No because the mutations to allow those cant be made in a single (or very few) leaps.


Sure, but they are probably from grandparents, and skipped a generation.

Remember it is extremely unlikely to see a major change within one generation. IF you looked at my families DNA you would be able to though. Its just that they might not have any noticable physical effect.

yes there would, youd still be for the most part very similar, other things like mtDNA are passed from mother to child, by comapring mtDNA, it would be easy to see. A similar thing can be done with the male Y chromosome.

Eh? its easy to see through the physical structure of animals

Though according to what you are saying yes it would be impossible, as you would go back through each generation of life, over about 4 billion years, and we dont have the DNA from most of them.

Theres also no reason we'd need to do this.


Well itd be nice if you didnt repeat debunked arguments

I have used a few, if i already know it though, its easier to write it. Sometimes ive summarised though, I was a bit hazy on the Mitochondrial DNA and Y chromosome inheritance I mentioned in my last post.

Then why would i evolve it? Theres no selection bias. Ill survive with or without it.


Yes it is, natural selection is not though.

Yep, but given enough time, and a selection bias, they may become completely different from the original. (eg. The human appendix is in most cases vastly smaller then in our distant ancestors, sometimes it isnt even there.)

I am ignoring TheWiseMan, he is just showing the collective ignorance of all major religions.

Quote: Then why would i evolve it? Theres no selection bias. Ill survive with or without it.

You missed the point

What triggers mutation

Either it happens
1. always or
2. When it is needed

So if it happens always we should see each(in a large population) of us branching on our own tree of life
or
it only happens when "pressured by the environment" and that implies that muations only happen when it is needed

If it only happens when needed is it RANDOM?

So does it happen to us always or when needed?

Mutations always happen.
Nature selects any that give a creature an advantage.
So they always happen, but if nature doesnt change, then there is no need for any new mutation to become dominant, and the mutation doesnt become a dominant mutation amongst a species. Or if its a bad mutation, the animal will die.

Mutations are random, Natural selection is not. Only those favoured by the environment will live on.

(And this is about the 607458228th time ive covered this with you)

If someone hasn't done so already, I'd like to take this opportunity to nominate TheWiseMan for the 'most ironic screen name' award.

Hes got my vote!

i reckon it would be a landslide victory lol

My vote too.

+1 from me

I go away on vacation for 1 week, come back and see that this thread has exploded..Its going to take forever to read through all of this..Man I hope i dont get bored enough to do that at work today...

Welcome back, metaphor! Unfortunately, much of the first part of this thread turned into something other than a dicussion about evolution. However, in an effort to tie all together, I went back to your original post, since it includes many of the same arguments used throughout, and formulated my response:

You should have said: "I do not accept evolution." Because evolution (defined as change in the gene pool of a population over time) has been observed and is an objective fact, "believing" is not applicable. You either accept it, or you don't.

Evolution is not like a ladder, with the "worst" organisms at the bottom and the "best" on top. If a population of organisms can thrive by being stupid, then so be it; evolution has no end goal or purpose. Read the second paragraph under the heading "Common Misconceptions about Evolution" here.

Evolution, as defined above, is a fact. To state otherwise is ridiculous. However, biologists do debate about some of the mechanisms of evolution, that is, how evolution happens. They do not debate about if it happens; we know it does.

Yes. The scientific meaning of the word "theory" is not equivalent to the way the word is used in everyday language. Evolution has been observed, as has speciation. Of course, nothing can be proven to 100% certainty, but discussion lies more in the philosophical realm.

On the contrary, it is science that proves these "debated theories" as fact. Evolution has mountains upon mountains of evidence going for it, just like the fact that the Earth is round. If evolution were eventually to be replaced by a new theory, the new theory would have to explain all that evidence and then some.

There is no dispute among scientists, that is a myth. 99.9% of scientists accept evolution. Many Christians scientists accept evolution as well; Talk.Origins Archive, which I have linked to countless times in this post, has many religious contributors.

Evolution does not speak to the creation of life at all. The umbrella term "evolution" is sometimes used misleadingly to mean the Big Bang theory, atheism, abiogenesis, etc. but those topics are not included in a strict scientific discussion of evolution, which assumes life to begin with.

You are arguing "irreducible complexity," which is faulty, as well as an argument from incredulity. Upon further thought, this "irreducible complexity" actually indicates a lack of design. For critical purposes, such as keeping an organism alive, you do not want systems that will fail if any one part fails. You want systems that are robust and flexible.

You are quoting Darwin out of context first of all. Also, it has been clearly demonstrated how the eye, and other "irreducibly complex" systems could have evolved. This helpful picture was posted earlier, but this short video may be more helpful.

Evolution is not a chance process. Nothing could be more wrong. Mutations are random, natural selection is not. This is because the environment acts as a sort of filter. Animals with advantageous traits survive, and those without do not. This is the exact opposite of chance.

Hope that helped! Cheers!

If you actually wade through all of WiseMan's posts you may well get bored. But if you kinda skim them and move on you'll get through the thread pretty quickly.

Hackle's post is probably a summary of what was covered in most of my replies to TheWiseMan anyway. I think he finally got it on the last post, maybe hes out borrowing The Origin of Species. I can only dream

I've read some of it, but honestly it was too long and involved for me.

Instead, I would recommend almost all of Dawkins' earlier books. See this list as well. Talk.Origins Archive and ScienceBlogs are also invaluable Internet resources.

Does anyone else here think TheWiseMan should have payed more attention in biology lessons? Even the majority of creationists believe in microevolution.

I don't know why it is so hard to grasp! I've understood the principles, and now a lot of the gnarly detail, since I was very young. TheWiseMan seems to be contesting some well established facts of genetics, which form the foundation of a lot of medicine today. Even this is aside from the creationist argument, which I don't approve of anyway.

He should also have payed a little more attention in english, and perhaps maths, so that he can organise his thoughts in a logical manner.

I find it funny that people, will come in spouting what they think are things science hasnt considered, and they will disprove the efforts of 200 years of evolutionary science. People, its been covered, even creation scientists dont bother with the arguments that have been put forward, they go with strange ideas like irreducible complexity, still they dont get much further then your average creationist.

Creationists, go off and understand evolution, then come back with any arguments you may have, also even if you dont beleive in evolution, think about how they could be solved using evolution. Ill be very surprised if you come back with any arguments

you shouldn't label all creationist as anti-evolution. While I know I have explained that for myself, and there are not near as many of us as there are young earthers, we do exist. They are blinded by religion. Most of them know what at least some of the facts are, but they chalk it up to some delusion or a spell God has science under, and that's just silly. I did not manipulate my theology to fit my confidence in science, but rather my confidence in science and more importantly my common sense of reason, caused me to search the scriptures in context and language and allowed me to see and old earth reconstructed recently. It's not a new view as young earthers claim, but it actually has been traced back to a rabbi before Christ came (guessing 300 years earlier? -I don't recall).

So instead of what nbound just said, I would encourage believers that claim to know evolution to go back to the scriptures and verify ruin-reconstruction for themselves and stop being a goofy christians.

So I've been thinking about it. And I've convinced myself that it is theoretically possible for external environments to alter DNA. It should be, unless the genetic sequence is completely isolated, which it isn't. Clearly it doesn't happen very often, and that makes sense what with all the redundancy inherent in DNA. But I still think it's possible. The parts of just about any system are very interdependent, and that's particularly true of highly complex systems. So I would be shocked to learn that there isn't a way to affect the genetic sequence through external pressure.

By external pressure do you mean things like growing longer arms over time due to the need to reach things, or do you mean factors in the environment that cause DNA to change? There are a lot of mutagens out there that do directly affect DNA, but I'm not sure about the first situation.