Difference between revisions of "Debate:Is the theory of macroevolution true?"

From Conservapedia
Jump to: navigation, search
(→‎The Scientific Method)
(→‎The Scientific Method)
Line 297: Line 297:
  
 
:::Galileo did not "see" the Earth moving around the Sun; he only saw evidence that it did. Then he hypothesized that the Earth circled the Sun, and not vice versa. Does the fact that Galileo did not personally observe the rotation of the earth mean that his hypothesis is invalid? [[User:FPiaco|FPiaco]] 15:46, 12 March 2007 (EDT)
 
:::Galileo did not "see" the Earth moving around the Sun; he only saw evidence that it did. Then he hypothesized that the Earth circled the Sun, and not vice versa. Does the fact that Galileo did not personally observe the rotation of the earth mean that his hypothesis is invalid? [[User:FPiaco|FPiaco]] 15:46, 12 March 2007 (EDT)
 +
 +
::::Galileo observed the motion of the planets, and hypothesised that all the planets revolved around the sun.  This fact was proven later by direct observation.  And we can all draw conclusions about the window by demonstrating via an experiment the same thing.  But you're still assuming animal-A evolved into animal-B without any evidence whatsoever to back that claim up.  Again, you're relying on the scientist's word that this happened.  If animal-A evolved into animal-B, I want to see proof of such demonstrated; I don't want to rely on someone else's word because they said so.  [[User:Karajou|Karajou]] 20:11, 12 March 2007 (EDT)

Revision as of 00:11, March 13, 2007

Post Your Thoughts


Yes

Arguments for * All life on Earth shares common ancestor

  • All life on Earth shares common ancestor
  1. 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.--Aschlafly 23:54, 21 December 2006 (EST)
      What DNA evidence disproves transitions between species?
    1. Same macromolecules (DNA, RNA, protein)
    2. Same monomers for those macromolecules (five nucleotides, twenty standard amino acids)
    3. Same chirality of molecules. DNA in all complex life forms is right-handed, research suggests[1] that left-handed DNA would work just as well.
      1. If life forms did not have common ancestors we would expect to see a fairly even distribution of left and right handed DNA.
    4. Genetic system:
      • Ribosome structure
      • tRNA structure
      • The universal genetic code (and slight deviations from it)
      • Information encoded in nucleotide polymers (DNA or RNA).
  2. 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.--Aschlafly 23:54, 21 December 2006 (EST)
          • Counter: Mutations are mostly harmful, but not always.
          • Additional Counter: Seedless watermelons are an example of a mutation, so is corn (it used to be tiny). There is no way to claim, let alone prove that all mutations are harmful.--ChrisF
          • Counter: Being seedless is harmful to the watermelon. The fact that it may be helpful to people in no way proves that being seedless is helpful for the reproduction of the watermelon. --Me4real 13:31, 12 March 2007 (EDT)


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.

      1. The speed of evolution is measured by the darwin (change in an organism's character by a factor of e per million years.) [2]
      2. Evolution in the lab can be as high as 200,000 darwins.
      3. As measured by the fossil record, the average evolutionary rate in the wild is 370 darwins.
      4. 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. 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). 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.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.--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. 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. 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"
--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) 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.--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? 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? 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? 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.--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.--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. 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. 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. 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? 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 [that] 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. 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. 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?

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). JoshuaZ 16:01, 13 February 2007 (EST)

No

If you have questions about Evolution/Creationism see the articles on this website [3]

No

As a scientist, I can categorically state that the Theory of Macroevolution is not true. This is because there is no such theory. The Creationist division of evolutionary processes into micro and macro is false and disingenuous. What Creationists refer to as microevolution is merely the short-term expression of the exact process that results in speciation (which is the correct name for what Creationists term macroevolution).

The fact that evolution has occured, has been happening for several billion years, and is still going on as you read this is irrefutable, except by fraud, forgery and lies. The honest scientific literature is full of examples. The driving forces behind evolution have also been clearly identified (external environment, internal environment, competition for resources, sexual preferences etc). The majority of the mechanisms involved have been identified. All that remains under debate are the precise details. Not whether evolution happened, not how long it takes to happen, and not why it happens - just the exact details of how it happened.

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? 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. Plunge 07:08, 1 March 2007 (EST)

No

1. No credible transitional forms (fossils reflecting evolution between species) have ever been found.
Counter: Some transitional forms
Counter:
All of these examples given in the above about the evolution of the whale are nonsense:
  • Pakicetus -- What makes this a "link"? It was nothing but a land mammal gone extinct.
  • 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?
  • Dorudon -- I guess Wikipedia supposes this is a missing link because it uses sonar??? Same as example above.
  • Basilosaurus -- Another extinct species called a link because it "resembles" a whale.
  • Mammalodon colliveri -- The article just makes an unsupported statement. I would consider this article for deletion (no notability).
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. JoshuaZ 15:49, 13 February 2007 (EST)
Additional Counter Why the are no transitional fossils.
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. 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. 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. --BenjaminS 23:40, 13 January 2007 (EST)

Benjamin please use statistics meaningfully. For your 25% to have significance you would need to compare it to the premature death rate of people without this mutation. You would also have to carefully define premature and look at the populations that have the mutation (if they are a population succeptible to malaria then they probably have poor living conditions). Also can you site a source for the 25%? -- Chris F

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.--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. --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."

--BenjaminS 18:21, 17 January 2007 (EST)

  • This is not exactly a counter to 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? 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. 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. --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.--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.--Aschlafly 23:01, 14 January 2007 (EST)

Further reply: The organism did not devolve. Please explain this reply further. --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.--BenjaminS 18:21, 17 January 2007 (EST)
Comment: Evolution does not imply that the species or population gets "better" or improves. Evolution only means that change occurs. Furthermore, if a mutation occurs in a non-coding region, and the cell thereby gets the ability to do something new, would that not be a mutation that causes the "gain" of genetic information? --ColinR 00:16, 12 March 2007 (EDT)


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. 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.--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. 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.--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.--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. 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.--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."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.
"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.)
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. 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![4] 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! 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. 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. 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
Is a comment from a book written at a time when racism was commonplace at all relevant? If this site wants to become at all credible, quotes taken both out of context and out of the social situation in which they are written should be removed. ChrisF


  • 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.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. 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? 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. 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. 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.Plunge 07:08, 1 March 2007 (EST)

The Scientific Method

As I am being taught in biology at Middle Tennessee State University, the Scientific Method is that which is applied by scientists in the following order:

  • Observation. The scientist observes the phenomena.
  • Hypothesis. The scientist makes an educated guess as to the reason(s) for the phenomena.
  • Experimentation. The scientist does a series of experiments to test whether the hypothesis is correct.
  • Conclusion. The scientist's results from the experiment. If the hypothesis is proven to be wrong as a result, it is rejected. If proven right, the hypothesis is upgraded to a theory.

Now, with regard to evolution, there is a massive failure of the scientific method as used to support evolution. The scientist cannot use observation when he assumes animal A evolved into animal B; the scientist needs to see that happen, otherwise everything else collapses.

I think the Scientific Method can be successfully exploited in the evolution article. Karajou 04:23, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

Counter - Direct observation is not required for something to be scientifically valid. --ColinR 00:27, 12 March 2007 (EDT)
So, what you just said was that a scientist need not observe the fish turning into the frog, that we are to take his word for it that it happened. Is that your statement? Karajou 13:17, 12 March 2007 (EDT)
No, we don't need to observe a phenomenon directly to draw conclusions about it. If you come home to find your window broken, with shards of glass all over your living room carpet, and a brick sitting right in the middle of it all, you can infer what happened by observing the aftermath. Tsumetai 13:25, 12 March 2007 (EDT)
Galileo did not "see" the Earth moving around the Sun; he only saw evidence that it did. Then he hypothesized that the Earth circled the Sun, and not vice versa. Does the fact that Galileo did not personally observe the rotation of the earth mean that his hypothesis is invalid? FPiaco 15:46, 12 March 2007 (EDT)
Galileo observed the motion of the planets, and hypothesised that all the planets revolved around the sun. This fact was proven later by direct observation. And we can all draw conclusions about the window by demonstrating via an experiment the same thing. But you're still assuming animal-A evolved into animal-B without any evidence whatsoever to back that claim up. Again, you're relying on the scientist's word that this happened. If animal-A evolved into animal-B, I want to see proof of such demonstrated; I don't want to rely on someone else's word because they said so. Karajou 20:11, 12 March 2007 (EDT)
Retrieved from "https://conservapedia.com/index.php?title=Debate:Is_the_theory_of_macroevolution_true%3F&oldid=29934"