Challenging Evolution from a Christian

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Challenging Evolution from a Christian

Sent to our myspace account, this Christian takes on evilution...

Quote:

----------------- Original Message -----------------
From: That one guy.
Date: Oct 27 2006 10:54 PM

may I have an example of evolution where a species changes into something completely different by means of natural selection, not just an adaptation where longer beaks thrive better than shorter beaks. And please no prehistoric theory.

Your turn Mike.

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Yellow_Number_Five
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RationalResponseSquad

RationalResponseSquad wrote:
Sent to our myspace account, this Christian takes on evilution...

Quote:

----------------- Original Message -----------------
From: That one guy.
Date: Oct 27 2006 10:54 PM

may I have an example of evolution where a species changes into something completely different by means of natural selection, not just an adaptation where longer beaks thrive better than shorter beaks. And please no prehistoric theory.

Your turn Mike.

You're asking for evidence no biologist contends exists. One species does NOT become another overnight or in the span of a single generation. This is the Kent Hovind straw-man school of evolution, and it is not how educated people understand the process.

That said, we do have concrete evidence for speciation.

To respond fully, I'll need to delve into the definition of species and the evidence, but seeing as I'm only awake right now, because I woke up to throw up and am ridiculously sick, that'll have to wait a day or two. You can expect a more detailed response by this weekend, please be patient.

In reason,

Mike (Yellow_Number_Five)

I am against religion because it teaches us to be satisfied with not understanding the world. - Richard Dawkins

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Sybarite
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This wasn't challenging at

This wasn't challenging at all. Like he said, no biologist believes, or should believe, that macro-mutations are a major part of evolutionary theory.


Yellow_Number_Five
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OK, so like I've already

OK, so like I've already alluded to, evolutin does not happen in this way. A dog does not give birth to a pea plant or a pine cone, ala Kent Hovind's understanding of the process.

Evolution is a slow process, and the lines between species are often blurry - as we should EXPECT them to be were evolution true. Ernst Mayr essentially defined the taxonomic term. A species is not simply a group of similar organism, but a group of organism that breed ONLY naturally amoung themselves excluding others. So, for example, while it is possible to artificially inseminate a tiger with lion sperm, a lion and tiger WILL NOT mate in the wild. Hence they are seperate as a species. Similar examples can be found in my post on Himalayan song birds and other animals in this forum.

These are examples of evolution and speciation happening before our very eyes. Now I know the common creationist argument is that this is simply "microevolution" between a vague and never scientifically defined "kinds". The problem here is lack of imagination. It's like asking why one could not walk 1,000 miles a step at a time. If you want change on the level you are asking for, we MUST look at the fossil record, and that record speaks for itself with fossils of hominids, links between land and sea dwelling organisms, and links between birds and reptiles for example.

I know the objetions get even more ridiculous at this point, and I won't address them here.

Let's suffice it to say that Darwin was correct. All Darwin proposed was the following: 1) Life on earth is ancient - a demonstrable fact, 2) life on earth is related - a demonstrable fact, 3) life on earth changes via a process we call natural selection - again a demonstrable fact.

I'm happy to expound if need be.

I am against religion because it teaches us to be satisfied with not understanding the world. - Richard Dawkins

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LeftofLarry
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I want to add that

I want to add that evolution functions in a matter which requires 3 major ingredients: Time, Random Mutations in DNA and Selective pressures (these could be anything from predation, geologic shifts, change in weather pattern etc..). The thing to keep in mind here is time.  Most straw-men arguments about evolution don't take into account geologic time.  We know mutations happen, and we've observed selective pressures.  The only thing to back up the time aspect is the fossil record. My other favorite straw-man is how you don't have missing links...well you do....and more and more are being discovered.  To say the evidence lacks in the fossil record is either a plain lie or a misunderstanding of science.  Speciation is occuring all the time, we see it in salamander populations especially. There is a group of salamanders in the genus Desmognathus.  You cannot tell these damn things apart. The only way to tell what species they are is that they live in different mountain tops in the Blue Ridge mts. of Va.  They have speciated, they are separate species that due to geologic changes have split apart.  Now if each of those mountain tops change in different manners, each of those species will become more and more distinct from the other, different selective pressures on their random mutations will result in different traits that lead to more and more speciation.  People don't even understand the diversity of the earth..from deserts to mountains to oceans there are so many ecological niches, each that applies it's own distinct set of selective pressures on species of life....complexity of life is exactly why a god couldn't have created it.   There is too much complexity for a god to have made any sense out of all of it. 

 I mean what would be the purpose in a god's plan to have created a plant (genus Gunnera) the only angiosperm to create nodules in its roots suitable for harvesting the energy from nitrogen fixing bacteria (Nostoc) in nitrogen defecient environments.

 I can argue that many gymnosperms have evolved this capability, and I can probably without delving into the research, say that these two different types of plants (Angiosperms and Gymnosperms) share the same evolutionary characteristics due to selective pressures that have allowed them to harvest cyanobacteria of the genus Nostoc to survive in nitrogen defecient environments.   But where is this written in the bible? Where does the bible discuss nitrogen fixing plants.  ??????  The thing is it doesn't.  And there is no biblical explanation for any of it.   

So instead of being impatient and wait for science to figure it out...why don't you start questioning the fallacies associated with creation?  The problem is, that if you knew about the way the natural world works, you would not even question the logic behind evolution..you would admire it.  

The default position that life is to hard to comprehend, therefore there is a god who created it, is ignorant and lazy. It is those who want to make you believe in absourdities so they can control you politically that are feeding you this crap.  The INtelligent design movemet has failed to stand up to scientific scrutiny. Because science is neutral. The ID people have an agenda...that is to change the social structure of this  country.... Instead of questioning science, question creationism....because it makes much less sense than evolutionl via natural selection.

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