> -----Original Message----- > From: Bruce Sorge [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: Saturday, November 17, 2007 3:40 PM > To: CF-Community > Subject: RE: Great press for Our Lord and Savior > > OK, I am back.
I'm not a evolutionary scholar, but I can see several issues with your comments. > OK, so Darwin claims that organisms just evolve into better organisms, > that > the less desirable traits of an organism die off and the more desirable > traits survive and evolve into other organisms, leading to the creation > of > actual species, and that these species evolve into higher species and > so on. That's not completely true. Evolution doesn't consider "better" or "desirable" rather the point are the many pressures being applied to a species. Take a mouse population. A mouse population with resource pressure (little food) may favor those individuals that can function with fewer calories or that can store calories more effectively. At the same time there may be predatory pressures - cats - that favor faster mice or those with better hearing. At the same time there might thousands of other pressures working on the same population. When the pressures on a small population are different enough, for long enough, speciation may very well occur. You can see this in human-controlled breeding: look at the huge number of dog breeds. While these breeds can still mate (barring physical size limitations) this form of controlled breed (while accelerated) has only been taking place for several thousand year, tops. Considering population pressures and time-spans in the millions of years it shouldn't be too hard to see how species might eventually differ enough to preclude interbreeding (not that much change is needed - after chimps and humans are genetically nearly identical). > So if this is true, where is the intermediate form of species, the > connecting links if you will? Darwin was asked this question and he did > not > have an answer. Nor is there any archeological evidence to back his > theory. > Although there is ample evidence for many complete species, fossil > records > provide almost no evidence for the intermediate connecting links. First: no argument predicated on "holes" in the fossil record can be taken seriously. For many reasons: +) The fossil record is the smallest slice of evidence when considering the tree of life on earth. A vanishingly small percentage of life is represented by it. It is insanely helpful, interesting and useful but nothing near complete. +) Many of the questions you're asking are not directly answerable by the fossil record (which is, by definition, limited to only the fossilizable aspects of animal). In our example of mice from above the trait of "calorie conservative" would be difficult to determine from the fossil record. +) It's a complete misunderstanding of evolutionary process to talk about "complete species". You will never, ever, ever, ever find a "half monkey, half man" - it doesn't work that way. Instead you'll find species with some of the traits of both. There are no half-steps but rather graduations from one to another (graduations which are not, and most likely never will be, represented by the woefully sparse fossil record). All species that can breed are "complete". But at the same time all species under pressure (and all are) are also in flux. +) As sparse as it is we definitely have many examples of transitionary species (and, again, evolutionary speaking all species are transitionary). Here's more information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transitional_fossil > Later on, Darwin's theory was revised by scientists and thus was born > the > Punctuated Equilibrium evolutionary theory, supposedly making evolution > invisible in the fossil record (how convenient). But of course this > theory > is not verifiable in any way and is in fact considered highly > speculative. Again, the Theory of evolution (like all science) is in constant flux. While the basic facts of evolution (common ancestory, change over time, etc) are all accepted the mechanisms are under constant debate and consideration. Also it seems you're falling into a common trap: even "punctuated" equilibrium works over vast periods of time. Consider a species like mouse with a generational length of (I'm guessing) a year. Punctuated Evolution might take place in the (geologically) amazingly short period of 50,000 years. While this is amazingly fast compared to the traditional timespan of millions of years it's still 50,000 generations. It's a mistake (a common one) to claim that these mechanistic theories are mutually exclusive. Punctuated evolution is most likely where geography has limited the range of a population or where unusually powerful pressures have worked upon species (Island Dwarfism is a well-documented example of the latter). > Many will say that the fossil record furnishes proof of evolution, but > the > question again has to be asked: Where are the half-evolved dinosaurs or > other creatures? The answer is, there are none? No there's not. Considering something "fully" or "half" formed has to, by necessity, assume that there's a definitive "end" to evolution - and there's definitely not. In other words nothing can be "halfway" because nothing can ever be "done". Rather pressures create favorable or unfavorable environments for certain traits. With so many thousands and pressures and so many thousands of traits the actual results are far from predictable. > The only thing that the fossil record contains is the records of > complete, > fully-formed species. If evolution were true, then surely there would > be > proof of half or partially evolved species? That's a ridiculous statement from an evolutionary point of view for all the reasons I've mentioned and others. Evolution isn't working toward a goal. > This is one of the many holes in his theory, and to me this is a big > one. > Something cannot evolve out of nothing, right? If evolution were true, > then > again I ask where the proof is. Where are the partially evolved > species? > If something is partially evolved, then how a partially evolved species > could eat, breath or breed is beyond me. Can someone offer a scientific > explanation of this? Since no evolutionary biologist would EVER argue that the theory needs "partially evolved" species to be correct it's really a moot point. It's a woefully incorrect assumption made by most creationists based solely on their misunderstanding of the topic, not on any requirement of the theory. Jim Davis ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Get the answers you are looking for on the ColdFusion Labs Forum direct from active programmers and developers. http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/webforums/forum/categories.cfm?forumid-72&catid=648 Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/message.cfm/messageid:246617 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=11502.10531.5
