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| quote: | Originally posted by Orbax
By the way...im hearing a lot of gross generalization...
This has no proof attached to it. So far it is just opinion. Now, if you are stating evolution as your religion, your faith in it is admirable because I can tell you that I will never have that level of faith in anything. But if you are putting into scientific terms we need a little more in the way of facts and stuff. So if you are putting it in faith thats cool I guess, but dont lay faith in scienctific "facts" and then not show any of them  |
There is also no proof to the bible, and you also stated that you believe everything that the bible has to say. The essense of science is that it is written, and discussed so that people are able to disproove it. That is the reason why experiments are printed in scientific journals, why there are constant debates about scientific 'Theory', and why scientists will always say 'We have a long way to go'. To say that because macroevolution hasnt been proven yet because of the 'non-existense of transitional fossils' is forgetting that Darwins and Wallace (Alfred Russel Wallace, who was postulating Natural Selection around the same time as Darwin) was only proposed in 1858, less than 150 years ago. That is hardly enough time to prove everyting... It will likely take millenia.
Furthermore, regarding the absense of transitional fossils. The fossil record, the older you go, get more and more scarce. Because of geophysical changes in the earth, many fossils are completely destroyed. Also, many organisms may not have had a bone struture, and therefore, not left any fossils at all.
Also, there is a theory called Puntuated Equilibrium, which was postulated by Steven Jay Gould and N Eldredge (SJ Gould recently died, unfortunatly), which states that in evolution, there are often long period of stasis, and very short period of rapid evolution. Therefore, many speciation events occur over a short period. Transitional species may not exist over a long period of time, and therefore, there are less potential fossils for transitional species, which explains their absence.
To say that there are no transitional species is also false. There have been many fossils in Human evolution that are quite convincing when it comes to transition from Australopithecus Afarensis, Australopithecus Africanus to Homo Habilus, Homo Erectus and finaly Homo Sapiens Sapiens, and Homo Sapiens Neanderthalis (Sapiens and Neanderthals are considered by some to be subspecies of H. sapiens, I however beleive them to be completly separate species, as there is strong evidence to suggest a split in the lineage over 200K years ago).
| quote: | | This has no proof attached to it. So far it is just opinion. Now, if you are stating evolution as your religion, your faith in it is admirable because I can tell you that I will never have that level of faith in anything. But if you are putting into scientific terms we need a little more in the way of facts and stuff. So if you are putting it in faith thats cool I guess, but dont lay faith in scienctific "facts" and then not show any of them |
As for scientific facts, as I mentioned earlier, science is written to be disproven. If it cannot be disproven through scientific means, it adds credibility to the Theory, but absolute proof is rare in science, you have to have faith in science, which I do (as you mentioned).
Some facts I will give you:
Although I forget the species name, there is a Newt, or lizard Genus that lives in California, strecting between San Fran and as far south as SD. They occupy this area because they started out in one location, and constantly migrated further southward and northward. Although newts that are relatively close to eachother geographically can mate successfully, newts from the extreme north of the range cannot mate with newts in the extreme south, hence they have evolved into different species. This is because there was a geographical barrier between them. All the organisms were subject to natural selection, but they were in different environments, had diffenerent environmental stresses, and there was no mixing of the gene pool. Through random genetic mutations, the eventually became different enought that they could no longer mate, and hence became different species. This was on a relatively short time scale. Multiply this by 3.5 billion years, and many changes in environment, stresses, fitness, competition (and other variables), and you have the making of a stage that leads to many different species, genuses, classes, families, orders, etc...
Also, after the nuclear bomb was dropped in Nagasaki, it was found that mutution rates amongst several species increase by as much as 1%. Over time, these mutations to the genetic information will cause genotype and phenotypically differences in organisms. Once you have a change in phenotype, you have a change in how the organism can respond to the environment, and you have natural selection (some survive better than others based on their phenotype/genotype).
I will think of more examples, and 'facts' later.
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I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.
Albert Einstein
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lets keep it fresh
