Evolutionary Science-v- Creationism

[lumberjim]

OC, i don;t care if you're pagan, christian, mormon, satanic, or anything. It just strikes me as odd that you will argue both sides of an issue depending on who you're arguing with. Maybe you are undecided in your own mind. that's fine too. I meant the split personality thing as a joke, so please don;t think that I seriously think you're skitzo. I'd say you're more of a sociopath.

[Yelof]

The evolutionary process is observable, and has been many times in populations of fruitflies microbes etc

An example experiment

Whether evolutionary process accounts for the diversity of living species on the planet it a theory, and perhaps an unprovable theory as it postulates what has already happened.

The original origin of life is a seperate matter. There are theories that would postulate for the spontanous occurance of self replicating organisms/chemicals but this is a seperate matter from the theory of species diversity through evolutionary process and each must be review seperatly on it's own merits

[jaguar]

As Yelof has said, evolution is observable. There is also a large body of evidence supporting evolution in terms of species development here on earth. There is no solid evidence that contradicts it. There is sweet fuck all supporting creationism, just attempts to find weak spots in the fossil record. If someone finds evidence that something else caused animals to adapt and can back it up with solid science I'm confident the scientific community and most people here will lsiten with open ears, creationism does neither of these and is used as a vehicle by people that know their true beliefs are rooted in religion but don't want to admit it.

[DanaC]

I think my basic problem with that Onyx, is that I dont consider the two theories to be of equal validity. Regardless of what the topic at hand is, there is nothing inherently equal about theories. Some theories are based on evidence, imperical data and peer review ...some theories are based on the flights of fancy of an individual ( Runway of the Gods etc) ...The fact that both are theories does not mean we should automatically award validity to both in equal measure.

[beavis]

Originally posted by lumberjim


appparently your split personalities have different religions. Do they argue a lot?

or do you think that godS created everything?



I don't know much about a scientific argument FOR creationism. Its kind of an oxymoron isn;t it? I mean, God has magical powers right? so science wouldn;t have much to do with it. Poof! "here's a bunny rabbit!.....isn;t it cute?" no fossil record, no scientific evidence.

Here's a poser for you....the giant squid has an eyeball that is superior to ours in design. If we were created in God's likeness, why did he give us an eyeball with a blindspot in it? Does God have a blindspot in HIS eyeball? perhaps the squid has need of more acute vision than we do, so it friggin evolved that way.

COuld not the two theories coexist? maybe god created whatever went BANG at the beginning of time, but to think that he plunked Adam and freaking Eve down on this one planet amongst all of the infinite planets in the universe is just plain nuts.

once again i arrive late to the good discussions...

i'm kinda with LJ here, i don't see why these two ideas have to be so mutually exclusive. evolution is a stone cold scientific fact, species change over time. as with any theory there are some gaps but i think darwin was onto something when he came to the conclusion that a species will naturally evolve over time to continually optimize its relationship with its environment. that's not to say all life on earth necessarily came from one common ancestor, but at the least establishes this as a possibility worth exploring. eventhough what exactly we as humans originally came from is up to some debate, it's easy to dismiss the idea that we are all here because two people abruptly came into existence. a biological approach would insist that abrupt scenario to be unlikely but not necessarily impossible. on the other hand science has no ground to deny the spiritual truths that are represented by a religious creation narrative. to each it's proper place.

it seems to me that if evolution and creationism are kept in their proper context they are able to better represent their respective truths. if i remember correctly kant himself warned against tainting scientific ideas with metaphysical (and by suggestion spiritual) ideas that are simply logically incompatible.

i for one don't have a problem with creation narratives as long as they are kept in their proper religious/spiritual framework. if the teachings of a specific belief set are recognized as having the purpose of communicating spiritual truths as opposed to being an alternate "creation theory" to a legitimate scientific study of evolution everybody wins. i have a pronounced aversion to "scientific creationists" who approach science with a biblical prejudice. if you set out to "prove" something with enough bias your theories, observations, analysis, conclusions etc. all have the very likely possibility of being tainted with the initial mindset. of course no science is purely objective but in my opinion using science to "prove" religious beliefs ultimately leads to a mockery of both.

Here is a specific, observable example of evolution in action. During the time of the industrial revolution in England when the number of coal burning factories suddenly increased and soot was being spit out everywhere, a strange thing happened to the Pepper Moth (Biston betularia for all you nomenclature buffs out there). The moth which had always been white, suddenly began to turn black. After observing this phenomenon the hypothesis was made that this was a response on the part of the moths to predation by birds. The white moths stood out clearly against the soot covered tree limbs and trunks, making them an easy target for hungry birds.

A scientist named Kettlewell decided to test this hypothesis. He released an equal number of white and black moths into both polluted and non-polluted areas. After 24 hours he recaptured the moths by attracting them to bright lights. In polluted areas, a significant percentage of dark moths over white ones returned. The opposite was true in non-polluted areas.

This is a simple experiment and anyone who repeats it using the same techniques will get the same results.

Now you can either decide that this is an example of natural selection in action, or you can decide that God looked down from heaven and decided to fling vast handfuls of black moths down in Manchester, England. If He did so, no one observed him doing this. It is an irreproducible theory and belongs in that honored scientific publication, The Journal of Irreproducible Results. You can observe the same thing Kettlewell did, however.

(I swear to Buddha, I don't understand what has happened to the creationists' grasp of logic and simple common sense.)

[beavis]

Originally posted by marichiko

(I swear to Buddha, I don't understand what has happened to the creationists' grasp of logic and simple common sense.)

i share your frustrations...

[Griff]

Actually, that was a fraudulent experiment. I'm still on board with evolution though.

may have spoke too soon looking for citation

Originally posted by Griff
Actually, that was a fraudulent experiment. I'm still on board with evolution though.

Not really, Kettlewell also observed predation in action. The postulate has been made that birds have different vision, using infra-red, but no one has proved that they use this exclusively.

[beavis]

me too. it's a simple, provable theory. i don't understand why the fundies take such offense to it.

[beavis]

Originally posted by Griff
may have spoke too soon looking for citation

shit happens...

[Griff]

I'm still digging but what I remember was that the moths didn't actually alight on the limbs and branches of trees where this change would help them avoid birds.

[glatt]

That moth story reminds me of strain improvement programs that occur all the time, all around the world.

You take a bunch of bacteria that manufactures something you want, like an antibiotic.

You start irradiating some, and spraying chemicals on others, until you end up with a strain that produces even more of the antibotic you like. Then you breed those bacteria. And do the same with them.

Pretty soon, after several generations, you have a mutant of the original bacteria that has been artificially selected to produce huge quantities of your antibiotic.

Sure, this process is artificial, but the bacteria don't know that. They are reacting in exactly the same way that they would if they were naturally selected. It's evolution in a petri dish, and it's real. Just ask the multibillion dollar corporations that do it every day.

[Griff]

Sure. Folks do it with livestock all the time. If you look at how gigantic these simental cattle are now compared to the little herefords they used to run, the difference is amazing and documented in breeders books.

[OnyxCougar]

Peppered Moths was a hoax. Here's a reference from AiG with references.

Goodbye, peppered moths
A classic evolutionary story comes unstuck
by Carl Wieland

The ‘textbook story’ of England’s famous peppered moths (Biston betularia) goes like this. The moth comes in light and dark (melanic) forms. Pollution from the Industrial Revolution darkened the tree trunks, mostly by killing the light-coloured covering lichen (plus soot).

The lighter forms, which had been well camouflaged against the light background, now ‘stood out,’ and so birds more readily ate them. Therefore, the proportion of dark moths increased dramatically. Later, as pollution was cleaned up, the light moth became predominant again.

The shift in moth numbers was carefully documented through catching them in traps. Release-recapture experiments confirmed that in polluted forests, more of the dark form survived for recapture, and vice versa. In addition, birds were filmed preferentially eating the less camouflaged moths off tree trunks.

The story has generated boundless evolutionary enthusiasm. H.B. Kettlewell, who performed most of the classic experiments, said that if Darwin had seen this, ‘He would have witnessed the consummation and confirmation of his life’s work.’1

Actually, even as it stands, the textbook story demonstrates nothing more than gene frequencies shifting back and forth, by natural selection, within one created kind. It offers nothing which, even given millions of years, could add the sort of complex design information needed for ameba-to-man evolution.

Even L. Harrison Matthews, a biologist so distinguished he was asked to write the foreword for the 1971 edition of Darwin’s Origin of Species, said therein that the peppered moth example showed natural selection, but not ‘evolution in action.’

However, it turns out that this classic story is full of holes anyway. Peppered moths don’t even rest on tree trunks during the day.

Kettlewell and others attracted the moths into traps in the forest either with light, or by releasing female pheromones—in each case, they only flew in at night. So where do they spend the day? British scientist Cyril Clarke, who investigated the peppered moth extensively, wrote:

‘But the problem is that we do not know the resting sites of the moth during the day time. … In 25 years we have found only two betularia on the tree trunks or walls adjacent to our traps (one on an appropriate background and one not), and none elsewhere.’2

The moths filmed being eaten by the birds were laboratory-bred ones placed onto tree trunks by Kettlewell; they were so languid that he once had to warm them up on his car bonnet (hood).3

And all those still photos of moths on tree trunks? One paper described how it was done—dead moths were glued to the tree.4 University of Massachusetts biologist Theodore Sargent helped glue moths onto trees for a NOVA documentary. He says textbooks and films have featured ‘a lot of fraudulent photographs.’5,6

Other studies have shown a very poor correlation between the lichen covering and the respective moth populations. And when one group of researchers glued dead moths onto trunks in an unpolluted forest, the birds took more of the dark (less camouflaged) ones, as expected. But their traps captured four times as many dark moths as light ones—the opposite of textbook predictions!7

University of Chicago evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne agrees that the peppered moth story, which was ‘the prize horse in our stable,’ has to be thrown out.

He says the realization gave him the same feeling as when he found out that Santa Claus was not real.5

Regrettably, hundreds of millions of students have once more been indoctrinated with a ‘proof’ of evolution which is riddled with error, fraud and half-truths.8

References
H. Kettlewell (1959), ‘Darwin’s missing evidence’ in Evolution and the fossil record, readings from Scientific American, W.H. Freeman and Co., San Francisco, p. 23, 1978. Return to text.
C.A. Clarke, G.S. Mani and G. Wynne, Evolution in reverse: clean air and the peppered moth, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 26:189–199, 1985; quote on p. 197. Return to text.
Calgary Herald, p. D3, 21 March 1999. Return to text.
D.R. Lees & E.R. Creed, Industrial melanism in Biston betularia: the role of selective predation, Journal of Animal Ecology 44:67–83, 1975. Return to text.
J.A. Coyne, Nature 396(6706):35–36. Return to text.
The Washington Times, p. D8, 17 January 1999. Return to text.
D.R. Lees & E.R. Creed, ref. 4. Return to text.
Unfettered by evolutionary ‘just so’ stories, researchers can now look for the real causes of these population shifts. Might the dark form actually have a function, like absorbing more warmth? Could it reflect conditions in the caterpillar stage? In a different nocturnal moth species, Sargent has found that the plants eaten by the larvae may induce or repress the expression of such ‘melanism’ in adult moths (see Sargent T.R. et al. in M.K. Hecht et al, Evolutionary Biology 30:299–322, Plenum Press, New York, 1998).