Poll: Do you believe in speciation?

[floppylobster]

Just look at how different you are from your brothers and sisters if you have them. Do you know any mixed race couples? Notice any differences in their children? Are they still able to mate with others and continue those changes? Now multiply that by the millions of years we're talking about here and it shouldn't be that hard to see that big changes can happen over a lot of time.

The older you'll get, hopefully the more you'll be able to conceptualise how much things can change, even in a short lifetime. Then you'll perhaps understand the concept better. I understand your difficulties, I faced them too. But I get it now, and it makes complete sense.

 

[Wide White]

Microevolution: Yes. It's been completely proven. No one doubts it.

Macroevolution: No. Call me cynical.

Is there a word for that, because thats my stance on evolution

Wouldn't it be cool to staple body parts unto yourself like in Spore?

Oh my, this is getting annoying.

Yes, it is proven. You simply choose the ignore the evidence - want proof? look it up. Go on, go to an academic (not a f*cking christian science) library or even youtube.

Macro and Micro evolution are terms made up by creationists to confuse the issue, the ONLY DIFFERENCE is the amount of TIME.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8nYTJf62sE&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_RXX7pntr8&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7w57_P9DZJ4&feature=related

I'm not creationist and I don't really care I was trying to make conversation, or even a pun. Then you get all serious when I wasn't even talking to you...

 

[dnnydllr]

I'd like to start by saying that I really don't want to offend you, but I am going to pick apart some of what you say. I do this with the best of intentions and offer you some reference videos that you can watch if you really do want to learn about evolution.

But that part is down to you. The evidence is there, provided that you don't decide to turn your head away from it. See end of post for vid refs.

I don't mean the part where a species changes over time, as that is quite evidently true, but rather that all species came from a common ancestor through the process of speciation. I quite frankly don't see how this could possibly make any sense.

Then your teachers probably haven't explained it clearly enough. There is no difference between macro and micro evolution, merely the amount of time required for noticeable change to take place.
Please see this video, its a tad belligerent but its connected to the ongoing youtube battle between the god squad and the evolution crew, it explains much better than I can: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3SAGDZXLxI

Even through billions of random mutations, I don't think bacteria could turn into something as complex as a human.

I don't want to be a dick, but there are people a lot smarter than you or I that have worked on this for most of their adult lives on this. Evolution is accepted as scientific fact whether you choose to believe it or not. The only higher state of proof that exists is a mathematical proof ie 1+1=2. The only people who don't accept it as fact are people who instead put 'faith' in unprovable bronze age superstitions. I don't want to insult, but this is where ultimately it is your choice what you believe.

And why don't we see any animals changing species today? You'd think that at least one or two should be crossing over around now.

You don't see it because you don't get to live that long. Sorry, that's mortality for you. Actually, having said that, if you observe the consequences of selective breeding programmes then you will see evolution in action. It takes a handful of generations to breed wild wolves into a life form very close to the German shepherd dog.

I don't know, it just doesn't make sense to me, and the fact that scientists blindly accept this as fact really grinds my gears. Every time i say something against it people immediately assume I'm looking at it from a creationist standpoint, when I really am not. I don't know if anyone else has opinions about this, but input would be very nice.

That may be because you make the assertion that "scientists blindly accept this as fact", and that sounds an awful lot like creationist garbage. If you really want to understand evolution there are some excellent educational videos I can show you.

This first one is a favorite of mine, its quite old (1991) but brilliantly delivered (consider that since it was made the evidence has stacked up further): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8xFaNGzgTQ

It is the first of 7 videos. I wholeheartedly implore you to have patience and learn from the outstanding lecturer. I won't mention his name here for fear of scaring you away (in case you are religious).

I'd like to start by saying that I really don't want to offend you, but I am going to pick apart some of what you say. I do this with the best of intentions and offer you some reference videos that you can watch if you really do want to learn about evolution.

But that part is down to you. The evidence is there, provided that you don't decide to turn your head away from it. See end of post for vid refs.

I don't mean the part where a species changes over time, as that is quite evidently true, but rather that all species came from a common ancestor through the process of speciation. I quite frankly don't see how this could possibly make any sense.

Then your teachers probably haven't explained it clearly enough. There is no difference between macro and micro evolution, merely the amount of time required for noticeable change to take place.
Please see this video, its a tad belligerent but its connected to the ongoing youtube battle between the god squad and the evolution crew, it explains much better than I can: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3SAGDZXLxI

Even through billions of random mutations, I don't think bacteria could turn into something as complex as a human.

I don't want to be a dick, but there are people a lot smarter than you or I that have worked on this for most of their adult lives on this. Evolution is accepted as scientific fact whether you choose to believe it or not. The only higher state of proof that exists is a mathematical proof ie 1+1=2. The only people who don't accept it as fact are people who instead put 'faith' in unprovable bronze age superstitions. I don't want to insult, but this is where ultimately it is your choice what you believe.

And why don't we see any animals changing species today? You'd think that at least one or two should be crossing over around now.

You don't see it because you don't get to live that long. Sorry, that's mortality for you. Actually, having said that, if you observe the consequences of selective breeding programmes then you will see evolution in action. It takes a handful of generations to breed wild wolves into a life form very close to the German shepherd dog.

I don't know, it just doesn't make sense to me, and the fact that scientists blindly accept this as fact really grinds my gears. Every time i say something against it people immediately assume I'm looking at it from a creationist standpoint, when I really am not. I don't know if anyone else has opinions about this, but input would be very nice.

That may be because you make the assertion that "scientists blindly accept this as fact", and that sounds an awful lot like creationist garbage. If you really want to understand evolution there are some excellent educational videos I can show you.

This first one is a favorite of mine, its quite old (1991) but brilliantly delivered (consider that since it was made the evidence has stacked up further): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8xFaNGzgTQ

It is the first of 7 videos. I wholeheartedly implore you to have patience and learn from the outstanding lecturer. I won't mention his name here for fear of scaring you away (in case you are religious).

The funny thing is that I'm not religious but I knew exactly who you were speaking of. And yes, I am planning on looking more into this topic as nearly everyone has shown that I am very lacking in my knowledge very much so.

 

[Thunderhorse31]

Random chance does not create complexity in life, evolution *always* progresses toward complexity.

I was under the impression that most evolutionists hated the idea of "progress" in this context.

"Progress is a noxious, culturally embedded, untestable, non-operational, intractable idea that must be replaced if we wish to understand the pattern of history." - Stephen Jay Gould.

Also, the example isn't a perfect example of how evolution works, only that the amount of information in the universe (genetics, sub-atomic particles, etc.) is ridiculously huge, and just as ridiculously improbable to have developed on its own in the amount of time since the Big Bang.

Would you also argue that the universe is becoming more orderly as time progresses as well?

 

[Thunderhorse31]

Oh my, this is getting annoying.

Macro and Micro evolution are terms made up by creationists to confuse the issue, the ONLY DIFFERENCE is the amount of TIME.

Annoying? Annoying is when jack-asses make assertions of fact based on things they know NOTHING about.

If you weren't so busy trying to assign blame for the controversy, you might have taken the time to look up the fact that the distinction between microevolution and macroevolution began in 1937, by EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGIST Theodosius Dobzhansky. I made it real nice and big for you so you wouldn't miss it. Dobzhansky noted the difference between small-scale changes within existing species ("microevolution") and large-scale changes in the fossil record ("macroevolution"), and shockingly enough, discussions over micro- and macro- has continued to this day, even in the strongest of Darwinist textbooks.

I'm not arguing your point as to whether or not there's a difference (most evolutionists firmly believe that the controversy will be resolved in the framework of their theory), but please don't blame an entire group of people for something if you don't have your facts straight.

Edit: I do like those youtube vids you posted though

 

[Lord Kofun]

Microevolution: Yes. It's been completely proven. No one doubts it.

Macroevolution: No. Call me cynical.

Is there a word for that, because thats my stance on evolution

Wouldn't it be cool to staple body parts unto yourself like in Spore?

Is there a specific word for it? Not that I am aware of.. but there seems to be a word for even the most bizarre things, so there very well might be.

Would it be cool to? Sure, for a little while, but then.. I would be very scared of what other people would start cut-and-paste-ing onto their own bodies.

 

[Alex_P]

Have you ever heard of the Monkey Shakespeare Simulator? Using the "infinite monkey theorem" it used a random letter generator where each "monkey" types one letter per second, and the number of monkeys constantly increased (started with 100, then added more to show population growth and procreation, doubling the number of monkeys every few days). The simulator compared the output with the works of Shakespeare, and after a year and a half the longest match was 24 letters from The Second Part of King Henry IV, which took the equivalent of 2,738 trillion trillion trillion monkey years to produce. After a year, the record was over 30 letters, but that took trillions and trillions more monkey years to produce.

That seems to be (personally, anyway) one of the biggest challenges to Darwinism in its purest form - the universe itself isn't big enough or old enough to hold all of the information and specified complexity that we observe today, especially if you claim that all of it arrived through complete random chance.

I don't think the monkeys are a very good example, really.

I have some trivial quibbles about just what that particular simulator is doing and what it represents that basically amount to saying that 30 letters in some ~1e40 attempts isn't quite as astronomical as it seems at first blush, but what really matters here is that the Proverbial Monkeys of Shakespearian Randomness may be a halfway useful analogy for the first origin of life but aren't a model of a process that meaningfully resembles evolution.

Certainly some of the factors needed to kick-start life had to emerge as the result of some pretty tricky and unlikely interactions (but that's why it took millions of years and a whole planet of inert matter for it to happen). But, once you're got that base -- something like, say, a full sentence or two of Shakespeare, -- we're no longer playing at monkey-generating stuff at random.

Once you have enough of the basic characteristics of life to be affected by natural selection, you no longer have to sit around waiting for your Proverbial Monkeys of Shakesperian Randomness to have another one-in-whatever moment of life-generating success. Because your proto-life will generate more life through a process that rather resembles stochastic hill-climbing. And it will do so quite quickly.

Because they're so much less efficient than actual natural selection, the Proverbial Monkeys of Shakespearian Randomness and Life-Generation Ex Nihilo give us more reason to believe that life on Earth has a common ancestor.

-- Alex

 

[Oopsie]

Would you have paid some more attention at those particular classes in school, perhaps these questions would have never arose.

Also, is it not true that because species can only reproduce with members of the same species that whenever a new species did arise through a mutation it would immediately die off as it had no other organisms to reproduce with, because no other organisms would have that exact mutation turning it into that species?

When complex species evolve it takes time. For example; can you still reproduce with someone who has glasses whilst you yourself have excellent vision? Yes you do. Just because humans cannot have children with donkeys doesn't mean small mutations will do the same. The evidence to support this is all around you. Brown eyed and blue eyed people can have children, right?

And why don't we see any animals changing species today? You'd think that at least one or two should be crossing over around now.

We do. Bacteria and virusses mutate all the time. Larger organisms take more time to change as a whole. Take human evolution as an example. Or better yet, look for some fruitfly experiments.

 

[Overlord_Dave]

The fossil record is enough to prove speciation beyond reasonable scientific doubt. Period.

 

[Lord Monocle Von Banworthy]

I love to be a jerk, so here I go:

Will everybody who wants to support reality but doesn't really understand evolution please stop giving the trolls straw men to knock down. Every time somebody says that "bacteria" turned into humans in "tens of billions of years" or that DNA "adapts" to something or that evolution is random, it just spreads misunderstanding and leads to tragic characters like OP, who constructs his own world piecemeal by arbitrarily accepting, rejecting, or replacing things people who know better than he does have told him.

It's awesome that you are committed to rationality and empiricism. Use that commitment as inspiration to STUDY a subject of your interest. Perhaps you'll acquire real expertise in whatever that subject is. After that, please realize that all expertise is specific, not general, and continue to refrain from enlightening people about things you vaguely understand if at all. Half the people in this thread really DO have the "faith" in evolution they're accused by the creationists of having because they haven't really bothered to learn about it, they just believe in it.

 

[TheRightToArmBears]

I love to be a jerk, so here I go:

Will everybody who wants to support reality but doesn't really understand evolution please stop giving the trolls straw men to knock down. Every time somebody says that "bacteria" turned into humans in "tens of billions of years" or that DNA "adapts" to something or that evolution is random, it just spreads misunderstanding and leads to tragic characters like OP, who constructs his own world piecemeal by arbitrarily accepting, rejecting, or replacing things people who know better than he does have told him.

It's awesome that you are committed to rationality and empiricism. Use that commitment as inspiration to STUDY a subject of your interest. Perhaps you'll acquire real expertise in whatever that subject is. After that, please realize that all expertise is specific, not general, and continue to refrain from enlightening people about things you vaguely understand if at all. Half the people in this thread really DO have the "faith" in evolution they're accused by the creationists of having because they haven't really bothered to learn about it, they just believe in it.

Thankyou.
I want to add you as a friend for that.

 

[Thunderhorse31]

arbitrarily accepting, rejecting, or replacing things people who know better than he does have told him.

I agree with everything in your post, and yes people have a responsibility to STUDY things for themselves to see if they make sense. But regarding this statement above, I agree we shouldn't do it "arbitrarily," but we also shouldn't assume that everything we hear from an "expert" is accurate or true.

Most people naturally assume that scientists are "moral" or "unbiased" or "follow the evidence where it leads," but it's really naive of us to think so. Too many people "have an ax to grind," and we'd be foolish if we didn't admit that there are great minds on both sides of the argument who didn't begin with their minds made up (natural evolution, supernatural creation, a synthesis of both, etc.) and proceed to try and fit the evidence piece by piece into that existing framework.

That said, it's obvious that most people here aren't experts on the issue, but we're all doing our best to understand the available information and "accept, reject, or replace things" that don't seem to make sense.

p.s. I really would love to start an argument on cosmology, but don't know whether or not we should hijack this topic or start a new one...

 

[Alex_P]

p.s. I really would love to start an argument on cosmology, but don't know whether or not we should hijack this topic or start a new one...

Speaking as a moderator:

Start a new one. Link to this topic in the first post for context.

-- Alex

 

[lonercs]

yes. i think it is appalling how over half of america believes in creationism

I think it is appalling how over 1/2 of America are a bunch of idiots. Seriously, I was pretty much fucking proven that evolution occurred. Even the late Pope John Paul 2 freaking believes in evolution. He called it Intelligent Design because he had to cram God in it somewhere. (yes, you can say that last sentence in the voice of Yahtzee)

By the way, at least 31 voters on this tread (whether they post or not) are idiots that will chose a nonsense belief with zero facts over a scientific theory that can be tested and is proven with facts. Also I go to a Catholic high school and has these views. I will accept ID but, creationism? Are you fucking kidding me?

 

[Lord Monocle Von Banworthy]

You accept ID but not creationism? You might be the only one. Read up on ID. If there's a "designer," he's a "creator," therefore you believe in creationism. ID has all the important qualities of creationism, especially that "created kinds" or whatever IDers call them have always existed unchanging.

AFAIK the Catholic church has realized that they need a stronger faith than you can base on the first couple of chapters of Genesis. That's one of the great parts of being a non-fundamentalist, living church instead of a book-reading church (no, I'm not Christian but I still respect that part of their setup).

 

[Cliff_m85]

yes. i think it is appalling how over half of america believes in creationism

It's easier to understand, rather than studying scientific texts (or what the OP would call 'scientists blindly believing it' HA!) we can easily say "goddidit". *rolls eyes*

 

[lykopis783]

You accept ID but not creationism? You might be the only one. Read up on ID. If there's a "designer," he's a "creator," therefore you believe in creationism. ID has all the important qualities of creationism, especially that "created kinds" or whatever IDers call them have always existed unchanging.

Umm, they're really not the same... at all. Creationism has absolutely zero belief in human evolution (different types accept different degrees of evolution but the common factor is that none of them believe humans came from evolution.)Creationism is a purely Christian idea. While intelligent design is more of a belief that however life was created (evolution or a sudden *poof* or whatever) that some sort of higher being had a hand in designing all that went on, again there are different levels within that, some exclude people from evolution, some say they are the ultimate creation, but it all comes down to "there was a intelligent force involved." Which in the very early days of the theory meant God, but in more recent times it can be whatever higher power you want it to be.

 

[Cliff_m85]

You accept ID but not creationism? You might be the only one. Read up on ID. If there's a "designer," he's a "creator," therefore you believe in creationism. ID has all the important qualities of creationism, especially that "created kinds" or whatever IDers call them have always existed unchanging.

Umm, they're really not the same... at all. Creationism has absolutely zero belief in human evolution (different types accept different degrees of evolution but the common factor is that none of them believe humans came from evolution.)Creationism is a purely Christian idea. While intelligent design is more of a belief that however life was created (evolution or a sudden *poof* or whatever) that some sort of higher being had a hand in designing all that went on, again there are different levels within that, some exclude people from evolution, some say they are the ultimate creation, but it all comes down to "there was a intelligent force involved." Which in the very early days of the theory meant God, but in more recent times it can be whatever higher power you want it to be.

Whatever higher power you want it to be, evidence not required.