The beautiful, beautiful 'Theory of Evolution'.

by nicolaou 41 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

  • Caedes
    Caedes
    I am just asking for the same level of "proof" that I have been asked for in the past.

    Rightly so, however you didn't ask for proof, you asked for a witness to the moment of abiogenesis.

    Assuming for a moment that I built a time machine and travelled back in time witnessed the event and then reported back, is that proof of abiogenesis?

    On it's own? No, my personal testimony would not be sufficient as proof.

    As I stated there will be a theory of abiogenesis eventually and it will be based on empirical evidence not personal testimony.

    The point I was making in my initial response is that empirical evidence can be found around us and we don't have to have a film crew in a time machine to be sure that millions of years ago dinosaurs walked the earth or that the atmosphere was chemically different or that we evolved along with monkeys from a common ancestor.

    The proof is out there if you want to look at it.

  • sweetstuff
    sweetstuff
    Sweetstuff this phenomenon has resulted in countless companies evolving to help increase penis size using pills and lotions, although their ability to spam email has noticeably decreased

    LOL, point taken Clam, but the fact that companies had to evolve to meet this demand for penile enhancement indicates that these individuals are genetically inferior and will be bred out of existence if the evolution of said companies doesn't solve the issue at hand.

  • R.Crusoe
    R.Crusoe

    Which infers women will not take up their offers for procreation your sweetness?

  • changeling
    changeling

    Thank you nicolau, that is indeed a beautiful thought.

    Thank you elsewhere, you have helped me figure out what to cook for dinner (Spag and meatballs it is!)

    changeling

  • Forscher
    Forscher

    Here's a simple example of evolution in action - bacteria.

    Evolutionary changes can happen very fast in smaller, simpler types of living things. For example, many disease causing bacteria can no longer be killed with some of the antibiotics that were designed to eradicate them. These medicines have only been in use for about eighty years, they used to work, then they became less effective and now many of them are useless. Why?

    The bacteria evolved so that they could survive the attacks from these drugs.

    Bad example of evolution. The problem is that all that really happened were that those bacteria of a given species which had a natural immunity survived and grew in numbers. They didn't change in any real respect any more than a group of homo sapiens living near the equator became anything other than dark-skinned homo sapiens (has it never intrigued you that, despite the outward diversity of all the human "races" there are no new types, all are one species). It is a well-known fact that take away the stressors (i.e. the antibiotics) from a given bacterial community antibiotic resistant strains will reduce in numbers to pre-antibiotic characteristics within a few generations (much the same happened to the famed peppered moths of industrial England when the factors became less polluting). The phenotype was present all along in the bacterial communities and never completely disappeared, they simply reassert when conditions change. And that result is replicable, making it scientific fact.

    I've been through my statistic and probability courses and find the arguments mentioned against the creationists probability arguments unconvincing. Sure, maybe it can be argued that creationists overstate the odds by an order of a few magnitudes, but even if we factor for that we still end up well outside the accepted delineations between what is theoretically possible or not. Apparently I am not the only one who sees it that way since scientists with more brilliant minds than mine engage in the speculating on the existence of so many billions of parallel universes to dilute the odds.

    It fascinates me that after proving that abiogenesis cannot occur (it used to be called spontaneous generation of life), Science now holds it up as the only possible way life could've happened. But then when one limits one's possibilities to those conforming to atheism, one must embrace the impossible.

    Forscher

  • Awakened07
    Awakened07

    Bad example of evolution. The problem is that all that really happened were that those bacteria of a given species which had a natural immunity survived and grew in numbers. They didn't change in any real respect any more than a group of homo sapiens living near the equator became anything other than dark-skinned homo sapiens (has it never intrigued you that, despite the outward diversity of all the human "races" there are no new types, all are one species). It is a well-known fact that take away the stressors (i.e. the antibiotics) from a given bacterial community antibiotic resistant strains will reduce in numbers to pre-antibiotic characteristics within a few generations (much the same happened to the famed peppered moths of industrial England when the factors became less polluting). The phenotype was present all along in the bacterial communities and never completely disappeared, they simply reassert when conditions change. And that result is replicable, making it scientific fact.

    Well, I'm far from an expert so I may be wrong in the details here, but:

    As far as I know, this is exactly what we should expect to see according to evolution theory. With bacteria it all happens very quickly because of their fast metabolism.

    How can a bacteria be resistant to drugs created by humans fairly recently? How can bacteria ingest substances that humans started to manufacture within the last seventy years or so (nylon)? As far as I have understood it, it's because of random mutations (that happen all the time). Most mutations would go "unnoticed", while some would - if the environment changed accordingly - become an advantage. Add the pressure of an antibiotic, and the bacteria that have no resistance will obviously die, but the few who survive will do so because they have mutated and evolved the capability of surviving the antibiotic. Not because they 'knew' what had to be done, but for the share 'luck' that those few bacteria happened to get the "right" mutation at the time in order to be resistant. When there is no antibiotic present, some bacteria would probably still mutate to be resistant to it, but it would not prove to be an advantage over the other bacteria in that antibiotic-free environment.

    When the environment returns to 'normal', the specialized bacteria that were resistant fade away, because they were adapted to the particular environment where there was a pressure from the antibiotic, while recessive genes will have (perhaps) "left behind" a group of bacteria that suits the 'normal' environment.

    Same with moths; the environment changes to favor darker moths (trees get dark for instance), and the darker moths get more offspring and get eaten less frequently than the lighter version. The environment changes back, and the 'light gene' again becomes predominant, because the infrequent light moths would again get more offspring and get eaten less frequently than the dark.

    So - where does actual change (speciation) come in? That would be caused by a split of a species in two by the simple fact that they could - or would - no longer have offspring with each other (one group with the other). Separated, and let to breed in different environments over a long enough time period, they would gradually change (or rather, a new generation of each group would be more adapted to their current, separate environment than the previous generation). "Environment" here can mean everything from predators, disease, ability to find food and attract the opposite sex, weather, etc.

    Of course - change within one species would happen for the same reasons as above.

    Humans as we know them have only been around for a 100.000 years or so, which is little on a geological, evolutionary time scale. Plus, I personally think that the fact that we have self-awareness and the amount of intelligence we have, "disrupts" how evolution usually works in animals. Humans can make decisions that for an animal would seem very strange; 'breed' with someone who perhaps does not look as 'fit' (for breeding) as some other person, is not as wealthy as some other person, etc., or move to a place that is known for bad weather, but choose to move there anyway with hopes of surviving not by being adapted, but by modern equipment and one's own ingenuity.

    So it's hard to say how humans will change over time.

  • the dreamer dreaming
    the dreamer dreaming

    assuming there was a god who made all things...the how still seems to boil down to trial and error. the notion that an all knowing being just happens to exist complete with knowledge of things that have never even existed seems a stretch for even a believer, no? the stupid belief that god is outside of time and so knows every moment is another self defeating paradox as it gives no moment of creatorship as the universe was there before him eternally and so there never was any need to make it.

  • Forscher
    Forscher
    As far as I know, this is exactly what we should expect to see according to evolution theory. With bacteria it all happens very quickly because of their fast metabolism.

    It always amazes me to see evolutionists take whatever logical evidence can be presented against them and say "oh no, your point really proves evolution to true." What I am going to respectfully point out is that your reasoning may well hold up if what is being discussed is micro-evolution, but it falls apart when you get into macro-evolution. So it doesn't prove the whole enchilada. I don't dispute micro-evolution since it is observable and verifiable. But it doesn't follow that the same can be said for macro-evolution. And nowhere has anybody observed such variation leading to a completely separate and new bacteria. E. coli remain e. coli whether they develop a resistance to antibiotics or not. Nothing new is created since the resistance was there in the first place. Nothing is added which wasn't already there, and nothing significant is truly lost.

    Forscher

  • Awakened07
    Awakened07
    It always amazes me to see evolutionists take whatever logical evidence can be presented against them and say "oh no, your point really proves evolution to true."

    I only have time for a very brief reply before I go to work, so I'll just bump this thread with a question:

    What exactly would you want to see that would constitute "macroevolution" to you? What kind of animal would that have to be to satisfy you?

  • nicolaou
    nicolaou

    Beauty is simplicity and simplicity is beautiful.

    I'm all for getting into the argument and debating the details but that's not what this topic was all about. God just muddies up the cosmic waters and 'uglifies' everything.

    The Beautiful Sombrero Galaxy

    The Cosmos is beautiful without him.

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