Has Evolution Been Proven to be True ?

[Lumie]

He takes the most extreme position in whatever thread he comes across.

I don't take any extreme position, only the correct one. I am just a great deal smarter than most people and have answers to questions that many do not. I certainly do believe everything I say and religion is certainly relevant to a discussion about evolution, regardless of whether or not you understand how or why.

[Kaosu]

Originally Posted by Mimirswell

No he isn't. He doesn't even believe what he says. He takes the most extreme position in whatever thread he comes across. Naturally, in an evolution thread, he's derailing it into a religious discussion.

Do you really think Gary Busey believes anything he himself says?

[Lonin]

Originally Posted by Lumie

The book of Genesis of the Bible is the exact truth as to how the Earth and it's population were created. DNA can't code itself and cannot spontaneously appear so evolution is essentially meaningless and it is pointless to discuss or debate such a topic since it gets us no where. A good deal of science is merely an endless loop of self delusion attempting to explain things that are impossible to explain through science since it immediately disregards any sort of super natural possibilities and it's insistance that everything must have a logical explanatation.

Science fails to realize that infinity defies logic and yet it still exists but can never be calculated or pin pointed since it never ends and it never begins. In this same way, existence defies all logic since at one point all matter had to have eventually come from literal nothingness. This is impossible since something cannot possibly come from nothing and yet it's undeniably exactly what has happened and here's why.

Let's say for instance that we did all evolve from a single cell organism and that cell was formed in the primordial ooze or whatever you want to choose. Regardless of where anything came from, it's self evident that you can keep back tracking until you eventually reach the conclusion of "nothing". Where did the planet earth come from? Ok the big bang you say. Where did the matter that created the big bang come from? Um a black hole maybe. Ok...where did that black hole come from? etc etc and so on and so forth.

In reality, existence is actually created and bound together by a literal magic word, the true name of Jesus, whom is the living word and creator of all that is and was and ever shall be.

I know, I know, responding to Lumie, I'm sorry.

Lumie, you seem to like bringing up infinite regression when it has to do with the creation of life, yet you completely ignore the consequences of infinite regression as it applies to a universe-creating deity. I'm guessing you will likely write God off as being outside of science and logic, therefore not having to adhere to the same principals, but that is a bullshit non-argument.

[Dumar]

i have argued this point with so many different people; from tea on here to people in timbuktu.

many are missing the point and not understanding the subtle difference here. evolution as a theory is probably correct, but it doesn't explain why.

it doesn't explain why life behaves in such a way. life, nature, the whole of existence is a machine. it doesn't matter if you view it as random or not. the darwinian mantra of survival of the fittest shows that organisms adapt themselves to their enivornment. but WHY does this occur? what PUSHES organisms to do this? there is no answer to this question. science cannot answer; at least, it cannot answer within my lifetime.

"i don't know" is not sufficient. we don't know. we may never know. we certainly will not know before all of us here die.

so the question ultimately must be ask of oneself: WHERE do i put my faith? because that's all you have ultimately. do you put it in a creationist religion? do you put in science? because EITHER WAY it is faith.

[Kaio]

Roffle, "the push" as already explained is natural selection. The survivability of certain variations are greater then others. Evolution goes in the direction of variations and mutations that are preferred by the environment. Nothing really needs to "push" the organisms to do so because the better variations simply survive better to the point of reproduction.

Evolution is all about reproducing imo. Improving the genes so as to increase the rate of reproduction.

[Dumar]

you're still misunderstanding.

it's a subtle difference in what i'm asking here. the answer to my question is not outside stimuli.

organisms respond to those outside stimuli by changing themselves to better adapt, yes okay. so what about the organism causes it to know about this change and how does the organism know to respond? to put another way, where, how, or by what or whom does the information exchange from the environment to the organism occur for the organism to 'know' to change? yes, variations in genetic code exist, but that still begs the same question: namely, WHY does variation exist?

ps, hopefully with that you can understand better.

[Valishar]

Has Evolution been proved to be true?

If you mean have we seen one species where populations have been separated and after successive generations you have two different species which cannot crossbreed anymore, then yeah we've proven it true. (And that's not microevolution anymore, that's macroevolution since it's on the level of separate species) It's been observed in nature, and even been observed in the laboratory under controlled variables.

Evolution has pretty solid foundation from observation.

it doesn't explain why life behaves in such a way. life, nature, the whole of existence is a machine. it doesn't matter if you view it as random or not. the darwinian mantra of survival of the fittest shows that organisms adapt themselves to their enivornment. but WHY does this occur? what PUSHES organisms to do this? there is no answer to this question. science cannot answer; at least, it cannot answer within my lifetime.

organisms respond to those outside stimuli by changing themselves to better adapt, yes okay. so what about the organism causes it to know about this change and how does the organism know to respond? to put another way, where, how, or by what or whom does the information exchange from the environment to the organism occur for the organism to 'know' to change? yes, variations in genetic code exist, but that still begs the same question: namely, WHY does variation exist?

You're looking at it backwards. Organisms don't choose to adapt to their environment, they're born with a variety of differing characteristics due to genetics/"random" chance, and the environment kills organisms which are not adapted to their environment (or limits them in such a way that they don't reproduce as much). The environment is the pushing factor. Outside stimuli doesn't have a direct effect with changing them at all, unless it's in a form which messes with genes (radiation, certain chemicals, viruses, etc...). Not to mention DNA replication isn't always 100% accurate under real world conditions so you'll always get variation whether the organisms want it or not. It makes a lot more sense when you look at evolution subtractive rather than additive. Out of the thousands of variations which finally make it and are non-lethal, the environment kills all but a few which have won the lottery and have useful variations.

You might as well ask the lottery winner WHY he chose the winning numbers instead of the losing ones.

If you have a kind of frog which comes in every colour in the rainbow, but only the brown ones can blend into the swamp. Eventually you're just going to have brown ones since the coloured frogs will have a greater chance to be eaten, and the genes which give different colours will be less and less in the population.

[Dumar]

that still begs the same question. there's no reason for life to respond to the environment in such a way, whether you wanna word it by random chance producing weak and strong organisms or no. life is still changing, and that's the point.

[Kaio]

Can people's understanding of evolution really be this weak. Did we all take the same high school bio class? My major has nothing to do with biology so i've taken zero bio courses in college and will take zero to graduate.

But seriously, you think shit spontaneously adapts during it's lifetime. Did all of us telling you that it's genetic variation/mutation that happens during reproduction (not fucking during it's lifetime) not sink in. Are you fucking shitting me.

organisms respond to those outside stimuli by changing themselves to better adapt, yes okay. so what about the organism causes it to know about this change and how does the organism know to respond?

Organisms simply DO NOT FUCKING change their dna on the fly to adapt to their situation and that is the subject matter of evolution. Your question is not valid at all in regard to evolution.

Sure how organisms behave, eat, etc. will affect how it grows but thats not the subject here with evolution.

[Dumar]

i'm an engineer, so trust me when i say my bio education is probably superior to yours unless you're in medicine or a bio major. life is a complex system, whether you wanna think of it as such or not.

again you're misunderstanding what i'm saying, and you keep repeating the outside stimuli banter. it's an answer, but it's an answer to the wrong question.

it doesn't matter if you say "nature selects random mutations for life based on their traits". life is STILL changing in response, whether it's a right or wrong response to change. whether the change is because of a random combination to express a certain trait. that's still not answering what i'm asking you here today. i'm asking WHY does this occur? there is no answer to this question. there is no reason for it or cause of it.

[Kaio]

Originally Posted by Dumar

that still begs the same question. there's no reason for life to respond to the environment in such a way, whether you wanna word it by random chance producing weak and strong organisms or no. life is still changing, and that's the point.

Stop going in circles, we've already explained that life as we know it and the dna it's based on is designed in such a way that the best variation of genes for a particular species survives.

Please put 2 and 2 together.

We can't only show you why 1 + 1 = 2 by teaching you how to count numbers and teaching you what the addition function does. You have to connect the dots. All the info here to answer your questions is here. Stop being a moron and use your fucking brain.

[Valishar]

i'm asking WHY does this occur?

Mutation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

That's why.

[Kaio]

Originally Posted by Dumar

it doesn't matter if you say "nature selects random mutations for life based on their traits". life is STILL changing in response, whether it's a right or wrong response to change. whether the change is because of a random combination to express a certain trait. that's still not answering what i'm asking you here today. i'm asking WHY does this occur? there is no answer to this question. there is no reason for it or cause of it.

We've discussed the two main elements in how dna changes, the reason it changes, and the cause of it. (In this case the cause, reason, and how are completely linked). Recombination & Mutations

Recombination(better word then variation here) between parent genes due to massive number of possibilities when genes are combined from two different sources.

I'm going to copy mutation from wikipedia since it does a better job then me saying it's simply a copying error because external factors and the fact that we aren't perfect organisms.

"In biology, mutations are changes to the nucleotide sequence of the genetic material of an organism. Mutations can be caused by copying errors in the genetic material during cell division, by exposure to ultraviolet or ionizing radiation, chemical mutagens, or viruses, or can occur deliberately under cellular control during processes such as hypermutation. In multicellular organisms, mutations can be subdivided into germ line mutations, which can be passed on to descendants, and somatic mutations, which are not transmitted to descendants in animals. Plants sometimes can transmit somatic mutations to their descendants asexually or sexually (in cases where flower buds develop in somatically mutated parts of plants). A new mutation that was not inherited from either parent is called a de novo mutation. The source of the mutation is unrelated to the consequence, although the consequences are related to which cells are affected."

[UnchainedAcolyte]

Originally Posted by Dumar

that still begs the same question. there's no reason for life to respond to the environment in such a way, whether you wanna word it by random chance producing weak and strong organisms or no. life is still changing, and that's the point.

Survival is one of the strongest base instincts an entity/organism can have.

No offense, and I'm speaking as a Christian, it isn't a matter of faith. The why is simply survival and continuation of the species (or transition of the species over time).

You're confusing that with the metaphysical/question of why we're here. Answer that however you please, but science doesn't claim to have that information (yet).

[aychamo_aycono]

Originally Posted by Lonin

I know, I know, responding to Lumie, I'm sorry.

Lumie, you seem to like bringing up infinite regression when it has to do with the creation of life, yet you completely ignore the consequences of infinite regression as it applies to a universe-creating deity. I'm guessing you will likely write God off as being outside of science and logic, therefore not having to adhere to the same principals, but that is a bullshit non-argument.

This is the one point in a discussion that always comes up that always blows my mind. I will *never* understand how the "theist" (for lack of a better word) is able to just say "Oh, god just always existed" and accept that as a good explanation!

When I am forced to talk about this in real life, they always ask "Ok, so where did everything come from?" And a god is their answer! I say, "Well, no one really knows. Physicists have a lot of really complicated ideas that to be honest I really don't understand. I know you think a god created everything and that the god just always existed. To me, just saying a god magically created it out of thin air doesn't explain anything, and is an extremely unsatisfying explanation. There is absolutely no evidence in the entire universe that supports the idea of a god creating everything. It's just a made up reason and there is no real reason to believe that."

Inevitably there reply will be something about faith, to which I say:

"Well, faith is defined as belief without logical reasoning. There is no logical reason to believe in a god. That's what makes your faith so beautiful, because you believe in a god when there is no real reason to [I'm throwing them a bone so it doesn't look like I'm insulting them for their beliefs - a super heavy religious guy the other night completely agreed with this]. If there was conclusive proof that a god existed, there would not be anything special about believing in him, and your faith and worship wouldn't be any more important than understanding that 1+1=2. But science is not faith based, because we have ..." etc.

Sometimes it's interested to explain to them that "Information is basically defined as something that you previously didn't know. There is no scientific information gained from just saying that a magical paranormal entity such as a god just created everything in the universe on a whim. That is why that answer is so unsatisfying."

etc. But, like you said bro, I can't stand when the theists say that shit!