.
Want to know why people accept evolution ?
by snare&racket 84 Replies latest jw friends
-
-
Heaven
Make Lemonade said: Although I would not introduce Lewis Black to some of the faithful I know. LOL. He is just brutal. I did like the part about reaching in his pocket and pulling out a fossil. Very funny and thought provoking.
Lewis Black is not for everyone. He uses profanity and anger which will bother some. If people find him offensive that's their issue to deal with. I find him hilarious.
From the Creationism video I posted, there's a clip of Ken Ham talking about how the Grand Canyon is a memorial to human sin and evidence of the global flood. Wow! He's just pulling shiite out of his butt. Contrast Ken to this short video with Paleantologist/Geologist Donald Prothero:
-
TD
Forty years ago, I was a dyed-in-the-wool creationist.
The very first chink in the armor for me was the phenomenon of hybrids
If two animals (Like a lion and tiger for example) can produce offspring, then it is obvious that they have a common ancestry
But when gender specific inheritance mechanisms start becoming glaringly obvious (e.g. A mule and a hinny are two very different animals) and the offspring are sterile, then it is also clear that they have drifted apart.
Once a person can accept this, a major cornerstone of evolution falls into place and it's not so difficult to accept that other animals, like the dog, bear and racoon for example all sprang from a common ancestor.
-
Truthseeker677
Well said TD
-
cha ching
Wait a minute here.....
Lion & Tiger... hmmmm "cat family"... that is realistic that they could breed...
Same thing with Mule and Hinny... "horse family"
Just because a line "ends," becomes 'sterile', 'drifts apart' does not automatically say "hey, they all came from one thing"
In fact, to me, it means "less variety", they can only breed with those of their "family."
No one has ever explained how a bear, raccoon, cat, whatever, can become a porcupine? hmm.... quillls, throwing them, etc. Ok, one piece of fur becomes a quill... Then, a million years later, another pice of fur becomes a quilll... then that family of "quill creatures" dies off... Start over... How many quills does a porcupine have? 30,000.
Not that I believe in a "God" anymore, however, I do see evidence of design.... So, let's say I believe in "an inventor." Not that I have all the answers, nope... but I won't accept theories or guesses or assumptions or leaps in logic any, any, more. Science will be put to the test, taken to task, just like the WT.
-
TD
Lion & Tiger... hmmmm "cat family"... that is realistic that they could breed...
I think you might be shooting from the hip here. Is a cheetah a member of the "Cat family?" Is a jaguar a member of the "Cat family?" Can they breed?
When two members of what are very obviously the same family drift apart to the point of complete infertility, the biblical notion of "kinds" is in jeopardy. I didn't say this was definitive proof of evolution; I said this was the first chink in my armor as a creationist. It would be dishonest not to examine the question of how far this process could go.
A corollary to this and partial answer to your observation of "less variety" are vestiges of fertility between species that have differentiated greatly. For example, the camel (Dromedary) and the llama can be crossed by artificial insemination (Their body size and shape is incompatible) to produce a creature called the cama which has the course hair of a camel, no hump and feet half-way between the two. Camels are from Asia. Llamas are from South America. Both are believed to be descended from a common ancestor during the Palaeogene period.
If you had asked me about cactus spines instead of quills I could have given you a good answer (Plants are more my thing than animals) Maybe someone else will answer it for you.
The mule and hinny are examples of gender specific inheritance mechanisms. In higher mammals genes are suppressed or expressed depending upon the parent's gender. This balances out within a species but when you start crossing them the gender of the respective parents starts making a huge difference in what the offspring actually look like:
Jack + Mare = Mule or Molly
Stallion + Jennet = Hinny
The sire is always listed first, especially when you are using gender neutral animal names. That convention is also reflected in their scientific names:
Mule = Equus asinus x Equus caballus
Hinny = Equus caballus x Equus asinus
Again this isn't definitive proof of evolution. It is clear evidence that species drift apart.
-
cofty
No one has ever explained how a bear, raccoon, cat, whatever, can become a porcupine?
Please tell me you are being ironic.
I suspect what you mean is you have never bothered to read about evolutionary developmental biology in order to discover how fur and feathers and quills evolved.
Ok, one piece of fur becomes a quill... Then, a million years later, another pice of fur becomes a quilll... then that family of "quill creatures" dies off... Start over... How many quills does a porcupine have? 30,000.
Every cell in the body of a racoon has the DNA to make quills just as every cell in your body has the genes to build a hair follicle. All of your cells came for one zygote. It's simply a matter of which genes are switched on. How genes are switched on or suppressed is increasingly well understood.
There is no device in the natural world that requires a intelligent designer to explain it's origin.
Science will be put to the test, taken to task, just like the WT
It is. That's how science works. Somebody publishes the results of their research and the best minds in the field scrutinise it mercilessly.
The fact of evolution is not a topic for serious debate. The details are being discovered daily.
Just because a line "ends," becomes 'sterile', 'drifts apart' does not automatically say "hey, they all came from one thing"
The evidence that all life evolved from a common source is written in every cell in your body. You cannot reject the evidence unless you also reject the sort of forensic evidence that is used in court to convict murderers and settle paternity disputes. It is the very same sort of evidence.
-
cha ching
Wowzers and dowzers!
Thx, TD & Cofty... and yes, I am having a bit of a fun day .. I am not trying to be mean... but still pondering..
I guess I really wanted to ask those questions forEVer ;-)
No, Cofty, I am not super duper educated, haven't read up on evolution to the max, but from the rules of nature that i see, I thought I was being logical.
If I can, I'd like to ask you: Are you saying that everyone has the possibility of becoming an Ass? (haha) (Yes, just being 'ironic')
But, seriously, I guess I'll have to study up on the possibilities of zygotes becoming anything they want to become. When I worked as a Teacher's Aide at a High School, the teacher had the kids make a 'gene chart' with possibilities of dog's tail length, eye color, fur, and leg length. The kids could only make 'dogs' within the gene codes of mom and daddy dog.. No exceptions. I do not understand how creatures can turn into other creatures if they are limited by their "genes."
Aaaaaaannnddd, since you might be able to help me understand, Cofty, what about DNA? Chromosomes? and the "Periodic Table of the Elements"?? All of these things call for precision, order, and yes, design... Try making a chart yourself without any research, just start making things up, and you won't have 'order', predictability. Scientists knew that some of the elements existed before they were even discovered, simply because? yep, there HAD to be something between A B C and E F G. (I am not giving specifics, don't have too much time, but you are aware of what I am referring to, right?)
Please go easy on me
cha ching, pondererofpossibilitiesproponentoftruth
-
donny
Good info found here. http://www.aronra.com/
-
cofty
I guess I'll have to study up on the possibilities of zygotes becoming anything they want to become.
A zygote is a single fertilised cell. It contains 23 chromosomes from the mother and 23 from dad. It contains your entire genome - all of the instructions for making all of you. Through cell division it becomes all of the billions of cells in your body from liver cells to neurons to skin cells and the cells of your cornea.
The neurons of your brain and your liver cells are different only because of which genes are turned on. The control of gene switching is what is meant by epigenetics.
Let's take your example of the porcupine. Without knowing the details let's speculate that at some point in the past an ancestor of the porcupine experienced a mutation that stiffened it's fur. A change in the genes that code for a particular protein. The effect may be to offer the animal a little bit more protection and it thrived in the gene pool. Perhaps the protecton initially was simply from accidental injury rather than predation. The advatange only has to be very, very slight to take hold in a population in a surprisingly short time.
Further mutations in this or other genes - or genetic switches - in future generations may have caused the hair to stiffen further and/or grow longer. Over a few hundred or thousand generations - step by step - what was once coarse fur has evolved into stiff quills. No one generation would have looked any different from it's preceding one, but over the long term the change becomes apparent.
This speculation is how evolution works in broad terms. It is likely that a great deal is already known about the evolution of porcupines if you do the research.