[ARCHIVED THREAD] - Darwinism/evolution vs Creation (Page 1 of 2)
Posted: 1/19/2007 8:34:29 PM EDT
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I'm hoping to keep this thread civilized so it doesn't get locked for bickering and flaming.. I was cleaning out an old closet and came across a stack of vintage National Geographic magazines dating from the 60's and 70's. Included in one of them was an article about amber resin and the various creatures captured in the clear glue-like tree sap on its decent to the ground. My argument is that you always here somone saying 'in a million years we/they/it will have evolved to a higher species and have fantastic brain computing ability' -- Like a creepy-critter from a Star Trek episode or the Bar scene in the original Star Wars with all the animated freaks -- The ants and insects captured in these amber pieces have changed slightly, but not a drastic transformation like some may think 100 million years of evolution would have. There was another cool photo of a 500 pound, 10' foot long Sturgeon hanging from a block n tackle pulley in a tree... Why hasn't the Sturgeon that's been around for literally millions of years changed a peep? Shouldn't they be smart as a doctor by now through the course of its loooong evolution? </sarcasm> I know and understand how animals adapt to their surroundings and such, but millions of years of evolution should have transformed these ancient creatures into a higher-evolved animal. |
Why? You said your self that organisms change to adapt to their environment. What does higher-evolved animal mean to you exactly? It doesn't really mean anything to a biologist. Simply put, the environment of the sturgeon hasn't significantly changed. what worked millions of years ago still works. The long answer is, well, longer. Intelligence comes at a high price. Natures method of increasing intelligence is typically to increase the number of brain cells. Brains require a lot of energy to run, a lot of protein to build and a lot of time to develop. For the over whelming majority of organisms on the planet, the payoffs are not outweighed by the costs. Indeed, the majority of organisms don't even have brains at all (microbial life, plants, most insects also lack a 'brain'). Things like more sensitive smell, better flight, thicker fat, larger size all can be a more effective way to suit their niche in their environment. Humans are a pretty rare case. Our intelligence came from a convergence of a lot of other physical changes. The most important change was our increasing reliance on bipedal motion. Moving out onto plains made standing up useful for looking around and moving fast. It also left our hands free to do stuff. The hominids with good hands (more opposable thumbs) could do more useful stuff and reproduced more often. The smarter hominids could do even more with their hands, and reproduced even more. The more capable the hands, the smarter we got. The smarter we got, the more capable the hands got. A by product of this was, now that our hands were good at doing stuff other then walking, we had to learn to walk on two legs even better so we could carry things. The better we got at walking, using our hands and thinking things through the better we got at hunting. the more meat we had the bigger and faster our brains could grow and the more we could have sex. A lot of small adaptations created a situation that favored a large brain, and a large brain further drove those adaptations. Thats a vast over simplification of why humans got smart, and ants stayed pretty much the same. In reality human evolution was terribly complicated and resulted in a lot of hominids that looked human but never got really smart. The point I'm trying to make is that intelligence is rarely the answer for life. When it is, it's often because a number of physical changes in response to the environment made bigger brains possible and advantageous at the same time. Greater apes are a good example of when a bigger brain would be useful, but not as useful as other adaptation. Until they leave trees, chimp hands will have to remain specialized for grasping limbs and they won't be able to create complex tools, leaving them 'stuck'. Otters use stones to break open shells, but still need to swim so they'll probably never get much smarter. Elephants show a great deal of intelligence, even creativity. But the extent of it is probably limited by the dexterity of their trunk and their diet. They can't change their diet so they can't change their trunk. The example of hands is just one of many things that can drive intelligence, but its a pretty prominent one. Will fish ever get smart? Most people who study it don't think they could ever become smart in the sense we think of it. They lack things like hands, can't evolve a more efficient method of moving, and they'll never be able to make metal tools or use fire. Dolphins, and other sea creatures do show a great deal of intelligence. However, its a very specialized and difficult to quantify. Insects are stuck because they can't get much bigger. Gravity being what it is, air being what it is and insects being made out of what they are, there is an upper limit to how big an insect can be. So insects have adapted in ways that don't require high intelligence. Ants are dumb, but ant colony's can behave in very complex and intelligent ways. Spiders are dumb, but by repeating simple actions over and over create complex webs. This 'stupid' kind of intelligence combined with their physical toughness have made insects the dominate form of complex life, so why change? As an aside, insects and fish have evolved a great deal, just not all of them or in visible ways. Evolution just means growing refinement, not growing complexity. I know my post is kinda long, but I felt you wanted an answer and I wanted to give as complete a one as possible. I to hope it stays civil. -Local |
simple is good, and correct. evolution doesn't imply constant intellectual advancement beyond what is necessary to function or thrive in an environment. how could you improve on an ant anyway ? he is perfectly capable of eating a broken t-rex egg as well as spilled aunt Jemima pancake syrup, I'd say he has evolved nicely. 
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If there's no evolutionary pressure, one can expect there to be little evolutionary change. Nature seems to keep to an "if it ain't broke don't fix it" attitude. I don't know that I've read any research that claims to know for sure, but some of the hypotheses I've seen that try to explain our brain capacity include evolutionary pressure during our transition from tree dwelling animals into plains dwelling animals in harsh environments. Once we used tools in a significant way, the ability to create and modify tools became an important skill, and probably became an evolutionary pressure. (Chicks dig guys with skills.) Jim |
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Even though there is much evidence supporting evolution, there are also tons of gaps. I recommend a book called "The Case for a Creator", by Lee Strobel (spelling?). I'm an atheist and a partial believer in evolution, but that book (costs 5 bucks) goes into good detail in explaining the gaps of Darwin's theories. |
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To add to the thread, it would seem that certain animals need not evolve to survive. If their environment does not change, they need not change. If the environment changes to the point where an animal's survival is in question, evolution will kick in and make the needed adjustments. Now is it God doing the tweaking, or is it just nature taking it's course? Hmmmmmmmmm |
What kind of pressure was put on animals to evolve wings ? or even come out of the water? serious questions. |
Those are good questions, Walt. While I don't have a lot of 'emotional investment' in defending evolution, I still tend to think it's probably the best working model we have now. When thinking about why a creature would tend to change one generation to another, I think of it just about like why people change, either in their own lives, or their descendants over generations. Why evolve wings? Of course the parallel of inventing airplanes doesn't work here. But we have two similiar needs -- warmth and safe mobility. We always think of feathers as just for flight. But they serve the equally important task of insulation. Feathers are "the best" insulation there is -- that's why wear wear goose down parkas. Feathers may have developed first as insulation. Microscopically the the little beginning "buds" that feathers start out as are very, very similiar to reptile scales. Perhaps the early lizard/birds that had the thickest, warmest feathery scales were the ones who survived cold spells, while the in the same environment their cousins who only had scales died off. Each generation the ones with the thickest warmest feather/scales thrived and had large families. But long thick feathers on the legs can impede a four-legged gait, but that wasn't a problem as they spent most of their time climbing in trees, still keeping little clawed hands on their protowings. All those feathers also had an added benefit -- it would keep them aloft when they jumped from branch to branch. The ones who were the most skilled and soaring and fluttering (like a flying squirrel of sugar glider does) survived and had large families, while those that couldn't died off. Every generation, those who could flap and flutter from place to place the best thrived, and those who couldn't died. As to why early organisms would have first moved from water out onto land, let's think about reasons you or I would relocate ourselves and our families: Bad neighbors. Early creatures might find that they could scoot up onto the beach where predatory fish couldn't reach them, while their cousins who stayed in the water all got eaten. Better income. There may have been great competition for limited food sources in the water, while up on the beach there were all kinds of insects and plants to eat. Expanding Family. Just like people often move and buy a bigger house when the family expands, early creatures may have had "population explosions" which forced them to seek out and use new food sources or starve. These are just a few of the ideas and theories which could have worked, and I am sure that I haven't done as good a job explaining as others might. But those are excellent, thoughtful and challenging questions you presented and I hope I given some idea of evolutionist thought. |
Both cases can probably be explained by two things; seeking food and fleeing predators. I've seen some pretty interesting hypotheses on the develolpment of flight. Thankfully we have at least three or four models to look at: birds, bats, and two or three kinds of flight in insects. I don't know if we'll ever have a confirmable explanation for the development of flight, but I'm always interested to read about new fossil discoveries and new computer models that might give us more clues. |
While I do not subscribe to the position that it must be "vs." as using evolution as the machine of Divine creation is perfectly acceptable....if whales really are just cows that went into the ocean, well, I,...., the thing is, OK, WHY THE HELL WOULD COWS GO INTO THE OCEAN??? WHY THE BLAZES WOULD THEY STAY THERE??
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How very like you not to point out Rodents bringing his sig line replete with quips about pornography and inferences of masturbation into the religious forum. But then you have deluded yourself into actually believing killing an unborn baby girl is "a private medical procedure". Hence, what "offends" you does not need to follow any logical pattern or have any basis in reality.  |
Any evolutionist can tell you the same thing. We know much more now then Darwin did. Analyzing his theories now and assuming this is all we know is not a good way to learn or understand evolution. Take a look at evolution as we understand it now and you will be very impressed. Edit: We have something now that Darwin didnt have...........the ability to look at DNA making evolution VERY clear. |
The evolutionary path between whales and cows is pretty far apart. When somebody says that a whale is the cow of the ocean I dont believe they mean that a whale evloved into cow directly or vise versa. They probably mean that they live similar lives in a diffrent environment or something like that. |
Dude, on my planet, Earth, that sig line is what we call "humor". And it comes from a site staff member. It's okay to lighten up and enjoy life every once in a while. The bible says its cool. Rodent the Absolute Horror.  ETA in keeping with the intent of this thread, here's a quote from a learned and wise man: "Put political and religious and all other claims to a severe test. Observe them and their proponents carefully. If they do not mesh with facts, logic, reason and experience reject them." That's the philosophy I try to follow. Science doesn't have all the answers, but the known facts certainly indicate that evolution is a reality. Religions, on the other hand, DO have all the answers. They're just contrary to the above-mentioned facts, logic, reason and experience. It's not that I don't like the idea of a magic invisible superhero who will make me live forever if I believe certain things. I'd like eternal life as much as the next guy. I just can't seem to make myself believe it. |
Food, protection from predators, avoiding competition with other 'cows' (they looked more like dogs then cows), loss of previous habitat. There are many reasons that, not being an expert in cetaean evolution, I am not familiar with. Still, it isn't difficult to imagine situations that would encourage a 'cow' to spend more time in and around water. Marine mammals show clear signs of having been once land based. My understanding was that, for the aforementioned reasons these 'cows' started spending more and more time in and around water. The 'cows' that could better cope with the new environment reproduced more and more often. If God had just wanted whales to be the well adapted animals they are, why include vestigial legs and hips? Why give the same spine structure as land mammals? Why include ears structured just like a land mammals? Was all that to confuse us or the whales? Wikipedia actually has an excellent article about Cetacean Evolution. -Local |
What is appropriate, perhaps even funny, in a bar, does not mean it is appropriate in a church. What may be appropriate in other forums, say GD or The Pit, does not mean it is appropriate in the religious forum. It is not surprising this understanding escapes you. |
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Tan, your posts are consistantly very UNchristian. Maybe you should read Mathew 7:3 again. |
It may be the most patently imbecilic, absurd and inane, of things for those who are not themselves Christians, who have nothing ever positive to say of Christianity, and who demonstrate on evey occasion that temporal reality permits that they have not even the simplest understanding of Christian doctrine, make the accusation of others not being Christian.
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I rest my case. 
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You and Mike Nifong. |
That is an excellent question, and I've given it a lot of thought. In the great scheme of things, a species' success isn't measured by intelligence, but by sheer biological domination of its genetic material -- that is, numbers. The cockroach is an imminently successful species -- they thrive all over the world. So is the norway rat and the starling. These "successful" species dominate by sheer numbers. They are able to push out native species as they expand. Successful species are able to keep expanding their populations until they completely dominate a given environment, and then they start using up all of the available food supply. Overcrowding and disease starts to thin the herd a bit then. Others may resort to cannibalism. Thus a successful species is an abundant species. Does it take intelligence to do this? Not at all. What it takes is adaptability. Sometimes these adaptations show on the outside -- longer legs or bigger teeth, for example. But sometimes these changes don't show externally. Changes in the digestive system which allow them to eat more and different kinds of food are a prime example. Were the cockroaches of ages past attracted to the smell of glue? No, because modern glue wasn't around. But nowadays, cockroaches are attracted to the scent of the glue that is used to hold together brown paper bags. They eat it. Thus they have adapted both the ability to digest a new food source and an attraction to seek it out. The great-tailed grackle has expanded its range. They used to be native only to Mexico and Central America, but just over the past 4 to 7 decades, have expanded ever northward. They have adapted to the colder winters here. This may be from the sudden availablility of human by-product fast food trash, which they often eat. More food allows them to produce more body heat to survive the cold. And yet their bodies have adapted to the junk food diet, and they have adapted to producing more body heat from that source of calories. Thus we see that increasing intelligence is not necessary to a species' success. But on the subject of intelligence, I often ponder this: Ours is not the only form of intelligence there is. Their is some Scientific evidence from studies in the UK that dogs know when their owner is getting in the car to head home to see them. These were double-blind studies, and there is still no explaination how this happens. There are alos documented accounts of abandoned dogs locating their owner all the way accross the country to a place they've never been before. I would suggest these are a different form of intelligence, which is beyond our understanding. Birds often migrate thousands of miles, and yet are able to return to exactly the same spot every year. The same yellow-bellied sapsucker as come to eat grape jelly out of a dish in my window for three years in a row, after spending the summer somewhere in Canada or the Great Lakes region. How can a tiny bird the size of a man's hand navigate thousands of miles and return to one little bowl of grape jelly in one window of one house? Birds have a whole separate part of the brain, that we mammals don't have. What does it do? We have no idea. All in all, humankind is a very successful species -- there a humans all over the place. And it has been humankind's "toolmaking" kind of intelligence which has allowed this weak, non-flying, prone-to-chill, creature with lousy teeth and no claws, to thrive. But ours is not the only sort of intelligence. And we have a very, very short track record by which to judge biological "success". |
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I don't hold a lot of hope for the future of this thread anyway, but any further personal back-and-forth will lead to an immediate lock. FTR: Unless something violates the CoC, I am not going to make anyone change a sig-line just to post in the RF. HOWEVER, I was assured that the comment from which the quote in question is taken was a typo and didn't mean what it sounded like to some (  I now return you to your regularly-scheduled evolution/creation free-for-all... |
HS, you've got a thankless job, but you're doing it without losing your perspective. |
That sounds like recycled fantasy to me. I've never heard an expert on the subject say anything of the kind.
This is the old "if we evolved from apes, why are there still apes?" fallacy. The only apparent purpose to the processes of evolution is to ensure survival, not to achieve ever higher levels of perfection. All of Darwin's books are in the public domain. I suggest you start with this one so you will be better able to discuss this subject. |
A need to escape from terrestrial predators, perhaps.
Maybe sharks, or maybe the development of new food sources on land with less competition than there is in the water. It's a very good question. |
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Please Excuse This Momentary Correction
 Wow – For once I spent most of the day at work actually working, and come back to find out I am famous. Heck I thought the line about Rodent was more funny than atrocious. And I’m not even the original author. But HardShell, your personal wish is my command, and you will now see a blank space below, and I hereby publicly state that Rodent is not a "horror”. He is one of my favorite arfcom commentators. Now I’m still wondering how a straightforward quote from me about my opinion as a woman upon women’s health issues has been winding up all over the place within the actual text portion of someone’s posts plus a contrived hotlink to pictures of human body parts. But heck, I’m not offended. I was a social worker for many years. I’ve seen all sorts of human behavior. And it’s interesting. Just interesting. Now back to the Creation/Evolution Thread!  The MudSkipper, a fish that lives out of water half the time and both breathes air on land and with gills in the water. Some consider it a transitional form between fish and amphibians. I just think they’re cool. |
 Yep, I'm a sucker for the cute critters. They certainly are endearing little things. '"Take me home with you," he's saying. And apparently the mudskipper can be kept in a home aquarium:
badmanstropicalfish.com/profiles/profile35.html  But unfortunately they are not known to reproduce in captivity, since they dig burrows on the shore into which they lay their eggs. So I don’t reckon we’ll get to raise generation after generation of them and see if we can convince them to turn on into amphibians. But that would be Intelligent Design theory, not evolution any way. Now if we just never changed the water and let it get all naturally putrescent, and *then* the later generations of mudskippers became more and more terrestrial with bigger lungs and smaller dorsal fins… then we might just have something. So why is the mudskipper left frozen in time, seemingly half-fish, half-amphibian for millions of years (or at least a very long time)? Apparently they are quite successful within their niche in the mangrove forest, and conditions have not forced them to either become altogether gill-breathers *or* all-together lung-using air-breathers. |
but it was cause I didn't study like I should've!
And it just gets stranger all the time with the discovery of a four-'winged' fossil creature. Article: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/01/0121_030122_dromaeosaur.html  The fossil itself – yes, that does look like the imprint of feathers.  And a drawing taken directly from the fossil. The fossil is clear and complete enough that very little if any had to be filled in by conjecture.  Artist’s conception based upon the fossil and diagram. These three pictures I have posted serve as a good example of how paleontologists extrapolate what they tend to think the creature most likely looked like, from fossil to imaginative drawing. And this new discovery – the microraptor gui – shows how Scientificthought and worldview are always morphing , but always holding onto empirical evidence as root. A couple of decades ago had someone asked me if there had ever been four-winged dinosaur-bird creatures, I would have said “I doubt it. The archaeopteryx plainly has two wings and two legs. There’s no reason at all to add on two more wings. ” And now here is Mr Microraptor Gui in all his glory, plumed legs and all. So of course I have to revise my thinking to accept this evidence. In fact it lines right up with the insulation first, gliding second feather theory. Does this discovery discount or detract from the validity of the archaeopteryx? Not at all – it shows ‘variation upon a theme’ in the same line of progression. So why are there no archaeopteryx or microraptors gui around today? Of course we cannot say for certain, but perhaps the specialized lizards did better than they did on the ground, and dedicated wings-for-flight birds went on to achieve air dominance, while the half-this, half-that feathered creatures were kind of clumsy at both. The modern hoatzin bird (an unlovely creature) is still equipped with little clawed hands upon its wings, which the young use to hold tight onto trees until they are old enough to fly. The creatures of the world provide us many such examples of vestigial traits that give strong indication of their ancestry. Whales have vestigial fingerbones in their flippers. The male boa constrictor has miniscule "legs". And behold the coccyx (indicated in pink):  ----------------^ You gotta tailbone. I gotta tailbone. All G-d's chillrens got tailbones  Why? We don't use them for balance, or to swat away flies. It is not a working structural component of the sitting down parts. And every so often, babies are born with a small but distinct actual separate "tail" less than a foot long.I tend to look at things like claw-hands on birds and tailbones on people as most likely kind of a legacy from ancestors. Like I'm typing here on a month-old newest design keyboard. I'm wearing my late mother's jewelry. And there's a century+ old picture of my great uncle framed on my desk. All of these things would show up if an archeologist dug me up like this a thousand -- or a million -- years from now. They are all "part of me" that would show up in the "fossil" -- some things more immediate, new and useful (keyboard) and others I just keep around for no practical reason (old picture) but because they're my heritage and I'm a conservative person who hangs onto things like that. Nature too is conservative "by nature" and isn't going to dissolve or destroy something as long as it either serves some purpose OR it just doesn't get in the way. |
Your sig line wasn't the issue, mine was. (It said "porn".) You can put yours back and immortalize me again! 
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I haven't read the books from your link The point of this thread was my observation of how we allegedly crawled from the water or came down from the trees and evolved into a higher-evolved species. I'm not buying that. There is no 'missing link' or proof that we (homo sapiens) evolved from neanderthal or cro-magnon. And thanks, Hardshell, for not locking this thread - some of us can have an intelligent discussion about a controversial subject without attacking or flaming one another. Again, please keep it civil so this doesn't get locked |
Amazing, isn't it? If I did believe in a God I could not come to any other conclusion than to think evolution is a miracle of divinity instead of just a 'secularist anti-religious lie' or whatever! |
Choosing not to learn about the basics of the subject is your prerogative, but I must as a brother in arms tell you that your talking points sound like they came right off of a Creationist pamphlet circa 1995.
Not to put too fine a point on this, but Cro-Magnon is considered to have been fully modern human, indistinguishable from people living today. Neanderthals are considered to have been a separate species that went extinct, with no living descendents. However, even that is being actively debated. Could this be the apocryphal "missing link" you insist has never been found? Neanderthal and humans mixed  Of course you can always question the validity of the observations, the accuracy of the date measurements, even the integrity of the researchers. They could be mistaken, victims of a Piltdown type hoax, or just plain liars. (If you check their credentials I believe you won't be able to make much of a case for the latter.) A lot of what gets published in scientific journals and the press is highly speculative. There is no direct way to tell if humans and Neanderthals interbred, but there is evidence for it (not just this skull BTW, lots of evidence). That's the real beauty of how science works - Theories are not static, they are always subject to refinement, revision, even rejection if you can come up with sufficient credible evidence. The only requirement for challenging a theory is that you come up with a better one, and evidence to support it. Saying "I don't believe it" is perfectly valid, but it's not a scientific challenge. Many ARFcommers who post on this forum have chosen to let their religion serve as the core of all aspects of their world view. The most insightful ones admit that, and don't pretend to be mounting a serious scientific challenge to evolution. However, it bums me out that so many people have been taken in by huxters peddling pseudoscientific "alternatives".
+100 |
The ocean is probably the most hostile environment on earth. The most (and most vicious) predators, the most powerful toxins, etc. The majority of volume in the ocean is too deep, dark, and cold to sustain the vast majority of sea life - the average depth of the entire world ocean is 12,175 feet, and very little light reaches deeper than around 600 feet, with almost none reaching below 3000 feet. |
Not flaming, not a personal attack, but you do not understand the basics of evolutionary theory. We did not evolve from apes - or neanderthals. We had a common ancestor with them. By the way, cro magnons are considered the first European examples of homo sapiens sapiens - modern humans. ETA: C_K beat me on the cro magnon thing. |
I dunno what you mean 'starting point'? I did briefly look at some of the links (and thanks for whomever took the time to post them) -- My issue is one of time. I don't have enough time to look through all the information in those links. I'll eventually get around to reading it all though cause i'm an information nut. @ C_K - you raise many interesting questions about C-M and Neanderthal. And that link that was posted of the 40,000 year old Romanian skull - did modern and C-M interact? I'm sure they did at some point, but i do not believe there is some missing evidence of a species that somehow links us to a lower order of sapiens. We are what we are.. A good example of how we've adapted to our environs are Alaskan Inuit inhabiting the arctic. They have physical attributes that are molded by their enviroment and surroundings. These characteristics are very subtle though. There are more examples of this but i don't want to start a race war here  A lot of good information in this thread |
I have. And I am not. I have read numerous books from evolutionists, had it explained by numerous atheistic people with biology backgrounds. But it still comes down to this: Life came from non-life at one point. Either God or Nature. Some say God did it, and the rest took over. Some say evolution is a complete farce, some say electrical charges hit amino acids and proteins and that created life. All theories, and NONE can be replicated in a lab. So, at the very earliest pinnacle of Creation/Evolution, life from non-life, even SCIENTISTS are guessing. From that point on, the debate continues. |
Scientists are also guessing as to how electricity, nuclear power, and gravity work. Seriously. They are all hypotheses. |
This is actually very well understood. |
Obviously you have not. Reading books means you know what the author told you. Study it at a university like many posters on this board have. Your following statements also prove to me that you dont UNDERSTAND evolution at all. |
That's your opinion, and that's fine. Above statements by me in red include numerous professors. Since no one to date has been able to explain it yet, maybe you are the genius that we've all been waiting for. How EXACTLY, did life spring from non-life? |
You mean the power plant itself, with its steam turbine? You are right. I was more referring to nuclear theory. Should have been more clear. |
Yes. But.... and this is a big one... they are all TESTABLE. Spontaneous generation remains a mystery that we try to test, but have been unsuccessful so far. |