have to support this statement? Here are some creation biologists, to name a few:

* Dr. Raymond G. Bohlin, Biologist
* Dr. Andrew Bosanquet, Biology, Microbiology
* Prof. Chung-Il Cho, Biology Education
* Dr. Chris Darnbrough, Biochemist
* Dr. David A. DeWitt, Biology, Biochemistry, Neuroscience
* Dr. Dudley Eirich, Molecular Biologist
* Prof. Carl B. Fliermans, Professor of Biology
* Prof. Robert H. Franks, Associate Professor of Biology
* Dr. Duane Gish, Biochemist
* Dr. D.B. Gower, Biochemistry
* Dr. Bob Hosken, Biochemistry

: All of them have doctoral degrees in some sort of biology and all argue against macro-evolution and for creationism. Are you claiming that all of them have a poor understanding of biology? [[User:PhilipB|PhilipB]] 23:29, 17 December 2006 (EST)

: '''Another Reply''': I assume that you have a better understanding of biology upon which to base this attack? Please enlighten us; how would a wise biologist refute the facts that seemingly disprove evolution? Where is the host of intermediate links? When have biologists observed an organism acctually '''''gain''''' genetic information through a mutation rather than lose it? [[User:BenjaminS|BenjaminS]]

:: '''Response''': I take it your claim is that all mutations cause a loss of genetic information. This claim is false. Consider: if all mutations cause a loss of genetic information, then point mutations cause a loss of genetic information. But all point mutations are reversible—that is, the nucleotide that changes can change back. So if the original point mutation caused a loss of information, the reversed mutation must cause a gain in information.--[[User:Stereotypical A|Stereotypical A]] 20:36, 20 February 2007 (EST)

::: REPLY: It requires intelligent intervention to reverse a mutation. Lost genetic information will not be restored simply by chance.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 20:52, 20 February 2007 (EST)

:::: Absolutely false. Point mutations can go either way (and frequently do). In fact, there are a number of tests which measure how mutagenic various mutagens are by using this property. Basically, you take a type of bactera which has a point mutation that leaves it unable to synthesize a necessary amino acid and then you grow a colony of that bacterium and expose them to the desired mutagen. Then you measure what fraction of the colony can survive if you remove the necessary amino acid from the medium. This sort of test has been done for about 30 years now. [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 22:58, 20 February 2007 (EST)
Having studied and worked with scientists for a decade, and spending another decade debating armchair evolutionists, I've found that it is usually someone unsuccessful in the hard sciences (physical, chemistry, biology and you might add mathematics) who is drawn most to evolution. The late evolution-promoter Stephen Jay Gould, for example, was merely a geology major at Antioch College. Big evolution promoter Richard Dawkins was an assistant professor at Berkeley, and then a lecturer, and then it's not clear to me what his academic status was for a while. Meanwhile, real experts, such as Richard Sternberg who has TWO PhDs in evolution fields, have been critical of the theory. But Sternberg was harshly disciplined for daring to question the theory, and few are anxious to risk similar retaliation.

>It is at least a puzzle to understand how Creationism accounts for seemingly-badly-designed aspects of anatomy and physiology. For example, the eyes of cephalopods (squid, octopus) and those of vertebrates (mammals, including humans) are strikingly similar in their general "design" with one conspicuous exception. In the cephalopod eye, the retina is structured exactly as one would expect: the light-sensitive receptors face forward, toward the lens, and the nerve fibers that join to form the optic nerve exit in the back.

In the human eye, however, the retina is structured in a very surprising way that is exactly the reverse. The receptors face ''backwards,'' and not only the nerve fibers that collect to form the optic nerve but also all of the blood vessels that nourish it are in ''front,'' where they block the view and cast shadows on the retina. The result is that the human eye has a large and seemingly unnecessary blind spot, and that very intricate processing by the brain is necessary to hide the image of the shadows of the blood vessels.

It all works, of course, but it is puzzling as to why an intelligent creator would design it this way, particularly given that the much older cephalopod eye does it the "right" way. No doubt it is ''possible'' to explain this (just as it is ''possible'' to explain fossils by saying that God created the fossils along with everything else in 4004 BC).

It seems much easier to explain this as a series of incremental adaptations rather than as being "designed" the way a human engineer would design a camera. Of course that does not mean that the incremental adaptations were necessarily guided by pure natural selection as envisioned by Darwin, either. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 14:01, 18 December 2006 (EST)

: '''Reply''': I don't know where you got the thing about creationists believing that God created the fossils in 4004 B.C., but I believe that the vast majority of fossils are the product of Noah's flood as it is described in Genesis. [[User:ChrisS|ChrisS]]

: '''Reply''': I believe that almost everything you say here provides evidence '''for''' creation. Let me explain... in you first paragraph you state that mammals "are strikingly similar in their general 'design'". This is true but does this support macro-evolution? I think not. Wouldn't macro-evolution produce many different types of "eyes" that would work? Why are they all so similar?

: You go on to say that in the human the eye is just different from all these other eyes. You say this provides evidence against creation because, if it were true, why is it not the same as the others. Well, doesn't this also support creationism? Why would just one be different? Because our creator was original, he was an artist, not a robot. As for the "very intricate processing by the brain <nowiki>[that]</nowiki> is necessary to hide the image of the shadows of the blood vessels." This is more evidence for creation. Why would natural selection create a process like this? It seems pointless to us, but those "intricate" processes were intricately '''designed'''. Maybe our creator was trying to show that he existed... He created this one eye that wouldn't work; if it not for these amazing brain processes. [[User:PhilipB|PhilipB]] 15:11, 18 December 2006 (EST)

::It's certainly a point of view... but didn't you feel that you needed to work just a bit to arrive at it?

::Although it's certainly ''possible,'' I don't believe that God involves himself in the design details of vertebrate anatomy, and I certainly don't believe he goes to the effort of putting in deliberate design errors as a trick to test peoples' faith. I think a lot more likely that God created the general conditions under which evolution by natural selection takes place, and the "wrong" anatomy of the vertebrate retina is the result of the constraints of having evolved in gradual steps. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 11:48, 19 December 2006 (EST)

: '''Reply:''' There is nothing to indicate that the human eye is an "error"; it works wonderfully. Also under the belief that God is omnipotent, I have no trouble as you do in believing that God would design the details of vertebrate anatomy, especially in light of the arguments against evolution below (with the possible exception of argument #7). Why would he let life progress at random when he could create every thing "fearfully and wonderfully" to reflect his awesome greatness?

[[User:BenjaminS|BenjaminS]]

'''3''' There is a double nested hierarchy. That is, all life forms two nested hierarchies, one morphological and one genetic and these hierarchies correspond to how they evolved. While it is true that when designers as we know them design things they design them with similarities, they do not design them in nested hierarchies. Human designers will use an idea in one place and then copy that section over somewhere else. (For example, one would not expect an engineer to design the panda's thumb but rather expect the engineer use the pre-existing thumb design from primates). [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 16:01, 13 February 2007 (EST)

==No==

If you have questions about Evolution/Creationism see the articles on this website [[http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/qa.asp]]

I would just like to say that the "theory" of Evolution ''does not even qualify as a theory!!'' According to the scientific method, after you make a hypothesis, if '''''ANY''''' data comes up that contradicts you hypothesis than it must either be revised or discarded! How come even though there is much evidence that contradicts evolution it is still considered a theory? [[User:ChrisS|ChrisS]]

'''No'''
: 1. No credible transitional forms (fossils reflecting evolution between species) have ever been found.
::'''Counter:''' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_transitional_fossils Some transitional forms]
:::'''Counter:'''

:::All of these examples given in the above about the evolution of the whale are nonsense:

:::* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pakicetus Pakicetus] -- What makes this a "link"? It was nothing but a land mammal gone extinct.

:::* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambulocetus Ambulocetus] -- The reason given that this is a link is complete nonsense. It resembles a whale??? Most trees resemble eachother, they all have a trunk, branches, leaves, etc. Does this mean that all trees are somehow missing links between each other?

:::* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorudon Dorudon] -- I guess Wikipedia supposes this is a missing link because it uses sonar??? Same as example above.

:::* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basilosaurus Basilosaurus] -- Another extinct species called a link because it "resembles" a whale.

:::* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurhinodelphis Eurhinodelphis] -- No reason given that is may be a missing link.

:::* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mammalodon Mammalodon colliveri] -- The article just makes an unsupported statement. I would consider this article for deletion (no notability).

:::[[User:PhilipB|PhilipB]] 11:46, 3 January 2007 (EST)

:::: '''Counter''' This may be an example of where going to specialized sources rather than relying on Wikipedia would be in order. However, some of these do in fact make clear why they are considered transitionals. For example, Pakicetus (as discussed in the Wikipedia article) had an inner ear structure that was very cetacean.(Not mentioned in the article but also relevant, Pakicetus had teeth that were very similar to some of the later transitionals in this list although not quite of the standard cetacean form) Proceeding, ambulectus had a bone structure consistent with something which spent time both walking and swimming and bears some similarities to Pakicetus. Basilosaurus looks almost like a modern whale except for the vestigial limbs. I'm not going to go into the others in detail but that should make it clear that there is good reason to see these as transitionals. [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 15:49, 13 February 2007 (EST)

: 2. There is no plausible explanation for the evolution of the whale, which is a mammal. Darwin suggested that the whale somehow came from black bears swimming with their mouths open!

: 3. Evolution cannot be reconciled with the evidence of a massive flood.
::And what evidence would that be?

: 4. All mutations are harmful.
::'''Counter''' This is a false argument. Firstly, it is estimated 1/3 of point mutations (mutations affecting one link in the DNA and no others) are not harmful. Secondly, though the number is small, there are documented cases of mutations being beneficial - an example is sickle cell anemia. This mutation is a flaw in the hemoglobin gene of humans, causing these molecules to covalently bond into long, bristly fibers inside the red blood cell that distort them into a sickle cell shape. This mutation makes sickle cell individuals immune to malaria, and many of the people residing in countries where this disease is prevalent have this mutation. The people affected by this mutation have lived and multiplied, thereby disproving this myth. Also see Counter argument to #5. [[User:PhyllisS|PhyllisS]]

'''Reply:''' Phyllis, I don't know where you got your information on sickle cell anemia but it was certainly a biased source. You have not given the full story; 25% of those with sickle cell anemia die prematurely! '''''This is not a good mutation.''''' As the closest thing to a good mutation that evolutionists can come up with this is not supportive of evolution at all.
--[[User:BenjaminS|BenjaminS]] 23:40, 13 January 2007 (EST)

'''Further Reply:''' Overall the mutation sickle cell anemia is obviously harmful. The same is true for all mutations. Simple probability predicts this: a random mutation is far more likely to reach a less desirable form. The odds are overwhelming. It is the same reason that heat always flows to cooler places. If you think mutations can be beneficial, then do you also think heat can sometimes "by chance" flow to a hotter place? That if we added billions of years it must happen sometimes? Of course not. It never happens.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 23:01, 14 January 2007 (EST)

'''Further Reply:''' Heat flowing to cooler places is entirely irrelevant to our discussion. Please elaborate. --[[User:PhyllisS|PhyllisS]]

'''Comment:''' You should try to bear with Mr. Schlafly's abstract analogies (I know that they rarely make sense) and respond to his points that are doing you any harm; e.g. "Overall the mutation sickle cell anemia is obviously harmful. The same is true for all mutations."

--[[User:BenjaminS|BenjaminS]] 18:21, 17 January 2007 (EST)

*This is not '''exactly''' a counter to [[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]]. But... Darwin was writing in the days when breeders were starting to do amazing things with selective breeding, which was one of the things that impressed him. Selective breeding is still going on and it is still amazing. In 1910 the average domesticated chickens laid 80 eggs a year; by 1999 292 eggs a year. There are similar stories for milk production per cow, meat per chicken, etc. Some of the improvement is due to changes in feed, antibiotics, hormones, whatever, but most of it is from selective breeding. So the question I would ask is: if all mutations are harmful, then where do breeders find the slightly improved animals to select as the progenitors of the next generation? [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 18:46, 22 January 2007 (EST)

: The vast majority of mutations are neutral or have no observable phenotypic change. Furthermore, of those mutations which are not in those categories, for most mutations whether or not the mutation is beneficial is highly connected to the environment which the relevant organism is found (sickle-cell anemia provides a vivid demonstration of this). However, other examples which are more directly beneficial. For example, many bacteria have gained mutations for immunity to various antibiotics, while other bacteria have gained mutations that allow them to eat nylon (a purely synthetic material). A more prosaic example is lactose tolerance. [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 22:43, 6 February 2007 (EST)

: 5. Species have being going extinct rather than being generated.
::'''Counter''' This is not true. For example, through a specific type of sympatric speciation, new species of plants are able to form and have formed in abundance. It occurs from meiosis not occuring properly in the production of gametes. These "mutant" offspring are a new species and cannot produce offspring with the species they came from, yet can produce fertile offspring with other plants that were mutated the same way. --[[User:PhyllisS|PhyllisS]]

'''Reply:''' This is true; the statement above is only a general rule. What can be said for sure is that though mutations occur, there has never been a documented example of a organism '''''gaining''''' genetic information.--[[User:BenjaminS|BenjaminS]] 23:40, 13 January 2007 (EST)

'''Further reply:''' Right. The mutant offspring devolved, not evolved.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 23:01, 14 January 2007 (EST)

'''Further reply:''' The organism did not devolve. Please explain this reply further. --[[User:PhyllisS|PhyllisS]]

'''Comment:''' I think that by "devolve" he is trying to point out that organisms only ''lose'' genetic information through mutation; evolution relies upon the ''gain'' genetic information.

--[[User:BenjaminS|BenjaminS]] 18:21, 17 January 2007 (EST)

: 6. All unaided things become more disordered and scattered over time.
::'''Counter''' Which is an argument against the existence of technology, cities, cars and everything advanced. This is a (rather embarrasing) misconception about the second law of thermodynamics. It states that entropy increases in a closed system. The earth is not a closed system, as processes here are powered by the energy originating from the sun. Order can increase in a system as long as more energy is inserted. A '''closed''' system is a system that doesn't receive such outside energy.
::::'''Comment on "closed system":''' So what you are saying that the order and energy of the Earth is dependent and derived from the Sun. Where does the Sun get its energy? What happens when it runs out of fuel, whether that be millions or even billions of years away? Molecules are ''still'' breaking down within the Sun. No matter how you look at it, the entire universe, "closed system" or not, is a slave of the second law of thermodynamics. [[User:David R|David R]]

:::::'''Further comment:''' That's right, David. By the way, the injection of energy into a system ''increases'' entropy. The only way to decrease entropy is intelligent ordering or intervention. Without that, entropy and disorder always increase. Whatever species existed 5000 years ago, in the absence of divine intervention there must be less ordered, less advanced, fewer species today. We see many examples of this: species go extinct each year, breeds of dogs degrade (e.g., Golden Retriever), even humans have increased incidence of asthma and other health problems from generation to generation. Take a look at how smart humans were just 100 or 200 years ago by looking at their writings, and compare that to the average human writings today. Entropy predicts degradation of everything over time in the absence of intelligent intervention.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 22:26, 14 January 2007 (EST)
::::::The injection of energy into a system increases enthalpy, not entropy, Aschlafly. DNA, proteins, and other highly-ordered macromolecules stay together not because of intelligent intervention, but because of enthalpic contributions that offset the entropic cost. Also, you state that "Entropy predicts degradation... in the absence of intelligent intervention", just after you comment that everything is degrading. Wouldn't that imply, then, the absence of intelligent intervention?
: 7. There is vast beauty in the world which would not exist in a purely evolutionary world. "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament shows his handiwork" (Psalm 19:1)
::'''Counter''' This is an irrelevant argument. What evidence exists to say that evolution cannot produce beauty? Besides that, what is the definition of beauty? Beauty can be a life form adapted to its environment, beauty can be a beneficial mutation, beauty can be monomers spontaneously forming polymers when dripped on hot clay...all examples of evolution. [[User:PhyllisS|PhyllisS]]

:::This argument "against" evolution is terrible! Though evolution is false this isn't why. Unfortunately for evolutionists everywhere your counter argument does no better supporting evolution than the first one did disproving it.--[[User:BenjaminS|BenjaminS]] 23:40, 13 January 2007 (EST)

:::: Brilliant autumn foliage is beautiful. You won't find anyone who sincerely denies it, exact perhaps the most hardened evolutionist. But it is impossible for the beauty in brilliant autumn foliage to have evolved before humans even existed.

:::: Evolutionists generally deny that there is intrinsic beauty in nature. Over 99% of Americans think there is beauty in nature. Take your pick. Count me as part of the over 99% majority.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 22:47, 14 January 2007 (EST)

:::::I don't think "evolutionists generally deny that there is intrinsic beauty in nature." Where did you get that? (Not a rhetorical question, I'm curious to know. Do creationists go around saying such a thing?) Stephen Jay Gould wrote "Shall we appreciate any less the beauty of nature because its harmony is unplanned?" Darwin wrote
::::::"The view seen when crossing the hills behind Praia Grande was most beautiful; the colours were intense, and the prevailing tint a dark blue; the sky and the calm waters of the bay vied with each other in splendour;" "The number of beautiful fishing birds, such as egrets and cranes, and the succulent plants assuming most fantastical forms, gave to the scene an interest which it would not otherwise have possessed." "The beautiful view of the distant wooded hills, reflected in the perfectly calm water of an extensive lagoon, quite refreshed us." etc. etc. etc.
:::::Maybe you think that evolutionists must seal their minds into logic-tight compartments in order to appreciate the beauty of nature while at the same time trying to explain it from natural causes, but they do it nonetheless. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 15:55, 22 January 2007 (EST)

'''Reply:''' I personally believe that God purposefully created nature for humans to enjoy and care for and that he purposefully made it beautiful as a blessing for us. nevertheless, from an evolutionary standpoint, beauty can still be explained; if we all came from a common ancestor, especially given our reliance on nature for suvival, I don't see why the theory of evolution cannot be reconciled with the fact that 99% of Americans find beauty in autumn foliage.

--[[User:BenjaminS|BenjaminS]] 23:57, 14 January 2007 (EST)

: 8. Abiogenesis is impossible. Even the simplest life form possible would be way too complicated to spring from nothing.
::'''Counter''' Regardless if it's possible or not, it's not an argument against macroevolution.
::'''Counter''' You don't know that it's impossible. No one knows what the simplest life form is, but pretending that abiogenesis concerns the simplest MODERN life (i.e. a modern cell) is nonsense: that's not what's being suggested at all. Besides, talking about stacking chemical reactions that observably naturally occur is not "springing from nothing."[[User:Plunge|Plunge]] 23:49, 20 February 2007 (EST)

'''No''': In short... no. In long... there is much evidence against the theory that proves it is false. First of all there is the classic argument that the "missing links" are '''''still''''' missing. Here is what Darwin had to say on the subject. <blockquote>"Geological research, though it has added numerous species to existing and extinct genera, and has made the intervals between some few groups less wide then they otherwise would have been, yet has done scarcely anything in breaking the distinction between species, by connecting them together by numerous, fine, intermediate varieties; and this having been affected, is probably the gravest and most obvious of all the many objections which can be raised against my views." (''[[The Origin of Species]]'', 6th edition, 1962, Collier Books, NY, p.462.)</blockquote>

Since when you are looking for data from the earth's history the first place you would look is the fossil record. What does the fossil record say? It says macroevolution '''''never''''' happened. There are even less documented "missing links" today then there were in Darwin's day. Obviously, macro-evolutionists want these "missing" links to be found desperately based on the elaborate measures they have gone through to try and fake the public out into believing one has been found. Take, for example, the famous Nebraska Man. He was supposed "evidence" for macro-evolution but in reality he was based entirely on a tooth from an extinct species of pig found among some ancient tools![http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/a_nebraska.html] This is only the beginning of the evidence against macro-evolution and I will be adding more to this edit as I get the time! [[User:PhilipB|PhilipB]] 11:06, 17 December 2006 (EST)

: ''''Counter''' The above claims are simply false. We have hundreds of major transitional fossils(which is what I presume you mean by "missing link") between a variety of different groups. Examples include Australopithecus as transitional between humans ape like ancestors and humans, hasiophis terrasanctus (sp?) a transitional snake with hind limbs and many others. Name almost any major grouping and we will have transitional fossils between the various groups. For some groups we have very detailed transitional sequences. For example, between fish and tetrapods is a particularly good example, and the transitions between land mammals and whales have become well developed over the last 20 years. [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 14:14, 13 February 2007 (EST)

== Evolution is a Racist Philosophy ==

*"At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace the savage races throughout the world. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes ... will no doubt be exterminated. The break between man and his nearest Allies will then be wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilized state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as the baboon, instead of as now between the Negro or Australian and the gorilla." (Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man 2nd ed (New York: A. L. Burt Co., I 874), p. 178)."

*"The Negroid stock is even more ancient than the Caucasian and Mongolian, as may be proved by an examination not only of the brain, of the hair, of the bodily characters. such as the teeth, the genitalia, the sense organs, but of the instincts, the intelligence. The standard of intelligence of the average Negro is similar to that of the eleven-year-old youth of the species Homo sapiens. (Henry Fairfield Osborn, "The Evolution of the Human Races," Natural History, Jan./Feb. 1926. Reprinted in Natural History 89 (April 1980): 129.)" -evolutionist Henry Fairfield Osborn

*The full title of Darwin's book is ''On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life''
**It's worth noting though that "races" in the title refers to kinds of animals: it's never used to refer to people and in fact the book never mentions human beings at all until the very end, and then only briefly.[[User:Plunge|Plunge]] 18:44, 20 February 2007 (EST)

*Hitler's atrocities were based on evolutionary philosophy.

::Evolution has certainly been used by racists in support of their views. Racists have used many things, including Christianity, in support of their views. Think of the burning crosses of the Ku Klux Klan.

::And, yes, Darwin shared the common prejudices of his day... which was the time when the British Empire was busily colonizing places inhabited by dark-skinned people. You would have been hard-pressed to find many people in Darwin's England who were ''not'' racists, by today's standards.

::I think the point being raised here is an appropriate one to raise. But I think "evolution is a racist philosophy" is an exaggeration. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 15:36, 22 January 2007 (EST)

:::Christianity is not racist at its core, yet it is made to seem racist by some. Jesus came to save all, not just more "advanced races." Evolution '''is''' racist at its core, yet it is made to seem like it's not. Dpbsmith, you say that "Darwin shared the common prejudices of his day," this is true, but what does that have to do with he argument? Are you saying that racism influenced him when he came up with evolution, in the way that he uses evolution to support racism? [[User:PhilipB|PhilipB]] 16:09, 22 January 2007 (EST)

:::1) I'm acknowledging that the quotation from Darwin ''can'' fairly be described as racist. 2) I'm saying that many evil things are done in the name of many causes, and that people who do evil things will usually find a way to justify them. 3) I'm saying that I think more people have been killed by people claiming to be acting in the name of Jesus than by people claiming to be acting in the name of Darwin.

:::It is sometimes difficult to believe just how prevasive racism was from, perhaps, the mid-1800s through the mid-1900s. When The New York Times reviewed Longfellow's ''Song of Hiawatha'' in 1855, the reviewer said that Longfellow had "embalm[ed] pleasantly enough the monstrous traditions of an uninteresting, and, one may almost say, a justly exterminated race." That doesn't excuse Darwin. But it does put it into context. I think I agree with you to the extent that Darwin said things that can be fairly called "racist" and that Jesus did not. I don't agree that that makes evolution "racist at the core." OK, I think I've made my point clearly enough... I'll leave you to get in the last word if you like. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 18:26, 22 January 2007 (EST)

:::: Also note that racism on Darwin's part in no way matters for whether the modern theory of evolution is either racist or correct. First, in general, the truth or falsity of any idea is independent of who it came from (if Darwin were a serial killer who liked to steal candy from babies it would not change the validity of his ideas in the slightest (if you don't believe me, perform the same thought experiment with [[Newton]] or [[Josiah Willard Gibbs]])). Second, the modern neo-synthesis is far removed from Darwin's original notions. [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 22:34, 6 February 2007 (EST)

Debate:Is the theory of macroevolution true?

2007-02-20T23:44:08Z

Plunge: /* Evolution is a Racist Philosophy */

Post Your Thoughts

== Yes ==

Arguments for * All life on Earth shares common ancestor

*All life on Earth shares common ancestor
#All life on Earth shares molecular features.
#*'''Counter:''' This is not a scientific argument for evolution. First, this argument says nothing about a *process* of evolution. It does not reveal any transitional forms between species, for examples. In fact, lots of DNA evidence tends to disprove transitions from one species to another. Second, there is no objective or scientific way to say one thing is like another. If you insist there is, then you'd have to agree that intelligent design is science also. Note, by the way, that all of Shakespeare's plays "share" similar features, but one play did not evolve by itself into another.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 23:54, 21 December 2006 (EST)
##Same macromolecules (DNA, RNA, protein)
##Same monomers for those macromolecules (five nucleotides, twenty standard amino acids)
##Same chirality of molecules. DNA in all complex life forms is right-handed, research suggests[http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&res=9802E1DB1F3DF936A15751C0A9659C8B63] that left-handed DNA would work just as well.
###If life forms did not have common ancestors we would expect to see a fairly even distribution of left and right handed DNA.
##Genetic system:
##*Ribosome structure
##*tRNA structure
##*The universal genetic code (and slight deviations from it)
##*Information encoded in nucleotide polymers (DNA or RNA).
#Differences between organisms can be explained by known mechanisms of genetic mutation.
#*'''Counter:''' There has not been enough time for mutation to generate existing biological diversity.
#**'''Counter:''' There has been enough time enough time to generate existing biological diversity.
#***'''Counter:''' The time argument doesn't help. Decay, scattering, extinction, defects, disasters, etc., all INCREASE over time. Besides, all mutations are harmful.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 23:54, 21 December 2006 (EST)

NATURAL genetic changes can only account for diversity within a species. Mendellian genetics has demonstrated the existence of a closed field of genetic changes which can occur through the reproductive process.

#*#The speed of evolution is measured by the [[w:Darwin (unit)|darwin]] (change in an organism's character by a factor of e per million years.) [http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/section5.html#morphological_rates]
#*#Evolution in the lab can be as high as 200,000 darwins.
#*#As measured by the fossil record, the average evolutionary rate in the wild is 370 darwins.
#*#A rate of 400 darwins is capable of turning a mouse into an elephant in just 10,000 years.
#*No other (non-human) process has been observed to generate biological diversity.
#*Extensive biological diversity existed before humans had the ability to create new forms by molecular recombination.

Counter- The argument concerning rate of change assumes that biological evolution is described by a linear equation. However, observation and Mendellian genetics theory suggest that evolutionary change is better described by a rational function bounded by an assymptote. For example, it is relatively easy to crossbreed a pure bred dog so that you obtain a mutt or a nearly pure bred dog of another species. However, it will take an infinite amount of time to entirely replace the traits of the original breed with those of the new breed- the graph of evolutionary change, with change on the y-axis and time on the x-axis, has reached a horizontal assymptote. The dog remains a dog.
-Chris J
::: Um, what? I'm a bit of a mathy person and have some background in genetics as well, and the above doesn't seem to be anything but an assertion dressed up in mathematical terminology. [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 14:06, 13 February 2007 (EST)

Which part is unclear? The statements concerning the fossil record and crossbreeding within a species are simple, factual observations. If the argument concernig rate of change in units of Darwins is not based on a linear function, what is it based on? And to clarify- by saying that Change approaches a horizontal assymptote, I mean that change continues over time, but becomes infinitely small and and never exceeds a fixed point. The dog may, through natural reproduction, become another kind of dog. But observation tells us that it will never sprout wings and become a bird.
-Chris J
:::: Ok, for starters, you refer "observation and Mendellian genetics theory suggest that evolutionary change is better described by a rational function bounded by an assymptote" - it isn't clear what your relevant vairable is that is being bounded. Continuing, your next sentence claims that "it is relatively easy to crossbreed a pure bred dog so that you obtain a mutt or a nearly pure bred dog of another species." I'm not even sure what to make of this sentence since dog breeds aren't separate species. You furthermore assert that "it will take an infinite amount of time to entirely replace the traits of the original breed with those of the new breed" if anything this is what one might have thought before Mendel. Since alleles come in discrete entities and one does not have genetic continua, this is false. Not only is it false, it is irrelevant, since whether we are able to breed something to be identical to some pre-existing similar organism is irrelevant. Your summary remarks that "The dog remains a dog" and your rephrase that "observation tells us that it will never sprout wings and become a bird" are simply assertions and not very relevant ones anyways(evolution wouldn't expect a dog to "sprout wings" although there are excellent examples of transitionals between true flyers and others). The terminology is so vague as to make it unclear exactly you mean that a dog will always remain a dog. Do you mean there will be never be a reproductive barrier? Do you mean that it will fit what your intuitive notion of what a dog looks like?. (Also, while we are on the topic of defintions, you use both "species" in a non-standard way, and use "kind" in a way that isn't even standard for creationists. If you are going to use terms in a non-standard fashion, defining them would be good). [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 14:40, 13 February 2007 (EST)

:::::Chris, I think you have a misconception of how common descent works. The claim that no dog will become anything other than another kind of dog is, in fact, true, according to evolutionary theory, not a challenge of it. The statement is essentially no different than the claim that mammals never become anything other than mammals, or eukaryotes will never be anything other than eukaryotes. Common descent specifies that evolution happens via nested clades: groups within groups, not one group becoming another. This can be confusing because Linnean taxonomy is static, not cladistic.[[User:Plunge|Plunge]] 18:22, 20 February 2007 (EST)

::::::Evolution proposes that complexity increases such that more advanced species somehow emerge from less sophisticated ones. This is has never been observed, has never been duplicated in a laboratory, and requires a reduction in entropy at constant energy that contradicts all observations. All observations are of devolution, or the disappearance or reduction in complexity.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 18:34, 20 February 2007 (EST)

I specified that evolutionary change is the dependent variable, or Y-value, bounded by a horizontal assymptote, with time as the independent variable, or X-value. Your second remark is entirely correct- I misused the word "species" when I meant to refer only to changes between breeds. Observation has shown that some dominant genetic traits tend to be passed on to an organism's offspring, but alleles place boundaries on the change that can occur through this process. It is true that it is difficult to quantify evolutionary change, since it does not appear to progress in any certain direction- another challenge to the above argument concerning the progress of evolutionary change over time. I chose a rational graph with the dependent variable bounded by a horizontal assymptote as an illustration because the aforementioned argument seemed to assume that evolutionary change could be expressed with respect to time or reproductive cycles by a linear graph. I chose the example of cross breeding because it is an example of the reproductive cycle being manipulated to produce maximum evolutionary change. The natural rate of change would be much slower, if indeed there were any measurable change. My statements about a dog "remaining a dog" and not changing species were meant only as examples of the genetic limitations of evolutionary change through natural reproduction, which is generaly limited by species, though somtimes by more inclusive levels of biological classification.

: I'm not sure I completely follow some of what you said such as "Observation has shown that some dominant genetic traits tend to be passed on to an organism's offspring"- alleles are passed on just as frequently whether they are dominant or recessive. We are however, getting to the crux of the matter (although I incidentally note that you ignored the issue of discrete genetics), saying that change is "generaly limited by species, though somtimes by more inclusive levels of biological classification" is not useful. Beyond the species level all classification has a highly arbitrary element to it, at which point it isn't at all clear *why* you would presume that evolution at that level wouldn't occur (there is no sign of any magic barrier or such). This has also the incidental problem that speciation is in fact common. There are possibly hundreds of observed speciation events and I could easily provide (if you wanted) 10 or 15 of them and the relevant citations. (Also, many creationists support not just that speciation has occured but that rapid speciation occured right after the Deluge(indeed, in AIG's account this speciation happened far more uniformily and far faster than any biologist would ever predict and far faster than any observed level). To some extent this reflects a changing of the goalposts- 100 years ago no creationist acknowledged any form of evolution, then in the 1960s the evidence got overwhelming enough that the creationists conceded "microevolution" meaning evolution within species, and more recently many creationists now agree that evolution above the species level can occur, but not much above it. [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 16:14, 13 February 2007 (EST)

'''Reply:'''
:::The boundry that defines into what an organism can and cannot evolve is not a "magic barrier" but its own DNA. An organism can only lose genetic information. There has never been an observed exception to this rule. What Chris tried to demonstrate (I think) by his example of a dog is that a dog can change but it cannot become anything beyond the limit set by its own genes; it cannot "sprout wings and become a bird"

:::--[[User:BenjaminS|BenjaminS]] 21:00, 13 February 2007 (EST)

::::: Ben, this doesn't help at all. This is yet more vague assertions with undefined terms. And almost any defintion of the terms will in fact render the statements false. For example the claim that "an organism can only lose genetic information" - so in this context what do you mean by information? Do you mean in terms of Shannon's measure of information? This is easily seen to be false. Do you mean in terms of Kolmogorov complexity? Again, the claim is false. Indeed, by any reasonable defintion the claim is false. To see why consider the following: Consider some function f that is a function of the current genetic makeup of some creature and turns out some non-negative real number representing how much information there is in that genome. Now, suppose creature A through either mutation or recombination has offspring A' and f(A') < f(A) (that is, A' has lost information). Then the mutation that goes from A' to something with genome A is an example of a gain in information. Since all mutations are reversible, we've established that for any reasonable defintion of information, information can be gained (modulo the essentially trivial case of all genomes having the same information value) [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 22:27, 13 February 2007 (EST)

#*'''Counter:''' Despite a century of teaching evolution in American schools, the majority of Americans still reject it. The burden of proof is on the evolutionists, and the proof just isn't there. Darwinists would be better off looking for another theory to try to replace Christianity.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 23:54, 21 December 2006 (EST)

>95% of academic biologists support it.

Those who argue against it have a poor understanding of biology.

:'''Comment on logic''': I am sorry, but your answer is an appeal to authority, a common logical mistake. But its ok. I am sure there is still more evidence to support your point? [[User:David R|David R]]

: '''Reply''': You say that "95% of academic biologists support it." What evidence do you have to support this statement? I have often wondered if there was a place were one could view this sort of information. It would be most helpful.

: You go on to say that "Those who argue against it have a poor understanding of biology." Again, what evidence do you have to support this statement? Here are some creation biologists, to name a few:

* Dr. Raymond G. Bohlin, Biologist
* Dr. Andrew Bosanquet, Biology, Microbiology
* Prof. Chung-Il Cho, Biology Education
* Dr. Chris Darnbrough, Biochemist
* Dr. David A. DeWitt, Biology, Biochemistry, Neuroscience
* Dr. Dudley Eirich, Molecular Biologist
* Prof. Carl B. Fliermans, Professor of Biology
* Prof. Robert H. Franks, Associate Professor of Biology
* Dr. Duane Gish, Biochemist
* Dr. D.B. Gower, Biochemistry
* Dr. Bob Hosken, Biochemistry

: All of them have doctoral degrees in some sort of biology and all argue against macro-evolution and for creationism. Are you claiming that all of them have a poor understanding of biology? [[User:PhilipB|PhilipB]] 23:29, 17 December 2006 (EST)

: '''Another Reply''': I assume that you have a better understanding of biology upon which to base this attack? Please enlighten us; how would a wise biologist refute the facts that seemingly disprove evolution? Where is the host of intermediate links? When have biologists observed an organism acctually '''''gain''''' genetic information through a mutation rather than lose it? [[User:BenjaminS|BenjaminS]]

Having studied and worked with scientists for a decade, and spending another decade debating armchair evolutionists, I've found that it is usually someone unsuccessful in the hard sciences (physical, chemistry, biology and you might add mathematics) who is drawn most to evolution. The late evolution-promoter Stephen Jay Gould, for example, was merely a geology major at Antioch College. Big evolution promoter Richard Dawkins was an assistant professor at Berkeley, and then a lecturer, and then it's not clear to me what his academic status was for a while. Meanwhile, real experts, such as Richard Sternberg who has TWO PhDs in evolution fields, have been critical of the theory. But Sternberg was harshly disciplined for daring to question the theory, and few are anxious to risk similar retaliation.

>It is at least a puzzle to understand how Creationism accounts for seemingly-badly-designed aspects of anatomy and physiology. For example, the eyes of cephalopods (squid, octopus) and those of vertebrates (mammals, including humans) are strikingly similar in their general "design" with one conspicuous exception. In the cephalopod eye, the retina is structured exactly as one would expect: the light-sensitive receptors face forward, toward the lens, and the nerve fibers that join to form the optic nerve exit in the back.

In the human eye, however, the retina is structured in a very surprising way that is exactly the reverse. The receptors face ''backwards,'' and not only the nerve fibers that collect to form the optic nerve but also all of the blood vessels that nourish it are in ''front,'' where they block the view and cast shadows on the retina. The result is that the human eye has a large and seemingly unnecessary blind spot, and that very intricate processing by the brain is necessary to hide the image of the shadows of the blood vessels.

It all works, of course, but it is puzzling as to why an intelligent creator would design it this way, particularly given that the much older cephalopod eye does it the "right" way. No doubt it is ''possible'' to explain this (just as it is ''possible'' to explain fossils by saying that God created the fossils along with everything else in 4004 BC).

It seems much easier to explain this as a series of incremental adaptations rather than as being "designed" the way a human engineer would design a camera. Of course that does not mean that the incremental adaptations were necessarily guided by pure natural selection as envisioned by Darwin, either. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 14:01, 18 December 2006 (EST)

: '''Reply''': I don't know where you got the thing about creationists believing that God created the fossils in 4004 B.C., but I believe that the vast majority of fossils are the product of Noah's flood as it is described in Genesis. [[User:ChrisS|ChrisS]]

: '''Reply''': I believe that almost everything you say here provides evidence '''for''' creation. Let me explain... in you first paragraph you state that mammals "are strikingly similar in their general 'design'". This is true but does this support macro-evolution? I think not. Wouldn't macro-evolution produce many different types of "eyes" that would work? Why are they all so similar?

: You go on to say that in the human the eye is just different from all these other eyes. You say this provides evidence against creation because, if it were true, why is it not the same as the others. Well, doesn't this also support creationism? Why would just one be different? Because our creator was original, he was an artist, not a robot. As for the "very intricate processing by the brain <nowiki>[that]</nowiki> is necessary to hide the image of the shadows of the blood vessels." This is more evidence for creation. Why would natural selection create a process like this? It seems pointless to us, but those "intricate" processes were intricately '''designed'''. Maybe our creator was trying to show that he existed... He created this one eye that wouldn't work; if it not for these amazing brain processes. [[User:PhilipB|PhilipB]] 15:11, 18 December 2006 (EST)

::It's certainly a point of view... but didn't you feel that you needed to work just a bit to arrive at it?

::Although it's certainly ''possible,'' I don't believe that God involves himself in the design details of vertebrate anatomy, and I certainly don't believe he goes to the effort of putting in deliberate design errors as a trick to test peoples' faith. I think a lot more likely that God created the general conditions under which evolution by natural selection takes place, and the "wrong" anatomy of the vertebrate retina is the result of the constraints of having evolved in gradual steps. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 11:48, 19 December 2006 (EST)

: '''Reply:''' There is nothing to indicate that the human eye is an "error"; it works wonderfully. Also under the belief that God is omnipotent, I have no trouble as you do in believing that God would design the details of vertebrate anatomy, especially in light of the arguments against evolution below (with the possible exception of argument #7). Why would he let life progress at random when he could create every thing "fearfully and wonderfully" to reflect his awesome greatness?

[[User:BenjaminS|BenjaminS]]

'''3''' There is a double nested hierarchy. That is, all life forms two nested hierarchies, one morphological and one genetic and these hierarchies correspond to how they evolved. While it is true that when designers as we know them design things they design them with similarities, they do not design them in nested hierarchies. Human designers will use an idea in one place and then copy that section over somewhere else. (For example, one would not expect an engineer to design the panda's thumb but rather expect the engineer use the pre-existing thumb design from primates). [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 16:01, 13 February 2007 (EST)

==No==

If you have questions about Evolution/Creationism see the articles on this website [[http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/qa.asp]]

I would just like to say that the "theory" of Evolution ''does not even qualify as a theory!!'' According to the scientific method, after you make a hypothesis, if '''''ANY''''' data comes up that contradicts you hypothesis than it must either be revised or discarded! How come even though there is much evidence that contradicts evolution it is still considered a theory? [[User:ChrisS|ChrisS]]

'''No'''
: 1. No credible transitional forms (fossils reflecting evolution between species) have ever been found.
::'''Counter:''' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_transitional_fossils Some transitional forms]
:::'''Counter:'''

:::All of these examples given in the above about the evolution of the whale are nonsense:

:::* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pakicetus Pakicetus] -- What makes this a "link"? It was nothing but a land mammal gone extinct.

:::* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambulocetus Ambulocetus] -- The reason given that this is a link is complete nonsense. It resembles a whale??? Most trees resemble eachother, they all have a trunk, branches, leaves, etc. Does this mean that all trees are somehow missing links between each other?

:::* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorudon Dorudon] -- I guess Wikipedia supposes this is a missing link because it uses sonar??? Same as example above.

:::* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basilosaurus Basilosaurus] -- Another extinct species called a link because it "resembles" a whale.

:::* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurhinodelphis Eurhinodelphis] -- No reason given that is may be a missing link.

:::* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mammalodon Mammalodon colliveri] -- The article just makes an unsupported statement. I would consider this article for deletion (no notability).

:::[[User:PhilipB|PhilipB]] 11:46, 3 January 2007 (EST)

:::: '''Counter''' This may be an example of where going to specialized sources rather than relying on Wikipedia would be in order. However, some of these do in fact make clear why they are considered transitionals. For example, Pakicetus (as discussed in the Wikipedia article) had an inner ear structure that was very cetacean.(Not mentioned in the article but also relevant, Pakicetus had teeth that were very similar to some of the later transitionals in this list although not quite of the standard cetacean form) Proceeding, ambulectus had a bone structure consistent with something which spent time both walking and swimming and bears some similarities to Pakicetus. Basilosaurus looks almost like a modern whale except for the vestigial limbs. I'm not going to go into the others in detail but that should make it clear that there is good reason to see these as transitionals. [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 15:49, 13 February 2007 (EST)

: 2. There is no plausible explanation for the evolution of the whale, which is a mammal. Darwin suggested that the whale somehow came from black bears swimming with their mouths open!

: 3. Evolution cannot be reconciled with the evidence of a massive flood.

: 4. All mutations are harmful.
::'''Counter''' This is a false argument. Firstly, it is estimated 1/3 of point mutations (mutations affecting one link in the DNA and no others) are not harmful. Secondly, though the number is small, there are documented cases of mutations being beneficial - an example is sickle cell anemia. This mutation is a flaw in the hemoglobin gene of humans, causing these molecules to covalently bond into long, bristly fibers inside the red blood cell that distort them into a sickle cell shape. This mutation makes sickle cell individuals immune to malaria, and many of the people residing in countries where this disease is prevalent have this mutation. The people affected by this mutation have lived and multiplied, thereby disproving this myth. Also see Counter argument to #5. [[User:PhyllisS|PhyllisS]]

'''Reply:''' Phyllis, I don't know where you got your information on sickle cell anemia but it was certainly a biased source. You have not given the full story; 25% of those with sickle cell anemia die prematurely! '''''This is not a good mutation.''''' As the closest thing to a good mutation that evolutionists can come up with this is not supportive of evolution at all.
--[[User:BenjaminS|BenjaminS]] 23:40, 13 January 2007 (EST)

'''Further Reply:''' Overall the mutation sickle cell anemia is obviously harmful. The same is true for all mutations. Simple probability predicts this: a random mutation is far more likely to reach a less desirable form. The odds are overwhelming. It is the same reason that heat always flows to cooler places. If you think mutations can be beneficial, then do you also think heat can sometimes "by chance" flow to a hotter place? That if we added billions of years it must happen sometimes? Of course not. It never happens.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 23:01, 14 January 2007 (EST)

'''Further Reply:''' Heat flowing to cooler places is entirely irrelevant to our discussion. Please elaborate. --[[User:PhyllisS|PhyllisS]]

'''Comment:''' You should try to bear with Mr. Schlafly's abstract analogies (I know that they rarely make sense) and respond to his points that are doing you any harm; e.g. "Overall the mutation sickle cell anemia is obviously harmful. The same is true for all mutations."

--[[User:BenjaminS|BenjaminS]] 18:21, 17 January 2007 (EST)

*This is not '''exactly''' a counter to [[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]]. But... Darwin was writing in the days when breeders were starting to do amazing things with selective breeding, which was one of the things that impressed him. Selective breeding is still going on and it is still amazing. In 1910 the average domesticated chickens laid 80 eggs a year; by 1999 292 eggs a year. There are similar stories for milk production per cow, meat per chicken, etc. Some of the improvement is due to changes in feed, antibiotics, hormones, whatever, but most of it is from selective breeding. So the question I would ask is: if all mutations are harmful, then where do breeders find the slightly improved animals to select as the progenitors of the next generation? [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 18:46, 22 January 2007 (EST)

: The vast majority of mutations are neutral or have no observable phenotypic change. Furthermore, of those mutations which are not in those categories, for most mutations whether or not the mutation is beneficial is highly connected to the environment which the relevant organism is found (sickle-cell anemia provides a vivid demonstration of this). However, other examples which are more directly beneficial. For example, many bacteria have gained mutations for immunity to various antibiotics, while other bacteria have gained mutations that allow them to eat nylon (a purely synthetic material). A more prosaic example is lactose tolerance. [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 22:43, 6 February 2007 (EST)

: 5. Species have being going extinct rather than being generated.
::'''Counter''' This is not true. For example, through a specific type of sympatric speciation, new species of plants are able to form and have formed in abundance. It occurs from meiosis not occuring properly in the production of gametes. These "mutant" offspring are a new species and cannot produce offspring with the species they came from, yet can produce fertile offspring with other plants that were mutated the same way. --[[User:PhyllisS|PhyllisS]]

'''Reply:''' This is true; the statement above is only a general rule. What can be said for sure is that though mutations occur, there has never been a documented example of a organism '''''gaining''''' genetic information.--[[User:BenjaminS|BenjaminS]] 23:40, 13 January 2007 (EST)

'''Further reply:''' Right. The mutant offspring devolved, not evolved.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 23:01, 14 January 2007 (EST)

'''Further reply:''' The organism did not devolve. Please explain this reply further. --[[User:PhyllisS|PhyllisS]]

'''Comment:''' I think that by "devolve" he is trying to point out that organisms only ''lose'' genetic information through mutation; evolution relies upon the ''gain'' genetic information.

--[[User:BenjaminS|BenjaminS]] 18:21, 17 January 2007 (EST)

: 6. All unaided things become more disordered and scattered over time.
::'''Counter''' Which is an argument against the existence of technology, cities, cars and everything advanced. This is a (rather embarrasing) misconception about the second law of thermodynamics. It states that entropy increases in a closed system. The earth is not a closed system, as processes here are powered by the energy originating from the sun. Order can increase in a system as long as more energy is inserted. A '''closed''' system is a system that doesn't receive such outside energy.
::::'''Comment on "closed system":''' So what you are saying that the order and energy of the Earth is dependent and derived from the Sun. Where does the Sun get its energy? What happens when it runs out of fuel, whether that be millions or even billions of years away? Molecules are ''still'' breaking down within the Sun. No matter how you look at it, the entire universe, "closed system" or not, is a slave of the second law of thermodynamics. [[User:David R|David R]]

:::::'''Further comment:''' That's right, David. By the way, the injection of energy into a system ''increases'' entropy. The only way to decrease entropy is intelligent ordering or intervention. Without that, entropy and disorder always increase. Whatever species existed 5000 years ago, in the absence of divine intervention there must be less ordered, less advanced, fewer species today. We see many examples of this: species go extinct each year, breeds of dogs degrade (e.g., Golden Retriever), even humans have increased incidence of asthma and other health problems from generation to generation. Take a look at how smart humans were just 100 or 200 years ago by looking at their writings, and compare that to the average human writings today. Entropy predicts degradation of everything over time in the absence of intelligent intervention.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 22:26, 14 January 2007 (EST)

: 7. There is vast beauty in the world which would not exist in a purely evolutionary world. "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament shows his handiwork" (Psalm 19:1)
::'''Counter''' This is an irrelevant argument. What evidence exists to say that evolution cannot produce beauty? Besides that, what is the definition of beauty? Beauty can be a life form adapted to its environment, beauty can be a beneficial mutation, beauty can be monomers spontaneously forming polymers when dripped on hot clay...all examples of evolution. [[User:PhyllisS|PhyllisS]]

:::This argument "against" evolution is terrible! Though evolution is false this isn't why. Unfortunately for evolutionists everywhere your counter argument does no better supporting evolution than the first one did disproving it.--[[User:BenjaminS|BenjaminS]] 23:40, 13 January 2007 (EST)

:::: Brilliant autumn foliage is beautiful. You won't find anyone who sincerely denies it, exact perhaps the most hardened evolutionist. But it is impossible for the beauty in brilliant autumn foliage to have evolved before humans even existed.

:::: Evolutionists generally deny that there is intrinsic beauty in nature. Over 99% of Americans think there is beauty in nature. Take your pick. Count me as part of the over 99% majority.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 22:47, 14 January 2007 (EST)

:::::I don't think "evolutionists generally deny that there is intrinsic beauty in nature." Where did you get that? (Not a rhetorical question, I'm curious to know. Do creationists go around saying such a thing?) Stephen Jay Gould wrote "Shall we appreciate any less the beauty of nature because its harmony is unplanned?" Darwin wrote
::::::"The view seen when crossing the hills behind Praia Grande was most beautiful; the colours were intense, and the prevailing tint a dark blue; the sky and the calm waters of the bay vied with each other in splendour;" "The number of beautiful fishing birds, such as egrets and cranes, and the succulent plants assuming most fantastical forms, gave to the scene an interest which it would not otherwise have possessed." "The beautiful view of the distant wooded hills, reflected in the perfectly calm water of an extensive lagoon, quite refreshed us." etc. etc. etc.
:::::Maybe you think that evolutionists must seal their minds into logic-tight compartments in order to appreciate the beauty of nature while at the same time trying to explain it from natural causes, but they do it nonetheless. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 15:55, 22 January 2007 (EST)

'''Reply:''' I personally believe that God purposefully created nature for humans to enjoy and care for and that he purposefully made it beautiful as a blessing for us. nevertheless, from an evolutionary standpoint, beauty can still be explained; if we all came from a common ancestor, especially given our reliance on nature for suvival, I don't see why the theory of evolution cannot be reconciled with the fact that 99% of Americans find beauty in autumn foliage.

--[[User:BenjaminS|BenjaminS]] 23:57, 14 January 2007 (EST)

: 8. Abiogenesis is impossible. Even the simplest life form possible would be way too complicated to spring from nothing.
::'''Counter''' Regardless if it's possible or not, it's not an argument against macroevolution.

'''No''': In short... no. In long... there is much evidence against the theory that proves it is false. First of all there is the classic argument that the "missing links" are '''''still''''' missing. Here is what Darwin had to say on the subject. <blockquote>"Geological research, though it has added numerous species to existing and extinct genera, and has made the intervals between some few groups less wide then they otherwise would have been, yet has done scarcely anything in breaking the distinction between species, by connecting them together by numerous, fine, intermediate varieties; and this having been affected, is probably the gravest and most obvious of all the many objections which can be raised against my views." (''[[The Origin of Species]]'', 6th edition, 1962, Collier Books, NY, p.462.)</blockquote>

Since when you are looking for data from the earth's history the first place you would look is the fossil record. What does the fossil record say? It says macroevolution '''''never''''' happened. There are even less documented "missing links" today then there were in Darwin's day. Obviously, macro-evolutionists want these "missing" links to be found desperately based on the elaborate measures they have gone through to try and fake the public out into believing one has been found. Take, for example, the famous Nebraska Man. He was supposed "evidence" for macro-evolution but in reality he was based entirely on a tooth from an extinct species of pig found among some ancient tools![http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/a_nebraska.html] This is only the beginning of the evidence against macro-evolution and I will be adding more to this edit as I get the time! [[User:PhilipB|PhilipB]] 11:06, 17 December 2006 (EST)

: ''''Counter''' The above claims are simply false. We have hundreds of major transitional fossils(which is what I presume you mean by "missing link") between a variety of different groups. Examples include Australopithecus as transitional between humans ape like ancestors and humans, hasiophis terrasanctus (sp?) a transitional snake with hind limbs and many others. Name almost any major grouping and we will have transitional fossils between the various groups. For some groups we have very detailed transitional sequences. For example, between fish and tetrapods is a particularly good example, and the transitions between land mammals and whales have become well developed over the last 20 years. [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 14:14, 13 February 2007 (EST)

== Evolution is a Racist Philosophy ==

*"At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace the savage races throughout the world. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes ... will no doubt be exterminated. The break between man and his nearest Allies will then be wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilized state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as the baboon, instead of as now between the Negro or Australian and the gorilla." (Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man 2nd ed (New York: A. L. Burt Co., I 874), p. 178)."

*"The Negroid stock is even more ancient than the Caucasian and Mongolian, as may be proved by an examination not only of the brain, of the hair, of the bodily characters. such as the teeth, the genitalia, the sense organs, but of the instincts, the intelligence. The standard of intelligence of the average Negro is similar to that of the eleven-year-old youth of the species Homo sapiens. (Henry Fairfield Osborn, "The Evolution of the Human Races," Natural History, Jan./Feb. 1926. Reprinted in Natural History 89 (April 1980): 129.)" -evolutionist Henry Fairfield Osborn

*The full title of Darwin's book is ''On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life''
**It's worth noting though that "races" in the title refers to kinds of animals: it's never used to refer to people and in fact the book never mentions human beings at all until the very end, and then only briefly.[[User:Plunge|Plunge]] 18:44, 20 February 2007 (EST)

*Hitler's atrocities were based on evolutionary philosophy.

::Evolution has certainly been used by racists in support of their views. Racists have used many things, including Christianity, in support of their views. Think of the burning crosses of the Ku Klux Klan.

::And, yes, Darwin shared the common prejudices of his day... which was the time when the British Empire was busily colonizing places inhabited by dark-skinned people. You would have been hard-pressed to find many people in Darwin's England who were ''not'' racists, by today's standards.

::I think the point being raised here is an appropriate one to raise. But I think "evolution is a racist philosophy" is an exaggeration. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 15:36, 22 January 2007 (EST)

:::Christianity is not racist at its core, yet it is made to seem racist by some. Jesus came to save all, not just more "advanced races." Evolution '''is''' racist at its core, yet it is made to seem like it's not. Dpbsmith, you say that "Darwin shared the common prejudices of his day," this is true, but what does that have to do with he argument? Are you saying that racism influenced him when he came up with evolution, in the way that he uses evolution to support racism? [[User:PhilipB|PhilipB]] 16:09, 22 January 2007 (EST)

:::1) I'm acknowledging that the quotation from Darwin ''can'' fairly be described as racist. 2) I'm saying that many evil things are done in the name of many causes, and that people who do evil things will usually find a way to justify them. 3) I'm saying that I think more people have been killed by people claiming to be acting in the name of Jesus than by people claiming to be acting in the name of Darwin.

:::It is sometimes difficult to believe just how prevasive racism was from, perhaps, the mid-1800s through the mid-1900s. When The New York Times reviewed Longfellow's ''Song of Hiawatha'' in 1855, the reviewer said that Longfellow had "embalm[ed] pleasantly enough the monstrous traditions of an uninteresting, and, one may almost say, a justly exterminated race." That doesn't excuse Darwin. But it does put it into context. I think I agree with you to the extent that Darwin said things that can be fairly called "racist" and that Jesus did not. I don't agree that that makes evolution "racist at the core." OK, I think I've made my point clearly enough... I'll leave you to get in the last word if you like. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 18:26, 22 January 2007 (EST)

:::: Also note that racism on Darwin's part in no way matters for whether the modern theory of evolution is either racist or correct. First, in general, the truth or falsity of any idea is independent of who it came from (if Darwin were a serial killer who liked to steal candy from babies it would not change the validity of his ideas in the slightest (if you don't believe me, perform the same thought experiment with [[Newton]] or [[Josiah Willard Gibbs]])). Second, the modern neo-synthesis is far removed from Darwin's original notions. [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 22:34, 6 February 2007 (EST)

Debate:Is the theory of macroevolution true?

2007-02-20T23:22:18Z

Plunge:

Post Your Thoughts

== Yes ==

Arguments for * All life on Earth shares common ancestor

*All life on Earth shares common ancestor
#All life on Earth shares molecular features.
#*'''Counter:''' This is not a scientific argument for evolution. First, this argument says nothing about a *process* of evolution. It does not reveal any transitional forms between species, for examples. In fact, lots of DNA evidence tends to disprove transitions from one species to another. Second, there is no objective or scientific way to say one thing is like another. If you insist there is, then you'd have to agree that intelligent design is science also. Note, by the way, that all of Shakespeare's plays "share" similar features, but one play did not evolve by itself into another.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 23:54, 21 December 2006 (EST)
##Same macromolecules (DNA, RNA, protein)
##Same monomers for those macromolecules (five nucleotides, twenty standard amino acids)
##Same chirality of molecules. DNA in all complex life forms is right-handed, research suggests[http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&res=9802E1DB1F3DF936A15751C0A9659C8B63] that left-handed DNA would work just as well.
###If life forms did not have common ancestors we would expect to see a fairly even distribution of left and right handed DNA.
##Genetic system:
##*Ribosome structure
##*tRNA structure
##*The universal genetic code (and slight deviations from it)
##*Information encoded in nucleotide polymers (DNA or RNA).
#Differences between organisms can be explained by known mechanisms of genetic mutation.
#*'''Counter:''' There has not been enough time for mutation to generate existing biological diversity.
#**'''Counter:''' There has been enough time enough time to generate existing biological diversity.
#***'''Counter:''' The time argument doesn't help. Decay, scattering, extinction, defects, disasters, etc., all INCREASE over time. Besides, all mutations are harmful.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 23:54, 21 December 2006 (EST)

NATURAL genetic changes can only account for diversity within a species. Mendellian genetics has demonstrated the existence of a closed field of genetic changes which can occur through the reproductive process.

#*#The speed of evolution is measured by the [[w:Darwin (unit)|darwin]] (change in an organism's character by a factor of e per million years.) [http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/section5.html#morphological_rates]
#*#Evolution in the lab can be as high as 200,000 darwins.
#*#As measured by the fossil record, the average evolutionary rate in the wild is 370 darwins.
#*#A rate of 400 darwins is capable of turning a mouse into an elephant in just 10,000 years.
#*No other (non-human) process has been observed to generate biological diversity.
#*Extensive biological diversity existed before humans had the ability to create new forms by molecular recombination.

Counter- The argument concerning rate of change assumes that biological evolution is described by a linear equation. However, observation and Mendellian genetics theory suggest that evolutionary change is better described by a rational function bounded by an assymptote. For example, it is relatively easy to crossbreed a pure bred dog so that you obtain a mutt or a nearly pure bred dog of another species. However, it will take an infinite amount of time to entirely replace the traits of the original breed with those of the new breed- the graph of evolutionary change, with change on the y-axis and time on the x-axis, has reached a horizontal assymptote. The dog remains a dog.
-Chris J
::: Um, what? I'm a bit of a mathy person and have some background in genetics as well, and the above doesn't seem to be anything but an assertion dressed up in mathematical terminology. [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 14:06, 13 February 2007 (EST)

Which part is unclear? The statements concerning the fossil record and crossbreeding within a species are simple, factual observations. If the argument concernig rate of change in units of Darwins is not based on a linear function, what is it based on? And to clarify- by saying that Change approaches a horizontal assymptote, I mean that change continues over time, but becomes infinitely small and and never exceeds a fixed point. The dog may, through natural reproduction, become another kind of dog. But observation tells us that it will never sprout wings and become a bird.
-Chris J
:::: Ok, for starters, you refer "observation and Mendellian genetics theory suggest that evolutionary change is better described by a rational function bounded by an assymptote" - it isn't clear what your relevant vairable is that is being bounded. Continuing, your next sentence claims that "it is relatively easy to crossbreed a pure bred dog so that you obtain a mutt or a nearly pure bred dog of another species." I'm not even sure what to make of this sentence since dog breeds aren't separate species. You furthermore assert that "it will take an infinite amount of time to entirely replace the traits of the original breed with those of the new breed" if anything this is what one might have thought before Mendel. Since alleles come in discrete entities and one does not have genetic continua, this is false. Not only is it false, it is irrelevant, since whether we are able to breed something to be identical to some pre-existing similar organism is irrelevant. Your summary remarks that "The dog remains a dog" and your rephrase that "observation tells us that it will never sprout wings and become a bird" are simply assertions and not very relevant ones anyways(evolution wouldn't expect a dog to "sprout wings" although there are excellent examples of transitionals between true flyers and others). The terminology is so vague as to make it unclear exactly you mean that a dog will always remain a dog. Do you mean there will be never be a reproductive barrier? Do you mean that it will fit what your intuitive notion of what a dog looks like?. (Also, while we are on the topic of defintions, you use both "species" in a non-standard way, and use "kind" in a way that isn't even standard for creationists. If you are going to use terms in a non-standard fashion, defining them would be good). [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 14:40, 13 February 2007 (EST)

:::::Chris, I think you have a misconception of how common descent works. The claim that no dog will become anything other than another kind of dog is, in fact, true, according to evolutionary theory, not a challenge of it. The statement is essentially no different than the claim that mammals never become anything other than mammals, or eukaryotes will never be anything other than eukaryotes. Common descent specifies that evolution happens via nested clades: groups within groups, not one group becoming another. This can be confusing because Linnean taxonomy is static, not cladistic.[[User:Plunge|Plunge]] 18:22, 20 February 2007 (EST)

I specified that evolutionary change is the dependent variable, or Y-value, bounded by a horizontal assymptote, with time as the independent variable, or X-value. Your second remark is entirely correct- I misused the word "species" when I meant to refer only to changes between breeds. Observation has shown that some dominant genetic traits tend to be passed on to an organism's offspring, but alleles place boundaries on the change that can occur through this process. It is true that it is difficult to quantify evolutionary change, since it does not appear to progress in any certain direction- another challenge to the above argument concerning the progress of evolutionary change over time. I chose a rational graph with the dependent variable bounded by a horizontal assymptote as an illustration because the aforementioned argument seemed to assume that evolutionary change could be expressed with respect to time or reproductive cycles by a linear graph. I chose the example of cross breeding because it is an example of the reproductive cycle being manipulated to produce maximum evolutionary change. The natural rate of change would be much slower, if indeed there were any measurable change. My statements about a dog "remaining a dog" and not changing species were meant only as examples of the genetic limitations of evolutionary change through natural reproduction, which is generaly limited by species, though somtimes by more inclusive levels of biological classification.

: I'm not sure I completely follow some of what you said such as "Observation has shown that some dominant genetic traits tend to be passed on to an organism's offspring"- alleles are passed on just as frequently whether they are dominant or recessive. We are however, getting to the crux of the matter (although I incidentally note that you ignored the issue of discrete genetics), saying that change is "generaly limited by species, though somtimes by more inclusive levels of biological classification" is not useful. Beyond the species level all classification has a highly arbitrary element to it, at which point it isn't at all clear *why* you would presume that evolution at that level wouldn't occur (there is no sign of any magic barrier or such). This has also the incidental problem that speciation is in fact common. There are possibly hundreds of observed speciation events and I could easily provide (if you wanted) 10 or 15 of them and the relevant citations. (Also, many creationists support not just that speciation has occured but that rapid speciation occured right after the Deluge(indeed, in AIG's account this speciation happened far more uniformily and far faster than any biologist would ever predict and far faster than any observed level). To some extent this reflects a changing of the goalposts- 100 years ago no creationist acknowledged any form of evolution, then in the 1960s the evidence got overwhelming enough that the creationists conceded "microevolution" meaning evolution within species, and more recently many creationists now agree that evolution above the species level can occur, but not much above it. [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 16:14, 13 February 2007 (EST)

'''Reply:'''
:::The boundry that defines into what an organism can and cannot evolve is not a "magic barrier" but its own DNA. An organism can only lose genetic information. There has never been an observed exception to this rule. What Chris tried to demonstrate (I think) by his example of a dog is that a dog can change but it cannot become anything beyond the limit set by its own genes; it cannot "sprout wings and become a bird"

:::--[[User:BenjaminS|BenjaminS]] 21:00, 13 February 2007 (EST)

::::: Ben, this doesn't help at all. This is yet more vague assertions with undefined terms. And almost any defintion of the terms will in fact render the statements false. For example the claim that "an organism can only lose genetic information" - so in this context what do you mean by information? Do you mean in terms of Shannon's measure of information? This is easily seen to be false. Do you mean in terms of Kolmogorov complexity? Again, the claim is false. Indeed, by any reasonable defintion the claim is false. To see why consider the following: Consider some function f that is a function of the current genetic makeup of some creature and turns out some non-negative real number representing how much information there is in that genome. Now, suppose creature A through either mutation or recombination has offspring A' and f(A') < f(A) (that is, A' has lost information). Then the mutation that goes from A' to something with genome A is an example of a gain in information. Since all mutations are reversible, we've established that for any reasonable defintion of information, information can be gained (modulo the essentially trivial case of all genomes having the same information value) [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 22:27, 13 February 2007 (EST)

#*'''Counter:''' Despite a century of teaching evolution in American schools, the majority of Americans still reject it. The burden of proof is on the evolutionists, and the proof just isn't there. Darwinists would be better off looking for another theory to try to replace Christianity.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 23:54, 21 December 2006 (EST)

>95% of academic biologists support it.

Those who argue against it have a poor understanding of biology.

:'''Comment on logic''': I am sorry, but your answer is an appeal to authority, a common logical mistake. But its ok. I am sure there is still more evidence to support your point? [[User:David R|David R]]

: '''Reply''': You say that "95% of academic biologists support it." What evidence do you have to support this statement? I have often wondered if there was a place were one could view this sort of information. It would be most helpful.

: You go on to say that "Those who argue against it have a poor understanding of biology." Again, what evidence do you have to support this statement? Here are some creation biologists, to name a few:

* Dr. Raymond G. Bohlin, Biologist
* Dr. Andrew Bosanquet, Biology, Microbiology
* Prof. Chung-Il Cho, Biology Education
* Dr. Chris Darnbrough, Biochemist
* Dr. David A. DeWitt, Biology, Biochemistry, Neuroscience
* Dr. Dudley Eirich, Molecular Biologist
* Prof. Carl B. Fliermans, Professor of Biology
* Prof. Robert H. Franks, Associate Professor of Biology
* Dr. Duane Gish, Biochemist
* Dr. D.B. Gower, Biochemistry
* Dr. Bob Hosken, Biochemistry

: All of them have doctoral degrees in some sort of biology and all argue against macro-evolution and for creationism. Are you claiming that all of them have a poor understanding of biology? [[User:PhilipB|PhilipB]] 23:29, 17 December 2006 (EST)

: '''Another Reply''': I assume that you have a better understanding of biology upon which to base this attack? Please enlighten us; how would a wise biologist refute the facts that seemingly disprove evolution? Where is the host of intermediate links? When have biologists observed an organism acctually '''''gain''''' genetic information through a mutation rather than lose it? [[User:BenjaminS|BenjaminS]]

Having studied and worked with scientists for a decade, and spending another decade debating armchair evolutionists, I've found that it is usually someone unsuccessful in the hard sciences (physical, chemistry, biology and you might add mathematics) who is drawn most to evolution. The late evolution-promoter Stephen Jay Gould, for example, was merely a geology major at Antioch College. Big evolution promoter Richard Dawkins was an assistant professor at Berkeley, and then a lecturer, and then it's not clear to me what his academic status was for a while. Meanwhile, real experts, such as Richard Sternberg who has TWO PhDs in evolution fields, have been critical of the theory. But Sternberg was harshly disciplined for daring to question the theory, and few are anxious to risk similar retaliation.

>It is at least a puzzle to understand how Creationism accounts for seemingly-badly-designed aspects of anatomy and physiology. For example, the eyes of cephalopods (squid, octopus) and those of vertebrates (mammals, including humans) are strikingly similar in their general "design" with one conspicuous exception. In the cephalopod eye, the retina is structured exactly as one would expect: the light-sensitive receptors face forward, toward the lens, and the nerve fibers that join to form the optic nerve exit in the back.

In the human eye, however, the retina is structured in a very surprising way that is exactly the reverse. The receptors face ''backwards,'' and not only the nerve fibers that collect to form the optic nerve but also all of the blood vessels that nourish it are in ''front,'' where they block the view and cast shadows on the retina. The result is that the human eye has a large and seemingly unnecessary blind spot, and that very intricate processing by the brain is necessary to hide the image of the shadows of the blood vessels.

It all works, of course, but it is puzzling as to why an intelligent creator would design it this way, particularly given that the much older cephalopod eye does it the "right" way. No doubt it is ''possible'' to explain this (just as it is ''possible'' to explain fossils by saying that God created the fossils along with everything else in 4004 BC).

It seems much easier to explain this as a series of incremental adaptations rather than as being "designed" the way a human engineer would design a camera. Of course that does not mean that the incremental adaptations were necessarily guided by pure natural selection as envisioned by Darwin, either. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 14:01, 18 December 2006 (EST)

: '''Reply''': I don't know where you got the thing about creationists believing that God created the fossils in 4004 B.C., but I believe that the vast majority of fossils are the product of Noah's flood as it is described in Genesis. [[User:ChrisS|ChrisS]]

: '''Reply''': I believe that almost everything you say here provides evidence '''for''' creation. Let me explain... in you first paragraph you state that mammals "are strikingly similar in their general 'design'". This is true but does this support macro-evolution? I think not. Wouldn't macro-evolution produce many different types of "eyes" that would work? Why are they all so similar?

: You go on to say that in the human the eye is just different from all these other eyes. You say this provides evidence against creation because, if it were true, why is it not the same as the others. Well, doesn't this also support creationism? Why would just one be different? Because our creator was original, he was an artist, not a robot. As for the "very intricate processing by the brain <nowiki>[that]</nowiki> is necessary to hide the image of the shadows of the blood vessels." This is more evidence for creation. Why would natural selection create a process like this? It seems pointless to us, but those "intricate" processes were intricately '''designed'''. Maybe our creator was trying to show that he existed... He created this one eye that wouldn't work; if it not for these amazing brain processes. [[User:PhilipB|PhilipB]] 15:11, 18 December 2006 (EST)

::It's certainly a point of view... but didn't you feel that you needed to work just a bit to arrive at it?

::Although it's certainly ''possible,'' I don't believe that God involves himself in the design details of vertebrate anatomy, and I certainly don't believe he goes to the effort of putting in deliberate design errors as a trick to test peoples' faith. I think a lot more likely that God created the general conditions under which evolution by natural selection takes place, and the "wrong" anatomy of the vertebrate retina is the result of the constraints of having evolved in gradual steps. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 11:48, 19 December 2006 (EST)

: '''Reply:''' There is nothing to indicate that the human eye is an "error"; it works wonderfully. Also under the belief that God is omnipotent, I have no trouble as you do in believing that God would design the details of vertebrate anatomy, especially in light of the arguments against evolution below (with the possible exception of argument #7). Why would he let life progress at random when he could create every thing "fearfully and wonderfully" to reflect his awesome greatness?

[[User:BenjaminS|BenjaminS]]

'''3''' There is a double nested hierarchy. That is, all life forms two nested hierarchies, one morphological and one genetic and these hierarchies correspond to how they evolved. While it is true that when designers as we know them design things they design them with similarities, they do not design them in nested hierarchies. Human designers will use an idea in one place and then copy that section over somewhere else. (For example, one would not expect an engineer to design the panda's thumb but rather expect the engineer use the pre-existing thumb design from primates). [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 16:01, 13 February 2007 (EST)

==No==

If you have questions about Evolution/Creationism see the articles on this website [[http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/qa.asp]]

I would just like to say that the "theory" of Evolution ''does not even qualify as a theory!!'' According to the scientific method, after you make a hypothesis, if '''''ANY''''' data comes up that contradicts you hypothesis than it must either be revised or discarded! How come even though there is much evidence that contradicts evolution it is still considered a theory? [[User:ChrisS|ChrisS]]

'''No'''
: 1. No credible transitional forms (fossils reflecting evolution between species) have ever been found.
::'''Counter:''' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_transitional_fossils Some transitional forms]
:::'''Counter:'''

:::All of these examples given in the above about the evolution of the whale are nonsense:

:::* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pakicetus Pakicetus] -- What makes this a "link"? It was nothing but a land mammal gone extinct.

:::* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambulocetus Ambulocetus] -- The reason given that this is a link is complete nonsense. It resembles a whale??? Most trees resemble eachother, they all have a trunk, branches, leaves, etc. Does this mean that all trees are somehow missing links between each other?

:::* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorudon Dorudon] -- I guess Wikipedia supposes this is a missing link because it uses sonar??? Same as example above.

:::* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basilosaurus Basilosaurus] -- Another extinct species called a link because it "resembles" a whale.

:::* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurhinodelphis Eurhinodelphis] -- No reason given that is may be a missing link.

:::* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mammalodon Mammalodon colliveri] -- The article just makes an unsupported statement. I would consider this article for deletion (no notability).

:::[[User:PhilipB|PhilipB]] 11:46, 3 January 2007 (EST)

:::: '''Counter''' This may be an example of where going to specialized sources rather than relying on Wikipedia would be in order. However, some of these do in fact make clear why they are considered transitionals. For example, Pakicetus (as discussed in the Wikipedia article) had an inner ear structure that was very cetacean.(Not mentioned in the article but also relevant, Pakicetus had teeth that were very similar to some of the later transitionals in this list although not quite of the standard cetacean form) Proceeding, ambulectus had a bone structure consistent with something which spent time both walking and swimming and bears some similarities to Pakicetus. Basilosaurus looks almost like a modern whale except for the vestigial limbs. I'm not going to go into the others in detail but that should make it clear that there is good reason to see these as transitionals. [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 15:49, 13 February 2007 (EST)

: 2. There is no plausible explanation for the evolution of the whale, which is a mammal. Darwin suggested that the whale somehow came from black bears swimming with their mouths open!

: 3. Evolution cannot be reconciled with the evidence of a massive flood.

: 4. All mutations are harmful.
::'''Counter''' This is a false argument. Firstly, it is estimated 1/3 of point mutations (mutations affecting one link in the DNA and no others) are not harmful. Secondly, though the number is small, there are documented cases of mutations being beneficial - an example is sickle cell anemia. This mutation is a flaw in the hemoglobin gene of humans, causing these molecules to covalently bond into long, bristly fibers inside the red blood cell that distort them into a sickle cell shape. This mutation makes sickle cell individuals immune to malaria, and many of the people residing in countries where this disease is prevalent have this mutation. The people affected by this mutation have lived and multiplied, thereby disproving this myth. Also see Counter argument to #5. [[User:PhyllisS|PhyllisS]]

'''Reply:''' Phyllis, I don't know where you got your information on sickle cell anemia but it was certainly a biased source. You have not given the full story; 25% of those with sickle cell anemia die prematurely! '''''This is not a good mutation.''''' As the closest thing to a good mutation that evolutionists can come up with this is not supportive of evolution at all.
--[[User:BenjaminS|BenjaminS]] 23:40, 13 January 2007 (EST)

'''Further Reply:''' Overall the mutation sickle cell anemia is obviously harmful. The same is true for all mutations. Simple probability predicts this: a random mutation is far more likely to reach a less desirable form. The odds are overwhelming. It is the same reason that heat always flows to cooler places. If you think mutations can be beneficial, then do you also think heat can sometimes "by chance" flow to a hotter place? That if we added billions of years it must happen sometimes? Of course not. It never happens.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 23:01, 14 January 2007 (EST)

'''Further Reply:''' Heat flowing to cooler places is entirely irrelevant to our discussion. Please elaborate. --[[User:PhyllisS|PhyllisS]]

'''Comment:''' You should try to bear with Mr. Schlafly's abstract analogies (I know that they rarely make sense) and respond to his points that are doing you any harm; e.g. "Overall the mutation sickle cell anemia is obviously harmful. The same is true for all mutations."

--[[User:BenjaminS|BenjaminS]] 18:21, 17 January 2007 (EST)

*This is not '''exactly''' a counter to [[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]]. But... Darwin was writing in the days when breeders were starting to do amazing things with selective breeding, which was one of the things that impressed him. Selective breeding is still going on and it is still amazing. In 1910 the average domesticated chickens laid 80 eggs a year; by 1999 292 eggs a year. There are similar stories for milk production per cow, meat per chicken, etc. Some of the improvement is due to changes in feed, antibiotics, hormones, whatever, but most of it is from selective breeding. So the question I would ask is: if all mutations are harmful, then where do breeders find the slightly improved animals to select as the progenitors of the next generation? [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 18:46, 22 January 2007 (EST)

: The vast majority of mutations are neutral or have no observable phenotypic change. Furthermore, of those mutations which are not in those categories, for most mutations whether or not the mutation is beneficial is highly connected to the environment which the relevant organism is found (sickle-cell anemia provides a vivid demonstration of this). However, other examples which are more directly beneficial. For example, many bacteria have gained mutations for immunity to various antibiotics, while other bacteria have gained mutations that allow them to eat nylon (a purely synthetic material). A more prosaic example is lactose tolerance. [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 22:43, 6 February 2007 (EST)

: 5. Species have being going extinct rather than being generated.
::'''Counter''' This is not true. For example, through a specific type of sympatric speciation, new species of plants are able to form and have formed in abundance. It occurs from meiosis not occuring properly in the production of gametes. These "mutant" offspring are a new species and cannot produce offspring with the species they came from, yet can produce fertile offspring with other plants that were mutated the same way. --[[User:PhyllisS|PhyllisS]]

'''Reply:''' This is true; the statement above is only a general rule. What can be said for sure is that though mutations occur, there has never been a documented example of a organism '''''gaining''''' genetic information.--[[User:BenjaminS|BenjaminS]] 23:40, 13 January 2007 (EST)

'''Further reply:''' Right. The mutant offspring devolved, not evolved.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 23:01, 14 January 2007 (EST)

'''Further reply:''' The organism did not devolve. Please explain this reply further. --[[User:PhyllisS|PhyllisS]]

'''Comment:''' I think that by "devolve" he is trying to point out that organisms only ''lose'' genetic information through mutation; evolution relies upon the ''gain'' genetic information.

--[[User:BenjaminS|BenjaminS]] 18:21, 17 January 2007 (EST)

: 6. All unaided things become more disordered and scattered over time.
::'''Counter''' Which is an argument against the existence of technology, cities, cars and everything advanced. This is a (rather embarrasing) misconception about the second law of thermodynamics. It states that entropy increases in a closed system. The earth is not a closed system, as processes here are powered by the energy originating from the sun. Order can increase in a system as long as more energy is inserted. A '''closed''' system is a system that doesn't receive such outside energy.
::::'''Comment on "closed system":''' So what you are saying that the order and energy of the Earth is dependent and derived from the Sun. Where does the Sun get its energy? What happens when it runs out of fuel, whether that be millions or even billions of years away? Molecules are ''still'' breaking down within the Sun. No matter how you look at it, the entire universe, "closed system" or not, is a slave of the second law of thermodynamics. [[User:David R|David R]]

:::::'''Further comment:''' That's right, David. By the way, the injection of energy into a system ''increases'' entropy. The only way to decrease entropy is intelligent ordering or intervention. Without that, entropy and disorder always increase. Whatever species existed 5000 years ago, in the absence of divine intervention there must be less ordered, less advanced, fewer species today. We see many examples of this: species go extinct each year, breeds of dogs degrade (e.g., Golden Retriever), even humans have increased incidence of asthma and other health problems from generation to generation. Take a look at how smart humans were just 100 or 200 years ago by looking at their writings, and compare that to the average human writings today. Entropy predicts degradation of everything over time in the absence of intelligent intervention.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 22:26, 14 January 2007 (EST)

: 7. There is vast beauty in the world which would not exist in a purely evolutionary world. "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament shows his handiwork" (Psalm 19:1)
::'''Counter''' This is an irrelevant argument. What evidence exists to say that evolution cannot produce beauty? Besides that, what is the definition of beauty? Beauty can be a life form adapted to its environment, beauty can be a beneficial mutation, beauty can be monomers spontaneously forming polymers when dripped on hot clay...all examples of evolution. [[User:PhyllisS|PhyllisS]]

:::This argument "against" evolution is terrible! Though evolution is false this isn't why. Unfortunately for evolutionists everywhere your counter argument does no better supporting evolution than the first one did disproving it.--[[User:BenjaminS|BenjaminS]] 23:40, 13 January 2007 (EST)

:::: Brilliant autumn foliage is beautiful. You won't find anyone who sincerely denies it, exact perhaps the most hardened evolutionist. But it is impossible for the beauty in brilliant autumn foliage to have evolved before humans even existed.

:::: Evolutionists generally deny that there is intrinsic beauty in nature. Over 99% of Americans think there is beauty in nature. Take your pick. Count me as part of the over 99% majority.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 22:47, 14 January 2007 (EST)

:::::I don't think "evolutionists generally deny that there is intrinsic beauty in nature." Where did you get that? (Not a rhetorical question, I'm curious to know. Do creationists go around saying such a thing?) Stephen Jay Gould wrote "Shall we appreciate any less the beauty of nature because its harmony is unplanned?" Darwin wrote
::::::"The view seen when crossing the hills behind Praia Grande was most beautiful; the colours were intense, and the prevailing tint a dark blue; the sky and the calm waters of the bay vied with each other in splendour;" "The number of beautiful fishing birds, such as egrets and cranes, and the succulent plants assuming most fantastical forms, gave to the scene an interest which it would not otherwise have possessed." "The beautiful view of the distant wooded hills, reflected in the perfectly calm water of an extensive lagoon, quite refreshed us." etc. etc. etc.
:::::Maybe you think that evolutionists must seal their minds into logic-tight compartments in order to appreciate the beauty of nature while at the same time trying to explain it from natural causes, but they do it nonetheless. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 15:55, 22 January 2007 (EST)

'''Reply:''' I personally believe that God purposefully created nature for humans to enjoy and care for and that he purposefully made it beautiful as a blessing for us. nevertheless, from an evolutionary standpoint, beauty can still be explained; if we all came from a common ancestor, especially given our reliance on nature for suvival, I don't see why the theory of evolution cannot be reconciled with the fact that 99% of Americans find beauty in autumn foliage.

--[[User:BenjaminS|BenjaminS]] 23:57, 14 January 2007 (EST)

: 8. Abiogenesis is impossible. Even the simplest life form possible would be way too complicated to spring from nothing.
::'''Counter''' Regardless if it's possible or not, it's not an argument against macroevolution.

'''No''': In short... no. In long... there is much evidence against the theory that proves it is false. First of all there is the classic argument that the "missing links" are '''''still''''' missing. Here is what Darwin had to say on the subject. <blockquote>"Geological research, though it has added numerous species to existing and extinct genera, and has made the intervals between some few groups less wide then they otherwise would have been, yet has done scarcely anything in breaking the distinction between species, by connecting them together by numerous, fine, intermediate varieties; and this having been affected, is probably the gravest and most obvious of all the many objections which can be raised against my views." (''[[The Origin of Species]]'', 6th edition, 1962, Collier Books, NY, p.462.)</blockquote>

Since when you are looking for data from the earth's history the first place you would look is the fossil record. What does the fossil record say? It says macroevolution '''''never''''' happened. There are even less documented "missing links" today then there were in Darwin's day. Obviously, macro-evolutionists want these "missing" links to be found desperately based on the elaborate measures they have gone through to try and fake the public out into believing one has been found. Take, for example, the famous Nebraska Man. He was supposed "evidence" for macro-evolution but in reality he was based entirely on a tooth from an extinct species of pig found among some ancient tools![http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/a_nebraska.html] This is only the beginning of the evidence against macro-evolution and I will be adding more to this edit as I get the time! [[User:PhilipB|PhilipB]] 11:06, 17 December 2006 (EST)

: ''''Counter''' The above claims are simply false. We have hundreds of major transitional fossils(which is what I presume you mean by "missing link") between a variety of different groups. Examples include Australopithecus as transitional between humans ape like ancestors and humans, hasiophis terrasanctus (sp?) a transitional snake with hind limbs and many others. Name almost any major grouping and we will have transitional fossils between the various groups. For some groups we have very detailed transitional sequences. For example, between fish and tetrapods is a particularly good example, and the transitions between land mammals and whales have become well developed over the last 20 years. [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 14:14, 13 February 2007 (EST)

== Evolution is a Racist Philosophy ==

*"At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace the savage races throughout the world. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes ... will no doubt be exterminated. The break between man and his nearest Allies will then be wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilized state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as the baboon, instead of as now between the Negro or Australian and the gorilla." (Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man 2nd ed (New York: A. L. Burt Co., I 874), p. 178)."

*"The Negroid stock is even more ancient than the Caucasian and Mongolian, as may be proved by an examination not only of the brain, of the hair, of the bodily characters. such as the teeth, the genitalia, the sense organs, but of the instincts, the intelligence. The standard of intelligence of the average Negro is similar to that of the eleven-year-old youth of the species Homo sapiens. (Henry Fairfield Osborn, "The Evolution of the Human Races," Natural History, Jan./Feb. 1926. Reprinted in Natural History 89 (April 1980): 129.)" -evolutionist Henry Fairfield Osborn

*The full title of Darwin's book is ''On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life''

*Hitler's atrocities were based on evolutionary philosophy.

::Evolution has certainly been used by racists in support of their views. Racists have used many things, including Christianity, in support of their views. Think of the burning crosses of the Ku Klux Klan.

::And, yes, Darwin shared the common prejudices of his day... which was the time when the British Empire was busily colonizing places inhabited by dark-skinned people. You would have been hard-pressed to find many people in Darwin's England who were ''not'' racists, by today's standards.

::I think the point being raised here is an appropriate one to raise. But I think "evolution is a racist philosophy" is an exaggeration. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 15:36, 22 January 2007 (EST)

:::Christianity is not racist at its core, yet it is made to seem racist by some. Jesus came to save all, not just more "advanced races." Evolution '''is''' racist at its core, yet it is made to seem like it's not. Dpbsmith, you say that "Darwin shared the common prejudices of his day," this is true, but what does that have to do with he argument? Are you saying that racism influenced him when he came up with evolution, in the way that he uses evolution to support racism? [[User:PhilipB|PhilipB]] 16:09, 22 January 2007 (EST)

:::1) I'm acknowledging that the quotation from Darwin ''can'' fairly be described as racist. 2) I'm saying that many evil things are done in the name of many causes, and that people who do evil things will usually find a way to justify them. 3) I'm saying that I think more people have been killed by people claiming to be acting in the name of Jesus than by people claiming to be acting in the name of Darwin.

:::It is sometimes difficult to believe just how prevasive racism was from, perhaps, the mid-1800s through the mid-1900s. When The New York Times reviewed Longfellow's ''Song of Hiawatha'' in 1855, the reviewer said that Longfellow had "embalm[ed] pleasantly enough the monstrous traditions of an uninteresting, and, one may almost say, a justly exterminated race." That doesn't excuse Darwin. But it does put it into context. I think I agree with you to the extent that Darwin said things that can be fairly called "racist" and that Jesus did not. I don't agree that that makes evolution "racist at the core." OK, I think I've made my point clearly enough... I'll leave you to get in the last word if you like. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 18:26, 22 January 2007 (EST)

:::: Also note that racism on Darwin's part in no way matters for whether the modern theory of evolution is either racist or correct. First, in general, the truth or falsity of any idea is independent of who it came from (if Darwin were a serial killer who liked to steal candy from babies it would not change the validity of his ideas in the slightest (if you don't believe me, perform the same thought experiment with [[Newton]] or [[Josiah Willard Gibbs]])). Second, the modern neo-synthesis is far removed from Darwin's original notions. [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 22:34, 6 February 2007 (EST)