The evolution thread

Hair is needed for thermoregulation, look it up in any anatomy book.

Sure, back when hominids had a lot of it it served that purpose.  But we've changed since then.  The Ice age ended, it no longer surves that purpose, and it no longer plays a part in natural selection.

Just like having a fully develope appendix has not been a factor in survival for a long time and so those with less developed have been contributing to the gene pool, so we tend to share genes for under developed appendixes.

You do a great job at showing us evolution in action.  Thanks.

Adn if the bible is true history, who did Caine go off and live with?  Who were the people who lived outside of Eden during the time of Adam and Eve?

And if The universe was created 10,000 years ago, why can we see Andromeda?  Why does the Hubble record images 13 billion light years away.  Why are the deepest levels of fossils all small sea creatures?

Compared to the "Young Earth" theories, proving a flat earth would be easy.

Microevolution happens, it is observable, I got no problem with that one, it is the "one fish turning to a dog" I have a problem with.
First, all those variety of dogs already had all the genes for looking different from each other. So it is a simple job of turning those genes you need on or off. So there is a bound of what you can get from breeding dog to a dog - you get a dog. If there were no bound than KFS would be growing 7ft. chickens with 6 legs and 4 wings by now.

Yet mutations happen, the functions of genes are changed, even totally new genes are created. You keep saying a dog will never produce a non-dog, but you don't say what mechanism actually prevents it from doing so.

And second, you people keep feeding me with this millions of years stuff, I'm a young Earth creationist, I don't buy you millions of years.

There is zero evidence that the Earth is 6000 years old. The age of the Earth is supported by dozens of independent lines of evidence. We have the various methods of dating rocks and fossils, we have tree rings going back over 11,000 years, we have the light from distant stars and galaxies, we have genetic data, we have the sun's energy-producing mechanism, all of which support the age of the Earth as 4.7 billion years, and there is not a single piece of evidence that says otherwise.

Your problem is that you think Uniformitarian principal (which, by the way, is only an assumption, not a law) is true. All your dating methods include this assumption along with a bunch of others.

Oldest tree is 4844 years old it is a Great Basin Bristlecone Pine (Pinus longaeva) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree), which would put its birth sometime after the flood.

Oldest coral reef near Australia estimated to be around 4500 years old (estimation was done based on the rate of growth). Biggest desert (Sahara) is estimated at around the same age, based on the rate of expansion.

Visit www.halos.com and check out research of Dr. R.Gentry on Polonium halos.

All the way since you were 5 all your teachers kept telling you that evolution is a fact and that Earth is billions of years old, so, naturally, you keep believing that. And examples that were used in your textbooks are fakes. Remember peppered moth? or picture of embryos? horse evolution examples? All fakes, have been proves as fakes, but still are used as evidence for evolution. If evolution is true, how come all evidence for it presented in textbooks faked? Answer that evoboys.

Here are some references for your enjoyment:

Here is an article on peppered moth
http://www.arn.org/docs/wells/jw_pepmothshort.htm

And this one is on Heackel drawings
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/277/5331/1435a

Polonium Halos supporting a theory of a young Earth is a load of crap - to claim that that is the case is to show your complete ignorance of science and scientific method.

Read the following article which is one of many completely refuting the rubbish that Gentry claimed.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/po-halos/gentry.html

Here are some references for your enjoyment:

Here is an article on peppered moth
http://www.arn.org/docs/wells/jw_pepmothshort.htm

And this one is on Heackel drawings
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/277/5331/1435a

As long as we are doing references:

Try http://waynesword.palomar.edu/ww0601.htm#oldest

Dr. Frank Vasek of the University of California at Riverside investigated the strange, circular growth patterns of a flowering shrub called creosote bush (Larrea tridentata) in the Mojave Desert...One of the oldest shrub rings is 50 feet (15 m) in diameter. It has been estimated that it started from a seed nearly 12,000 years ago.

According to the Tasmania Parks and Wildlife Service (1997), a rare and endangered shrub of the protea family (Proteaceae) called King's Holly (Lomatia tasmanica) may be the oldest plant clone in the world. The plants appear to be sterile triploids incapable of producing viable seeds. The clonal thickets reproduce vegetatively by root suckering and have been estimated to be at least 43,000 years old.

Polonium Halos supporting a theory of a young Earth is a load of crap - to claim that that is the case is to show your complete ignorance of science and scientific method.

Read the following article which is one of many completely refuting the rubbish that Gentry claimed.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/po-halos/gentry.html

Gentry has a doctorate degree in physics,  more than 20 years of experience, a bunch of published work in science journals. The guy who is "refuting" his work is nobody, he doesn't even have a degree in science, and he posted refutation on the web. Big scare there. Real refutation are published in science journals, so they can be peer reviewed.

And for future reference, talkorigins has as much authority to me as a clown in circus.

As long as we are doing references:

Try http://waynesword.palomar.edu/ww0601.htm#oldest

Dr. Frank Vasek of the University of California at Riverside investigated the strange, circular growth patterns of a flowering shrub called creosote bush (Larrea tridentata) in the Mojave Desert...One of the oldest shrub rings is 50 feet (15 m) in diameter. It has been estimated that it started from a seed nearly 12,000 years ago.

According to the Tasmania Parks and Wildlife Service (1997), a rare and endangered shrub of the protea family (Proteaceae) called King's Holly (Lomatia tasmanica) may be the oldest plant clone in the world. The plants appear to be sterile triploids incapable of producing viable seeds. The clonal thickets reproduce vegetatively by root suckering and have been estimated to be at least 43,000 years old.

The difference between my link and yours is that mine gives "verified oldest measured age" and explains how it was calculated, whereas yours gives "estimated" age without any explanation on how it was estimated. Actually the very next sentence says: "Fossil leaves found in a late Pleistocene deposit may be genetically identical to present-day plants." which leads me to believe that they used some kind of dating method to get the 43,000 years, and you know how I don't like those.

And examples that were used in your textbooks are fakes. Remember peppered moth? or picture of embryos? horse evolution examples? All fakes, have been proves as fakes, but still are used as evidence for evolution. If evolution is true, how come all evidence for it presented in textbooks faked? Answer that evoboys.

All peppered moth researchers are still supporting the Differential Bird Predation theory. In fact, the only people criticizing the theory have never done field research on the Peppered Moth.
Somehow most people got the mistaken impression that the theory has been proven wrong, but as far as I know it's still going strong.

And why creationists keep bringing up Haeckel's drawings is beyond me. Evolution in no way needs the drawings to strengthen its case.

All peppered moth researchers are still supporting the Differential Bird Predation theory. In fact, the only people criticizing the theory have never done field research on the Peppered Moth.
Somehow most people got the mistaken impression that the theory has been proven wrong, but as far as I know it's still going strong.

And why creationists keep bringing up Haeckel's drawings is beyond me. Evolution in no way needs the drawings to strengthen its case.

Did you read the links? Because if you would, you would notice that those were articles that were published in "scientist" and "science" magazines, and not just by some guy on the internet.

If you don't need these examples to strengthen the case, why are they still in textbooks?

Did you read the links? Because if you would, you would notice that those were articles that were published in "scientist" and "science" magazines, and not just by some guy on the internet.

And? Even a lot of scientists mistakenly believe that the theory has been falsified. Like I said, to my knowledge Peppered Moth researchers still support the theory.

If you don't need these examples to strengthen the case, why are they still in textbooks?

They aren't in any of the text books I've seen.

And for future reference, talkorigins has as much authority to me as a clown in circus.

Hey, don't pick on clowns....

If you read about Gentry's work, then you also read that near his halos are uranium halos.  Uranium half life is 245,500 years. For those halos to form, it took a little longer than three minutes.

Also there is the Radon gas explination to the halos.  As you say, Gentry is a physist.  He is out of his field.

So where does the star light come from?

Oldest tree is 4844 years old it is a Great Basin Bristlecone Pine (Pinus longaeva) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree), which would put its birth sometime after the flood.

I don't know what date you use for the 'worldwide' flood or what method you use to get the date, but I do know that creationists usually don't try to argue it was over 4844 years ago.  Archbishop James Ussher (17th century) claimed that it was exactly 2348 B.C.  He counted the generations of people and calculated the year this way.  It rested on the assumption that the earth was created in the year 4004 B.C.

Jack Finegan's Handbook of Biblical Chronology says that the flood occurred around 2104 B.C.  Creation scientist Dr. John Osgood dates the flood at around 2304 B.C.

You're arguing that the flood occurred at least 2838 B.C.  What are your methods for determining the date five hundred years before Ussher and Osgood?

Your problem is that you think Uniformitarian principal (which, by the way, is only an assumption, not a law) is true. All your dating methods include this assumption along with a bunch of others.

Uniformity of our dating methods is quite well established, it is far from an assumption. Consider these facts:

1. If lightspeed had been higher in the past, as some Creationists claim, and it had been high enough to allow light from galaxies millions of lightyears away to reach us in only a few thousand years, the amount of radiation reaching the Earth would have been vastly greater than it is today, and the planet would have been so hot and radioactive as to be unable to support life.
2. If the rate of radioactive decay had been high enough in the past to allow all the decay we currently see to accumulate in only 6000 years, the Earth would have, again, been unable to support life.
3. The frequencies and amounts of gamma rays emitted from supernovae are directly dependent on rates of radioactive decay; if these rates had been much different in the past, the radiation coming from very distant supernovas (which radiation is, of course, quite old) would look quite different than the radiation coming from closer supernovas; however this is not the case.
4. Creationists claim that the whole universe is "fine-tuned" to support life (besides the fact that the universe is not actually very fine-tuned, as so far as we know only one planet from probably quadrillions can support life), and that there is only a tiny range of values for physical constants that allow life to exist; yet they also posit radical changes in these same constants in the past.

Quote from: "beast"

Polonium Halos supporting a theory of a young Earth is a load of crap - to claim that that is the case is to show your complete ignorance of science and scientific method.

Read the following article which is one of many completely refuting the rubbish that Gentry claimed.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/po-halos/gentry.html

Gentry has a doctorate degree in physics,  more than 20 years of experience, a bunch of published work in science journals. The guy who is "refuting" his work is nobody, he doesn't even have a degree in science, and he posted refutation on the web. Big scare there. Real refutation are published in science journals, so they can be peer reviewed.

That is an argument from authority, and if you use such an argument you automatically lose; very nearly every other physicist and geologist in the world disagrees with Gentry. Additionally, this is a minor nitpick, but Gentry  has a master's degree in physics, not a doctorate. However, here is Lorence Collins' rebuttal of Gentry's arguments (Collins does possess a doctorate in geology, and this paper was a professional, peer-reviewed publication): http://www.csun.edu/~vcgeo005/revised8.htm

Further, here is a rebuttal of Gentry's arguments from a CREATIONIST website: http://www.answersincreation.org/bookreview/tnb/thousands_not_billions_chapter5.htm

The difference between my link and yours is that mine gives "verified oldest measured age" and explains how it was calculated, whereas yours gives "estimated" age without any explanation on how it was estimated. Actually the very next sentence says: "Fossil leaves found in a late Pleistocene deposit may be genetically identical to present-day plants." which leads me to believe that they used some kind of dating method to get the 43,000 years, and you know how I don't like those.

You should learn to read better.  The articles do explain that dating techniques, which are very similar to how ther date old trees such as the bristle pine.

Also had you read your own links better you would have seen that
The is a slightly older bristle pine that was cut down in the 60s, and

"Among the White Mountain specimens, the oldest trees are found on north-facing slopes, with an average of 2,000 years, as compared to the 1,000 year average on the southern slopes (Lewington and Parker, 37). The climate and the durability of their wood can preserve them long after death, with dead trees as old as 7,000 years persisting next to live ones "

Also:

Whether Prometheus should be considered the oldest organism ever known depends on the definition of "oldest" and "organism" one uses. For example, certain sprouting or clonal organisms, such as creosote bush or aspen, could have older individuals if the entire clonal organism is considered. Under this criteria, the oldest living organism is a quaking aspen grove in Utah known as Pando, at 80,000 years old. In a clonal organism, however, the individual clonal stems are nowhere near as old, and no part of the organism at any given point in time is particularly old. Prometheus was thus the oldest non-clonal organism yet discovered, with its innermost wood over 5000 years of age. It is possible, however, that an older specimen occurs that has not yet been aged. Bristlecones are notoriously hard to age because of their extremely contorted growth, and cutting of old trees is no longer allowed.

So, thanks again, as your own research shows that you are wrong.

they used some kind of dating method to get the 43,000 years, and you know how I don't like those.

Those as in proofs that the earth is older than 6000?

The difference between my link and yours is that mine gives "verified oldest measured age" and explains how it was calculated,

Well, I looked at your moths link and couldn't find the words "verified", "oldest", "measured", or "age" anywhere.  Maybe I'm looking at the wrong link?  I couldn't access the one about the drawings.

Anyway, now that we're back on ages of things, I'm still wondering what you think about the tree-ring evidence that the world is way older than YECism claims.  Here's a link to the original post.  The salient bits are

Using dendrochronology, scientists have dated structures found in Britain -- an engineered road -- to the fourth millenium B.C. Some regions have anchored chronologies extending 10,000 years into the past -- much longer than Biblical calculations for the age of the Earth.

Additionally, an analogous method can be used to date ice cores. In Greenland, cores have been found that are 100,000 years old. In Antarctica, scientists have found cores over 700,000 years in age. This clearly invalidates the Bible as a source of accurate dates of the age of the Earth.

To me this sounds like evidence for a "verified youngest possible age" of the Earth, using an absolute dating method that is directly related to years (as long as you define "year" as "full seasonal cycle") and not the decay rates of any radioactive isotopes, which I know you don't like.

I'm not going to quote it, but he was saying we were originally designed to live in the Garden of Eden. That is the dumbest shit I've heard in my life. Do you really take the bible that literrally? It's suppose to be symbollic, for human nature, and things of this manner.

Quote from: "Yardstick2006"

God I hate Bible-thumping morons. GoogleSearch, it's FICTION, get over it. :roll:

So sure you are. Why?

Try walking on water.

Your problem is that you think Uniformitarian principal (which, by the way, is only an assumption, not a law) is true. All your dating methods include this assumption along with a bunch of others

radiometric dating is verifiable using other methods. it is supported by ice core layer counting, varves, and the date for the sun gathered from its H/He ratio.

Visit www.halos.com and check out research of Dr. R.Gentry on Polonium halos.

that idiot doesnt realise that Po218 is on the U238 decay chain. he knows nothing. and his halo diagrams are so hopelessly unclear and hazy. i have seen images of that type made myself and they are infinitely more clear.

they used some kind of dating method to get the 43,000 years, and you know how I don't like those.

why dont you like them? because they go against your beliefs? is it a Conspiracy? you sound like a FEer.

do you have a clue how reliable and accurate radiometric dating is?

Hydraulic sorting is not a precise process, some deviation from average result will occur, besides don't forget that it was a storm that shook everything pretty heavily, and produced currents that could have deposited lighter animals deeper and visa versa.

if so, then lighter animals would be accompanied by flame structures above them where heavier sediment fell on top of them. this is not the case.

the result of a storm/flash flood/turbidity is a bouma sequence or "graded bedding". if there was a global flood there would be a recognisable global bouma sequence. this is not so. the whole geological column does not resemble a bouma sequence in the slightest.

how does a flood form dessication cracks. they can only form in dry conditions, and they seem a bit fragile to be formed in a big nasty flood.

same with varves. too fragile and too fine. and all the varves should be at the top shouldnt they? could an undercurrent really deposit clay underneath heavier material, WITHOUT flame structures above?

do you actually know anything about geology?

I, obviously, will not reply to you 2 pages of posts, simply because I don't have that much time on my hands, but I'll tell you what: You want to see things more clearly - try drawing your own conclusions based of facts, but if you are too lazy to do that look at other people's conclusions, but also don't forget to note assumptions that were used. You change or remove assumptions - conclusion changes.

For example:
Fact: Based on red shift galaxies are moving away from us.
Assumption: such phenomenon can be observed anywhere in the universe.
Conclusion: Universe is expanding and there is no center.

now without assumption:
Fact: Based on red shift galaxies are moving away from us.
No assumptions are made.
Conclusion: Our galaxy is at the center of observable universe.

You see how different conclusions can be, just based on the assumption. And like I said before, evolution is based on one big assumption by the name of Uniformitarian principal (I saw your 4 points, dear dysfunction, and they make no sense because are based assumptions).

now without assumption:
Fact: Based on red shift galaxies are moving away from us.

yes.

No assumptions are made.
Conclusion: Our galaxy is at the center of observable universe.

just as plausible: all galaxies are moving away from each other. we see our own galaxy, observe its structure and conclude it is no different from any other spiral galaxy, and this is just one of many forms of galaxy. so we treat each equally.


you make the assumption that our own position is significant in some way and therefore place it in your center. i do not make that assumption.




(oh and, wrong thread i think! oh fuck it, i dont know.)

For example:
Fact: Based on red shift galaxies are moving away from us.
Assumption: such phenomenon can be observed anywhere in the universe.
Conclusion: Universe is expanding and there is no center.

now without assumption:
Fact: Based on red shift galaxies are moving away from us.
No assumptions are made.
Conclusion: Our galaxy is at the center of observable universe.

Um, no- that's an assumption as well. One assumption implies a massive coincidence. The other doesn't. Hence, one assumption is accepted over the other. And either way, the galaxies still meet a few billion years ago. This doesn't prove the universe is several billion years old- the galaxies could have all been created already moving away from each other- but it does add strong circumstantial evidence, since that figure fits so nicely with the figures we get from every other branch of physical science- geology, astronomy, biology, physics, etc.

You see how different conclusions can be, just based on the assumption. And like I said before, evolution is based on one big assumption by the name of Uniformitarian principal (I saw your 4 points, dear dysfunction, and they make no sense because are based assumptions).

Again, no. My points all demonstrated why uniformitarianism in geologic dating methods is not an assumption. What assumption did any of those points make? Did you even read that post? How does:

Creationists claim that the whole universe is "fine-tuned" to support life (besides the fact that the universe is not actually very fine-tuned, as so far as we know only one planet from probably quadrillions can support life), and that there is only a tiny range of values for physical constants that allow life to exist; yet they also posit radical changes in these same constants in the past.

make any assumptions?

Let all be take heed, this is a straw man argument:

Fact: Based on red shift galaxies are moving away from us.
No assumptions are made.
Conclusion: Our galaxy is at the center of observable universe.

Emphasis added.  Of course we are at the centre of the observable universe.  The observable universe is defined as a sphere centred on us and of a radius given by the power of our viewing devices.

Anyway I realize that that whole post was basically a failed attempt at rhetoric, so instead of asking you to go back and respond to two pages of posts (how conveniently you are being swamped... you always manage to dodge the tree ring issue), I get that you're trying to say that Science is all just based on some assumptions eventually and Religion is based on some other assumptions, and that we ought to just agree to disagree.  Well, I guess that's okay, but the problem remains that the assumptions that Science makes are useful for doing more Finding Stuff Out, whereas the assumptions that Religion makes are completely impotent for those purposes.  If your goal is morality or something, fine, but don't try to make out Religion as being on equal footing with Science in the Finding Stuff Out game.

Fact: Based on red shift galaxies are moving away from us.
No assumptions are made.
Conclusion: Our galaxy is at the center of observable universe.

Oh lol, - considering this is the only place humans have the abilities to observe the universe from...

Conclusion: Our galaxy is at the center of observable universe.

Yes, and science tries to teach us to step beyond our egocentric view and try to give things a relative perspective.

A big flood in a river valley that holds several civilizations is recorded as flooding the world.

Yet the other civilizations have different views.

To a baby, the world is what it can perceive.  When you leave it, you cease.  When you continue to return, it's mind eventually expands to realize that you persist.  Yet some people never really understand the implications.  That each of us is the center of our own world, but not of the whole world.

I, obviously, will not reply to you 2 pages of posts ... but if you are too lazy to do that look at other people's conclusions, but also don't forget to note assumptions that were used. You change or remove assumptions - conclusion changes.
...evolution is based on one big assumption by the name of Uniformitarian principal (I saw your 4 points, dear dysfunction, and they make no sense because are based assumptions).

Who are you calling Lazy, you are the one who, when faced with differing veiws and facts, are avoiding the issues.

Also, what school does the "Uniformitarian principal" work at? Interestingly enough, the creationist sites all sem to use this spelling instead of "Uniformitarian Principle", which is what the scientific sites use.  While all of us make spelling mistakes, this seems a little to uniform to me.

Anyway, what the "Uniformitarian Principle" is saying is just an adaptation or the "Principle of Parsimony" or what is commonly called "Occam's Razor"...That is don't introduce variables without cause, or The simplest Solution is normally correct.  

The steady rate of decay is assumed because there is more hard evidence supporting it than contradicting it.  

Scientists don't answer with "Because God made it that way" or "It's magic" because it introduces a whole new level of complexity, and it does not advance our understanding of (As Erasmus so quaintly puts it "The Way Things Work").

I believe in the Divine, and Magic, but I don't fall to them to answer scientific questions.

Who are you calling Lazy, you are the one who, when faced with differing veiws and facts, are avoiding the issues.

This constitutes laziness?