The_old_worm

Sorry, ran out of memory. Eventually, the isolated species breaks out of it's isolation, then mingles back with the original population, but because millions of years have passes with millions of independant mutations, they can no longer breed with the original group. That is speciation, and that is macroevolution. It HAS been observed many times. So to answer your question, it happens to a group, not an individual. Slow gradual evolution makes no sense. Does the environment stay stable with long gradual changes? No, of course not. The stable periods happen when an animal is extremely well adapted to it's environment. There is no need for drastic changes, so the animal goes through these long periods of slow evolution. However, here comes an ice age, and suddenly(relatively, of course) it's either adapt or die. Selection pressures are much stronger leading to faster change. Anyone who still thinks that evolution is a slow, gradual process, needs to reexamine his thinking. You need to understand one thing. There is no goal to evolution, no ultimate species that it strives for, only the best adaptation to the given environment. So, if a species is extremely well adapted to it's environment i.e. the Crocodile, then there is no need for major changes, but, if that environment changes radically within 5,000 to 10,000 years, then the creature had better change or die. You honestly don't see how intelligence would lead to better survival for a species? Are you kidding me? Tools, hunting equiptment, agriculture, shelter, strategic hunting, none of this seems advantageous to you?

a kind of protocell called coacervates or microspheres have been shown to form and resemble, very closely, living cells. They are seperated by a membrane from the outside world selectively taking up certain substances from the atmosphere. If some basic form of DNA or even the components of DNA were trapped within this membrane, it would be free to carry out it's chemical reactions, and could create both DNA and RNA through some sort of transcription. Once DNA is made within the cell, reproduction is very likely. Perhaps sexual reproduction began earlier than you think. Perhaps, in the earliest of creatures arising from single-celled organisms, a mutation cause one organism to invade another's DNA to reproduce. It combined it's DNA with an unchanged organism which is evolutionarily advantageous because it brings in variation. Those organisms would have evolved faster. I don't know if this is what happened, but it does answer your question of how COULD it happen. As for macroevolution, you need to read more on it because you have it all wrong. I don't know how to explain this without writing a book, so I'll do the best I can. Contrary to your opinion, millions of mutations do NOT have to happen all at once. I've demonstrated with the fish how small, yet beneficial mutations that build up over long periods of time, can lead to those big changes that you see. The number of mutations happens gradually enough, that the organism is still sexually compatible with it's parent species. For example, a person with Sickle Cell Anemia, is still able to reproduce with other humans. As a group is isolated from the original population, especially in extreme circumsances, thos small, gradual mutations build up and are passed around that community. Each mutation is minor enough, that the population can still breed from generation to generation....I'll finish on my next post

Again, I ask, what exactly are you looking for in the transition from ape to man? Are you looking for a skeleton of an ape that shows human characteristics--We have that in Lucy and Austrolopithecus Afericanus. Are you looking for the middle ground between Ape and Man? We have that too in Austrolopithecus Robustus and Australopithecus boisei. Are you looking for humans with ape like characteristics, because we also have that in Homo Erectus and Neanderthals. Sure there are holes in what we have found, but you can't really expect to find a year to year account in the fossil record. The pattern is made clear by what we have in the fossil record. Every fossil that we find is a transitional fossil, evolving from one organism to another. If I go to the cemetary and dig up a skeleton, he IS a transitional fossil between modern humans and whatever we may evolve into. So what do you define as transitional, Organisms with characteristics of two different species? We have plenty of those. In fact scientists often have a hard time classifying new organisms because they DO have characteristics from two different species. Punctuated Equilibrium also helps to explain the apparent gaps that do exist between species. Punctuated equilibrium simply states that evolution does not follow a consistant, slow progression, but rather involves long periods of stability, followed by RELATIVELY(just to make sure you see that) short periods of transition. Due to the amount of time and extreme circumstances in fossilization, punctuated equilibrium decreases the chances that these "transitional" species would fossilise.

Oh, and by the way, the religious have had their fair share of frauds--The "discovery" of Noah's Ark on Mt. Ararat, The shroud of Turin, Crying Jesus statues, faith healers etc... The problem is that many of the religious cling to these frauds even in the face of evidence against it. Find me an Scientist that claims those frauds to be true. Like I said, Science learns from it's mistakes. Religion clings to their false beliefs and attacks any one who tries to point them out.

Even my above description is extrememly oversimplified, but it gives you the idea of the millions of small changes taking place over millions of years to change a fish into a bird. They do not have to happen all at once, as long as each little step is positively selected for by natural selection or sexual selection.

In NO place on the fossil record is there a gap where those frauds existed. I'm always curious about this, What missing link are you looking for? The fossil record shows us a pretty good progression from ape to man, so what would you accept as the "missing link"? I was just reading back on the religion thread and caught this quote and would likd to respond, even though I partially responded earlier. "But how does a fish become a lizard or bird? In order to develope lungs, millions of favorable mutations would have had to occur in the same sperm or egg, that just happened to become fertilized. If a fish got lungs, it would also need feathers and hollow bones and many other favorable mutations ALL AT THE SAME TIME, otherwise it would drown. Now who shows ignorance?---Dezertfish You do! A fish did NOT become a lizard or bird. Do you even understand the evolutionary process? Maybe that's why you think that the order of creation in the Bible fits the scientific order of creation. Again, by oversimplifying the theory, you make it sound ridiculous. Here is the evolutionary tree for the bird, just so you'll know. 1. Fish--develope the ability to stay on land longer, by developing primitive lungs, while maintaing gills. Along with adapted front fins for crawling on land. (check the Crossopterygians) I've already described a possibility of this process. 2. Through millions of tiny changes over millions of years (not at the same time!), these adapted fish eventually become what we would now know as amphibians. Amphibians show characteristics such as gills, as well as genetic similarities, that link them to fish. 3. Eventually, amphibians developed tougher skin to keep moisture in so that they could stay on land longer, and in this process, develope more advaced forms of lungs. You can see this change in skin when you look at a toad. These new amphibians evenually evolved into the reptiles. Again, much morphological and genetic evidence supports the relation between amphibians and reptiles. 4. Finally, small groups of reptiles evolved into dinosaurs, with many species becoming warm blooded. Also fossils show us dinosaurs with hollow bones, without the ability to fly, supporting the theory that they are for temperature control. These small reptiles developed feathers(again probably for temp control), which, as a side effect, could catch wind and create the ability to glide. 5. eventually these dinosaurs evolved into birds as we know them today.

Dezertfish, talk.origins does present the Creationist side too, and offers many links to other Creationist sites. Evolution may seem to contradict itself at times simply because it is a work in progress. As we learn more things from new technology, and new evidence we find that many of the ideas of Darwin's original theory are a little off, and scientists often argue about other possible explainations of these fine details. The basic premiss, however, fits the evidence very well, and actually has little contradiction. If you are interested in checking out ongoing discussions in this topic, I have found another site that I frequent. It is WWW.Physicsforums.com. There you get discussions going on from both sides. You'll just have to go the the Other Sciences thread to find evolution discussions.

Your probably right, that was a little harsh, but it gets irritating when people make statements like "Evolution is just a theory. so it is no better than creation", or they ridicule the theory as nonsense by oversimplifying it, without having the "moral fibre" to back their statements up. I think, if you are going to voice an opinion, you should be prepared to back it up. Here we have an evolution thread, so I ask, Where are those who ridicule the theory now?

The problem is, Edric, that there already IS new outstanding evidence, through genetic research. The Creationists just don't want to see it. I understand that Dezertfish has probably not read my posts yet, so he has not responded, at least I hope this is the case, but of the people on this site that make their little comments about evolution, he is the only one with the guts to argue it. I respect that, too bad others are not the same, and hide behind their little unqualified comments on other threads. This thread may possibly go nowhere. Dezertfish and I will probably never agree, but for those reading the thread, maybe they will be educated some by the topic. That is what I hope to accomplish, so that others will know the facts about what they believe or disbelieve. For people who want to learn about evolution, you could ask questions about the theory as well, or if you have any new information that I have not heard, I would love to read it.

Speculation that is repeatedly verified by observations and evidence. I will not list it again, but if you want to attack this "speculation mixed with evidence" my list of evidence is on an above post. Where is this 70% of unlikeliness in the theory, please enlighten me.;) At least evolution has the evidence to support it's speculation, instead of Creationism which expects us to accept it on NO, I repeat NO, evidence.

You are refering to microevolution(evolution within a species), which has often been used to try to prove Darwin's thoery, or macroevolution(evolution from one species into something altogether different). The two ARE different. Also, two animals in a species must mutate beneficially at once in similar ways, otherwise the offspring of the "evolved"(sounds like pokemon, doesn't it?) specimen would be sterile.(as with mules). This does not include microevolution, because micro-evolution stays within the same species."Reproduce, each according to its type".---Dezertfish Don't try to create wording to make it sound ridiculous. "Something completetly different" is a little deceiving, because the two creatures may still look VERY similar, like a Lion and a Tiger. The only qualification for speciation is that they change ENOUGH that their genetics are no longer campatible to breed. This is a much finer line than you would like to admit. Again, IF they did evolve ALL of thier new characteristics all at once, then their offspring would be sterile, I agree with that, but given millions of years of small changes from mutations, this is not the case, because between the generations, the changes are small enough that breeding is still possible. Now, if you tried to go back and breed a new species with it's parent species from a million years ago, with all it's changes, it would be impossible (probably). This IS macroevolution and observations HAVE been made. Check out talk.origins "observed instances of speciation" and "29 evidences for macroevolution"

I feel that Darwinistic evolutionists do not include abiogenesis in their basic theory, because they realize the improbability to hte point of impossiblity of teh first life arising by chance. (abiogenesis', not evolution's, absurdity is what is demontrated in the watchmaker argument).--Dezertfish You can "feel" that Darwinistic evolution leaves out abiogenesis for that reason if you want to, but that doesn't make you right! Evolution ONLY speaks to the change in species over time. The origin, divine or natural, is beyond the theory. "Your snowflake illustration is assuming it happened the first time. If you know something happened in the past, and are trying to explain it, does it make sense to choose a theory that is so unlikely, and then to justify it with "It happened so it must have happened this way". NO that is circular reasoning."--Dezertfish My snowflake illustration only demonstrates that the snowflake landed on my penny, it says nothing of the snowflakes origin. If it was important to us, we would examine the evidence of wind speed, and such and propose a theory based on the evidence on why the snowflake landed on my penny. Fortunately, evolution provided a better path of evidence for us to follow than did my snowflake. Again, you try to play the odds here, "unlikely" HOW DO YOU KNOW THIS?????? And we didn't just "pick a theory" we created one from the evidence that is given. There are MANY justifications for evolution, not simply "it happened, so it must have happened this way" that is the justification used for Creationism. "Who said that Noah's flood HAS to be responsible for the death of all the dinosaurs? They could have just as easily have been killed by volcanic winter or a change in the ratio of gasses in the air. Creationists have just pointed out that it is awfully convenient that all the dinosaurs were supposed to have been killed all at once, and that is amazingly similar to what is related in the flood story."---Dezertfish And the order in which we find fossils in the geologic column is awfully inconvenient for Creationists.

I hate to let this thread die with all the absolute comments that the Creationists on this site have made. Come on guys, if you are going to make the statements about Creationism being just as valid as evolution, please, step up to the plate!

I really, really, hate to say this, but I agree with much of what emprworm is posting about logic. I can't see logic as not being an absolute, but again, I leave the possiblility open. I think what emprworm is missing though, is that we use logic on our observations to create laws of the universe. I don't question the logic, I question our observations. If we base our logic on false perceptions, then doesn't that make the logic false? That is why we leave laws open to change, and why laws should NOT be taken as absoute truth. What you need to understand about contradiction, is that an object or event may seem to directly contradict itself, but this is due to our misinterperetation of it in the first place. You posit that we understand our universe well enough, that we know what contradiction is. I say that what we think is contradiction is actually a product of our misunderstanding in the first place. So, you cannot say that ANYTHING will not contradict itself in the future. As we learn more, we will probably find things that seem to do just that. THAT is the fault in human logic. I posted a while back, emprworm, and you ignored my question. I think Acriku is right, you avoid arguments you can't win. Why, if the world was created by supernatural means, does Creationism win by default? You have chosen a guess and presented it as truth. Again, you ignored another statement I made, presumably because you don't have an answer. Check out Guth's inflation model for the Big Bang. It proposes(note: does not prove) that matter can come from nothing in a pure vacum, a sort of free-lunch as he puts it. If this is even possible, then your position that God is the only rational explaination for the universe is false. The difference between this theory and the Creation myth, is that it is backed with observations and evidence, therefore more likely, even if not perfect.