Evidence for evolution, Installment 5: Lake Tanganyika, etc

by seattleniceguy 109 Replies latest jw friends

Spook

Nice entry. You could have included an anti ID argument about the species that eats the eyes of the other species in the lake.
El blanko

Uh... there isn't a shred of evidence that a worldwide flood ever happened. *hello, McFly*

Spose it depends what you want - many ancient folk tales, or hard concrete evidence
It is still a possibility.
Qcmbr

Just because we have a good explanation for a natural process does not make it correct (an xample of this is Newtonian physics)

If there was a creation it is possible that each 'kind' was biologically perfect, without dna flaws or mutation. Living in a perfect world without reproduction (potentially) and potentially very few species. Once the 'fall' occurred death was introduced to all creation (and the partner to death is birth) and the earth was moved out of the presence of God - the perfect DNA began to degrade and we see an increasing diversity of species thereafter with mutations creating increased mutations etc.. In other words the perfect computer code is getting more and more corrupt with every copy - species therefore evolve not to best use an environment but into niches of increasing fragility (ie those fish in a single lake - drain it off and they are gone) That would partially account for man's increasing fragile nature (we generally have to eat and drink sanitised food, there are more genetic problems in humans than in most animal species (can't remember where I read it) - in comparison to apes we are really rather pathetic at surviving without our superior brains.

There might be a lot of truth in the idea that the pre flood ages of man where very long. There is potential that after the fall of Adam the earth was actually moved from God's presence (wouldn't be too hard to remove Adam and some animals) - maybe slingshot from sun to sun hence ice ages and mass extinctions - each time earth was in place - final move (end of the last ice age) Adam was put back with the animals and the 6000 years of the earth's temporal existence began. Now I'm not saying this happened!!!!! Just that macro evolution isn't the only solution and the moment we close the books and say it is is the moment we create evolution as our new God and stop searching for truth.
tijkmo

I think that ring species can help you understand how the process of speciation, is not only possible, but actually happening. For example, there are races of gulls distributed across the globe (picture a ring of them), with nearly all of the races being able to interbreed with the races adjacent to them, except for the races at either terminus....they can't interbreed with each other. They are considered different species because they are reproductively isolated. Thats right before our eyes, with "links" and all. You can even check out ring species of salamanders
yes they are still gulls though arent they....and salamanders and thats not right before my eyes...in order for it to be right before my eyes it would need to be happening all around me...cats dogs in my neighbourhood..sheep cows in nearby fields...fish in 'my' fish tank..it is not... these are all reproducing according to their kinds which is what creation teaches...thats what i see...so in fact belief in either teaching is a matter of faith...the fact that i dont have faith in a god anymore doesnt automatically mean i must accept any counter argument any more than the fact that i dont have faith in the wt means i must accept all criticism of it...i am an intelligent man...provide me with evidence and i will believe
Abaddon
Hiya SNG,
The cichlid's in the alkaline African Lakes are a great example of evolution where a limited genetic stock are isolated geographically and then procede to diversify into every available ecological niche.
The Galapagos finches are another well known example Darwin used.
New Zealand had very few land animals prior to the arrival of the Maoris. Birds had had the island chanin largely to themselves for a very long time, and thus had evolved to fit ecological niches normally occupied by other Classes. These included the massive moas and the largest flying predatory bird ever.
Australia was an instance where marsupials were isolated in a situation where they did not have competiton from placental mammals and thus when modern man arrived there were marsupials filling all the ecological niches filled by mammals in the 'Old World'.
Madagascar was 'lemur world' due to not having any primates 'aboard' when it seperated from the African mainland, and thus had lemurs filling all the niches normally filled by primates.
The biggest testament to the underlying validity of evolutionary theory is examples of consistancy in depth, where what one would expect to see under evolutionary theory is actually seen in real life.
tijkmo
To make your reply easier, and to keep track of which of my questions you respond to, I'm highlighting the actual areas I'd like some form of response from you on. Other comments I make I don't neccesarily expect direct answers to.
i cannot accept that there isnt a creator..as sherlock holmes said 'once you have ruled out the impossible whatever is left no matter how improbable must be true....and evoluton is impossible
Well, some people can't accept that man landed on the moon or that the earth is a globe. Your acceptance of something has nothing to do with whether it happened or not. This is a discussion where FACTS lead us to a conclusion, not 'acceptence'.
You don't seem to realise your quote "Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth" is something many evolutionists would quite happily use, except they would call creation 'impossible' and some aspects of evolution 'improbable'.
It would be nice if your argument had substance and reason to it rather than consisting of unsupported assertions.
How about a creator of the first basic organism which had an ability to evolve, and was then LEFT to evolve
why ???
Why not?
What proof do you have this did not happen?
How do you dismiss the evidence supporting the development of simple forms of life into complex ones?
ill grant you it doesnt explain lake tangenika or marsupials in australia..but then neither does evolution.
Please explain exactly how Lake Tangenika or Australasian marsupials are not explained by evolution. In other words, from your knowledge of evolution, please detail exactly;
what claims are wrong, and
why the evidence presented to support such claims does not support those claims.
It's EASY to say 'that doesn't explain that'. I am interested in getting something more than unsupported assertions out of you.
the difficulty arises in the genesis account...
Oh, I agree with that statement...!
Or rather with a statement STARTING like that but ending in 'when people treat it as though it is an inspired, literal and accurate account of creation'.
... stating that god rested from creation which implies he didnt create anything new but since fish werent in the ark then it could mean that the fish in lake tangenika were in fact all over after the flood
... what flood? You don't mean the 'global' flood mentioned in Genesis do you?
The one that has no physical evdience of it happening? Please cite evidence for it happening if you disagree.
The one that is meant to have taken place at the same time the pyramids in Egypt were standing? If you disagree please show evidence the archeology supporting this statement is at fault.
The one that somehow did no damage to trees alive then and still growing today? If you disagree please show evidence that the dendrochronological techniques used to supprt this statement are erroneous.
If something is claimed to have happend, and there is not only no evidence for it, but evidence which points to it being impossible that it happened as described, would Sherlock Holmes go on beliving it ANYWAY, despite the fact the evidence tells him it is impossible that it is true?
You brought Sherlock Homes up so I am fascinated how you will remain consistant to his standards of deduction.
... but conditions were such that they didnt survive anywhere else..doesnt mean they evolved only in that lake because thats just as implausible as them swimming around for a year or so then all making their way there ...
Are you saying these fish 'held their breath' for a year, or otherwise avoided dying in conditions unsuitable for them, so they could get to the lakes where it was suitable?
Do you know if conditions in those lakes were the same then?
Have you excluded that the lakes grew increasingly alkaline over the years with succesive generations of fish undergoing selection pressure which eliminated those less resistant to alkaline water?
Your 'theory' fails to explain the inter-relatedness of the dozens of species that there are, which indicates species now quite dissimilar and non-interfertle are related to each other in exactly the manner one would expect from evoltuionary theory. Please explain another reason for the proven gentic link between the species.
still doesnt explain kangaroos though
Another assertion. It's childish. Back up assertions with facts.
real life examples of evolution happening under our noses
go on then
and thats not right before my eyes...
So, if you can't see it happen it doesn't happen? So, continental drift is just made up?
How is your assertion "if you can't see it happen it doesn't happen" consistant with a belief in other events that you did not see happen, such as creation?
How reasonable of you is it to dispute a theory on the grounds "you can't see it happen" which indicates that major changes (macroevolution) takes place over massive time-scales AND THEREFORE CANNOT BE EXPECTED BY ANY REASONABLE PERSON TO BE SEEN BEFORE THEIR EYES?
in order for it to be right before my eyes it would need to be happening all around me...cats dogs in my neighbourhood..sheep cows in nearby fields...fish in 'my' fish tank..it is not... these are all reproducing according to their kinds which is what creation teaches...
I really think if you have any respect for other posters it would be nice if you learnt about what you were saying didn't happen before you said it didn't happen.
In this discussion you make it patently obvious you don't know a lot about evolution. That is fine! People only know things because they've learned them, and not knowing something is not a 'fault'. It also has very little to do with intelligence.
But having STRONG opinions at odds with generally accepted theory, and NOT having a detailed knowledge of the theory means you put yourself at a disadvantage, as all you can do is STATE your opinions, not argue them with evidence.
Having a discussion with you about evolution is therefore like having a conversation with someone about disease when they don't know anything about bacteria or viruses. They can be intelligent and the nicest most well intentioned sincere person on the planet, and still be wrong.
thats what i see...so in fact belief in either teaching is a matter of faith...
Except my belief explains the evidence we find. Your belief ignores the evidence we find.
the fact that i dont have faith in a god anymore doesnt automatically mean i must accept any counter argument
YOU are the one linking the existence of god to belief in the literal nature of a creation account of a single culture.
I would no more bind myself to a bronze-age goatherds concept of how the world started (if it contradicted the evidence) than to a stone-age tribe's idea of the transmission of disease (if it contradicted the evidence).
Whether god exists or not is a different question to whether life arose as we see it today as a result of evolution.
You are the one insisting that one book, which you happen to have grown up accepting as fact, is right, when it is obvious if you had been raised a Seikh it would be that holy book you would accept as right.
In essense, you are defending what you are used to believing in, not defending anything you know to be true.
i am an intelligent man...provide me with evidence and i will believe
As you are an intelligent man you will understand someone who wants to know something will normally MAKE IT THEIR RESPONSIBILITY TO LEARN. It is not 'our' responsibility to teach you what your background has denied you knowledge of. We can help, but it is YOUR responsibility in the end.
Ignorance of facts is no excuse for persisting in erroneous beliefs, especially not if people point out your errors and you then decline the opportunity to educate yourself about the subject to a level whereby one can take part in a discussion in a knowledgable fashion. Get to that point and then prove us wrong; I'd love it.
As you are an intelligent man you will see that someone who doesn't know about the science of medicine will be ill-equiped in a discussion about medicine, and their lack of knowledge will be frustrating to those with knowledge especially if they dispute a known fact through lack of knowledge (such as insisting the transmission of malaria was by "bad air" (how did you think mal aria got its name?)). In such a situations lack of knowledge about something wouldn't indicate whether that something was true or not.
Also, do you find it curious that you are happy to accept scientific competence in many areas of your everyday life; electricity, computers, televison, medicine, etc., but are unhappy to accept scientific competence in the field of evolutionary biology, which you know nearly nothing about.
I will be only too happy to be corrected by you on that last point, it's an assesment based upon what you've written thus far.
El blanko
Spose it depends what you want - many ancient folk tales, or hard concrete evidence
It is still a possibility.
Why do you feel compelled to insist that everything is a possibility? Are you a gay flying nun? I mean, it is a possibility... but not one that has any evidence to support it, so what's the point in mentioning it?
For example, it is possible that Taimat's body was cut in two and used to create the heavens and the earth... and that humans grew from the blood and sperm of another god, if my knowledge of the Babylonian mythos is correct.
Qcmbr
Just because we have a good explanation for a natural process does not make it correct (an xample of this is Newtonian physics)
I agree; the pre-Keppleran/Newtonian theories of planetary motion worked to the extent you can make little clockwork lodels of them. However, they never had an explanation for why they worked in the way that Newton explained his model.
If there was a creation it is possible that each 'kind' was biologically perfect, without dna flaws or mutation. Living in a perfect world without reproduction (potentially) and potentially very few species. Once the 'fall' occurred death was introduced to all creation (and the partner to death is birth) and the earth was moved out of the presence of God
Problem here. You diverge from any reasonable interpretation of the source text you are supporting.
There is no indication in that acount that animals had the same perfection as humans.
No inidcation animals did not die.
No indication that reproduction did not take place.
- the perfect DNA began to degrade and we see an increasing diversity of species thereafter with mutations creating increased mutations etc.. In other words the perfect computer code is getting more and more corrupt with every copy - species therefore evolve not to best use an environment but into niches of increasing fragility (ie those fish in a single lake - drain it off and they are gone)
Unfortunately there is plenty of evidence of microevolution which completely blows this out of the water, as such evidence shows it is driven by what suits an environment best.
That would partially account for man's increasing fragile nature (we generally have to eat and drink sanitised food,
That is nuture, not nature. Lack of exposure to pathogens leads to lack of defence against pathogens.
there are more genetic problems in humans than in most animal species (can't remember where I read it)
Could that be due to the technological and social nature of human beings whereby natural selection is blunted and 'bad genes' persist due to reproduction of those that would have been subjected to selection pressure (i.e. death) in a more primative environment? Yes, of course it could be why.
- in comparison to apes we are really rather pathetic at surviving without our superior brains.
It doesn't work like that. Human beings have superior brains. It is part of the package which defines humans just as great physical strength and massive canine teeth is part of the package that defines chimapnzees. They are indivisable packages. A human being with a chimp brain is not a human being, nor is a chimp with human strength and canine teeth a chimpanzee.
The human package, as evidenced by the population, is better suited to survival then the chimpanzee package.
There might be a lot of truth in the idea that the pre flood ages of man where very long.
Speculation ignoring lack of evidence and contrary evidence. I think you might mean
"If it were not for the lack of evidnece regarding the Biblical Flood and the existence of evidence directly contradicting the Biblical Flood account, one could argue that there might be a lot of truth in the idea that the pre flood ages of man where very long."
There is potential that after the fall of Adam the earth was actually moved from God's presence (wouldn't be too hard to remove Adam and some animals) - maybe slingshot from sun to sun hence ice ages and mass extinctions - each time earth was in place - final move (end of the last ice age) Adam was put back with the animals and the 6000 years of the earth's temporal existence began. Now I'm not saying this happened!!!!!
No, but I don't think the fact you have to resort to fantasy (along the lines of some JW's loving Star Trek because they believe after the Earth is made a paradise then god will let us bodly go and make the rest of the Universe a paradise) is something which escapes peoples' notice. One can 'make stuff up' and say it is possible, but there is NO evidence for what you say, and there IS evidence for what you dispute.
Wouldn't it be good to concentrate on (and dispute as you see fit) the evidence supporitng evolution, rather than making up fairy stories? It's easy to indulge in unsupported flights of fancy which allow one to maintain a belief.
Just that macro evolution isn't the only solution and the moment we close the books and say it is is the moment we create evolution as our new God and stop searching for truth.
No one who studided evolution or kept a track of the subject could say that they had closed the books. Why are you making an argument in defence of the opinions you support that hinges upon something that hasn't happened, nor under the rules of science, could happen?
I am away from Wednesday this week until Monday 9th, so apologise if my replies are slow...
stillajwexelder

Sounds very scientific and reasonable and simple to explain to me. All makes sense - thankyou for your hard work
Midget-Sasquatch

yes they are still gulls though arent they....and salamanders
and thats not right before my eyes

They're still gulls yes, but that doesn't negate the fact that in the here and now, we have an observable process that has resulted in two different species. That is speciation - one pivotal facet of the evolutionary process. In the small time frame you were asking for evidence, thats all one can really expect to see. Anyone could confirm ring species by going to the spots their found.
If you're asking for macro-evolutionary changes before your eyes, then like Abbadon so nicely put it, you're asking to be shown something in a sliver of the time span thats required - like asking to see the development of a fertilized ovum into a fully gestated human baby in only a day or two.
If you're keen on experiments that can be done in the comfort of one's own lab, I suggest reading about Richard Lenski's work on E.Coli and changing environments. Mind you thats not about showing speciation, but adaptation - another important facet of the evolutionary process.
So there are two empirically observable facets of the theory, making it hard to deny its plausibility over large spans of time.
tijkmo

If you're keen on experiments that can be done in the comfort of one's own lab, I suggest reading about Richard Lenski's work on E.Coli and changing environments. Mind you thats not about showing speciation, but adaptation - another important facet of the evolutionary process.

midget-sasquatch...if i did experimented i would be excercising control of the experiment and setting up the procedures as i presume Mr Lenski did...the point about evolution is that it was not done in the comfort of ones own lab....unless.....
abaddon...i believe in a creator...as such EVERYTHING is explainable either by something he did or by something he did not do..for you to convince me otherwise you will have to do better than call me childish cos that dont scare me
ultimately it does come down to faith...you were not around in the 'beginning' and you did not come up with your beliefs by yourself..someone told you..someone influenced you either in person or by books etc but a lot of what they said is hypothesis or conjecture and conveniently unprovable..but you have faith that what they tell you is true...but it may not be..just because it is unprovable is no guarantee that it is correct
interesting that in the section below you put a 'comment' of mine in quotation marks as if you are directly quoting something that i said which if i had said it would make me an idiot..but clearly i did not say or even imply anything of the sort so your resorting to this kind of deception greatly weakens your argument
How is your assertion "if you can't see it happen it doesn't happen" consistant with a belief in other events that you did not see happen, such as creation?
AlmostAtheist

ultimately it does come down to faith...you were not around in the 'beginning' and you did not come up with your beliefs by yourself..someone told you..someone influenced you either in person or by books etc but a lot of what they said is hypothesis or conjecture and conveniently unprovable..but you have faith that what they tell you is true...but it may not be..just because it is unprovable is no guarantee that it is correct

Absolutely true. There's no way to say with absolute certainty how anything in the past happened. That's what a court trial is all about. Twelve people that allegedly have no axe to grind are presented with evidence from two sides of an argument, then those 12 people discuss the evidence and give their ruling. It is no more "fact" than either of the opposing cases presented, it is simply the conclusion they came to based on the facts presented. Some facts contradict each other, so they weight each according to their own views and experiences.
But that doesn't degrade the value of examining the evidence. For instance, if I find a half-cookie lying on the dining room table, I think there's a great possibility my 6-year-old left it there. It might have been Gina. I might even have been me, and I just forgot. I could then examine the evidence. Small fingerprints on the table top would lean heavily toward Zach, but it could be light impressions left by Gina. If I see chocolate on Zach's face, that's more evidence, but of course it's not conclusive. If he admits to it, all the better. But in the end, the cookie could have been placed there by the Invisible Pink Unicorn, false evidence created to frame Zach, and false memories planted in Zach to make him believe he did it. Or the cookie and all its evidence could just be an illusion. Perhaps I am a single brain in a jar somewhere, with wires zapping me to make me think I see and hear all this stuff.
Nonetheless, we accept (believe? have faith?) that when the evidence stacks up to suggest something, that something is likely to be true. In contrast, when evidence stacks up against something, we accept that the thing is likely not true.
Biblical flood -- time frame overlaps pyramids, geological formations that exist today and have for many thousands of years would have been destroyed by being submerged, specific animals exist in a single place (like the lake in SNG's article). All of this is evidence against the flood concept. In the absence of any evidence supporting it, and this evidence refuting it, it could be reasonably said to have not happened.
Evolution -- (evidence presented in this thread and in links appearing in this thread) Given the available evidence, it can be reasonably said that the overall process occurred. We see the cookie, we see the fingerprints, we see the chocolate-face, and so we conclude that the kid did it, rather than the Unicorn.
If this sounds like faith, then it is a faith in the process of accumulating evidence and making conclusions from it. It isn't faith in "evolution", it is faith in the process that when followed points to evolution. As it happens, the process has a good track record of coming up with answers that seem to be correct, so it seems to be a reasonable thing to place faith in.
Dave
tijkmo

ah the invisible pink unicorn reasoning...i got no answer to that

Evidence for evolution, Installment 5: Lake Tanganyika, etc

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