by seattleniceguy 38 Replies latest jw friends
Does anyone know of a simple explanation of some of the more obvious proofs of evolution? There are those that would probably be better able to accept it if it could be put into more simplistic sound-bite forms. Actually SNG's article is good example, though it would need to find a way around using terms like "endogenous".
Sort of an "Evolution for Dummies" sort of deal would be good.
Dave
Dave
Thoze big werds are their as a etst foar uss.
S
For GBL:
Good introductory material with discussions of the fossil record:
Scientists Confront Creationism, ed. by Laurie R. Godfrey, W. W. Norton, 1983
Science and Creationism, ed. by Ashley Montagu, et al, Oxford U. Press, 1984
Creation and Evolution: Myth or Reality? Norman D. Newell, Praeger Scientific, 1985
More advanced and specific to fossils:
The Ancestor's Tale, Richard Dawkins, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2004
Missing Links: Evolutionary Concepts & Transitions Through Time, Robert A. Martin, Jones and Bartlett Publishers, 2004
The Structure of Evolutionary Theory, Stephen Jay Gould, Harvard U. Press, 2002
"The Transitional Vertebrate Fossils FAQ";
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional.html
Evolution and the Fossil Record, K. C. Allen and D. E. G. Briggs, Smithsonian Institution Press, 1989, 1990
The New York Times Book of Fossils and Evolution, ed. by Nicholas Wade, The New York Times, 1997, 2001
Evolutionary Paleobiology, ed. by David Jablonski, et al., U. of Chicago Press, 1996
Of more general interest:
What Evolution Is, Ernst Mayr, Basic Books, 2001
Climbing Mount Improbable, Richard Dawkins, W. W. Norton, 1996
Frozen Fauna of the Mammoth Steppe, R. Dale Guthrie, U. of Chicago Press, 1990
On the Track of Ice Age Mammals, Antony J. Sutcliff, Harvard U. Press, 1985
The Age of the Earth, G. Brent Dalrymple, Standford U. Press, 1991
AlmostAtheist, evolution, like biology itself, is a young and complex science. There are no shortcuts to learning even the basics. It takes work. The above references will likely help you understand, without having to get a biology degree. Only when you've learned enough to start making your own educated judgments will you see why there are no shortcuts.
AlanF
The above references will likely help you understand, without having to get a biology degree. Only when you've learned enough to start making your own educated judgments will you see why there are no shortcuts.
It's not for myself, I can wrangle the big words when I need to. And I suffered through Dawkin's "Watchmaker" book, primarily on the recommendation of Douglas Adams. It's a tough read, and he's an arrogant sum-gun, so it's hard to take his style. But I had to say after reading it, I could very comfortably accept that this "well-designed" world we live in was not designed as such, but sort of fell into good design through weeding out dangerous errors. His illustration of a sieve that leads into a sieve, that leads into yet another was helpful.
I'm looking for something that would "hook" a person that has only been fed on books like the Watchtower's "Creation" book. Here is one simple book -- boiled down to a three-page tract, even -- that neatly "explains" their position. I can understand that the creationists can say, "Then God waved his wand" and evolutionists can't, but I wonder if it simply HAS to be unapproachably complex.
Perhaps it does. I don't know.
Dave
Personally, I don't know if evolution is true or not, no one can really "prove it" beyond a reasonable doubt, yet.
Lets remember what DNA is for though. DNA is transcribed into mRNA which is then translated into proteins. There are also other uses as well for RNA, such as tRNA and rRNA. So the main reason why there are so many similarities is that most organisms need to code for the same proteins.
The Classicist of the why am I taking a microbiology course when I'm in Arts? class
Thanks Alan.
GBL
Well, AlmostAtheist, the problem is not the big words (anybody with a dictionary can handle that) but the concepts.
As for hooking a JW, good luck! Their minds are so closed that a helium atom couldn't get in.
About the only thing I can think of that really gets their interest is trying to reconcile certain "Bible based" Watchtower teachings with what they know is true from other sources. For example, older JWs were raised on the notion of 7,000-year creative days. Yet almost all young JWs have no idea about this teaching, and fully accept that dinosaurs came into existence more than 200 million years ago and died out 65 million years ago. How does a knowledgeable JW reconcile this? How does a JW reconcile the fact that life, with massive suffering due to predation and natural disasters, has been around for hundreds of millions of years? How does the concept of a God of love and mercy and justice fit with this?
AlanF
SNG:
Great post.
Truth exists only in science.
Everything else is a fairytale.
SNG: I have but one question: is that "New World Monkey" one that survives Armageddon through dedication and baptism, or is he simply born in the New System of Things?
LOL @ Mary.
the_classicist,
So the main reason why there are so many similarities is that most organisms need to code for the same proteins.
The phenomenon described above is not that of finding DNA that codes for the same protein in multiple different species. It is the phenomenon of finding the DNA for an entire retrovirus at the exact same spot in two different species.
Let's imagine that a host's DNA is like a very large book, and a retrovirus's DNA is like a 32-page brochure. This is like finding the exact words of the 32-page brochure stuck into our book at a precise location, just kind of wedged in. Obviously, the brochure and any random book might share some words in common, since words are the building blocks for written language. But if the entire sequence is found the book, then clearly a different phenomenon is at work.
SNG
