100 Reasons Why Evolution Is Stupid (Part 1 of 11)

[slingblade]

It's curious the disdain towards religion shown by theists like Davey and Edge.

It's as if they know that their religious beliefs are nonsense and are attempting to drag anything they don't like or understand down to their level.

My own thoughts, exactly.

 

[slingblade]

Notice Davey-boy's silence to all the answers already provided to his "questions" concerning cosmology...and that one question concerning termites.

He can't discuss it. It bores him and he remains willfully ignorant.

 

[Schrodinger's Cat]

It's curious the disdain towards religion shown by theists like Davey and Edge.

It's as if they know that their religious beliefs are nonsense and are attempting to drag anything they don't like or understand down to their level.

I most often see this argument used as a way to try and get evolution out of public schools. If evolution is a religion, it can't be taught in science class. Or, conversely, their religious beliefs (creationism) should ALSO get to be taught in science class.

 

[NavyPack]

With great pleasure!
Somebody mentioned the evolution of the lung and limb and I do not believe it has been answered yet.

The story of the evolution of the lung is actually quite ancient and start in the middle of the silurian, around 420 million years ago.
Osteichthyan are just on the verge of branching out between the actinopterygians*(ray-finned fishes) and the Sarcopterigian (lobe-finned fish).

This is also the time were fish are colonizing fresh waters for the first time. It's a new environment, and quite a rich one at that, so it is a pretty good move, but there is a problem with that...
You see, freshwaters mean shallower bodies of water and these can become quite hot and the ideal gaz law tells us that warmer temperature contain less dissolved oxygen than cooler one. So, the fish were often confronted to oxygenation problem.
One thing they did to compensate that, and contemporary fish are still doing it, is to go to the surface to "gulp" some air. Air above the surface was at a roughly constant level, one significantly higher than in the hot waters.
So the fishies swallowed big gulp of air. This air came into contact with the mucosa of the digestive track and started to diffuse into the blood vessels, after all, the mucosa had already evolved as an optimal area for the diffusion of small molecules from nutrients.
So, that wasn't a very efficient way to do so, but it allowed the fish enrich their blood-stream in sweet, sweet oxygen and that gave them an advantage.

Over time, the digestive track started to invaginate, slowly, into a pocket. This allowed to keep more air at a time, and allowed more gaseous exchange to take place.
Not surprisingly, this invagination took place rather high in the digestive track, just by the heart, in order to provide this very important muscle in oxygen.

As you'd predict, this innovation was selected upon for many generations of fish that stayed in shallower water; mud ponds or swamp environments. Indeed, some probably started to the surface, maybe to escape predators, or to go look for some food they wouldn't have to share with other fish species, or to move away from a pond that started to dry up and into a safer one. Progressively, their primitive lungs grew and became more vascularized allowing them to stay for longer and longer periods of time.
And, the fish that did best at staying out of the water did better, they could find more food, or avoid predators better (remember the old joke, 'I don't have to outrun the lion, I just need to outrun YOU'; these fish didn't have to stay out of the water all their life, they just had to stay longer than the neighbor and only get back when the big bad predator was no longer hungry...).
Today, several species of catfish have adopted a similar behavior, wandering, sometime for miles at a time, in the night. Some other species, such as the Australian mudfish, are able to bury themselves in the mud and wait for several weeks for the return of the rains...

On the other hand, some among these fish actually moved away from these shallow waters. They did not loose their "proto-lung", however, instead, in these species, the organ took a different evolutionary root and started moving toward a more dorsal position.
There, it allowed the fish to equilibrate himself in the water without having to constantly swim. Not only was it great to save energy, it allowed the fish to become more stealthy, wonderful for ambushing preys.
This was so useful that this swim bladder soon become dominant among bony fishes (the condrichtyan, sharks and rays, and the agnathean don't have it, though, as the organ appeared after their split from the osteichthyan lineage).
After a while, however, one more evolutionary innovation took place in the swim bladder. Rather than going to the surface to gulp air, some fish started reversing the initial gas diffusion process. Rather than a breathing organ where the gas diffused from the organ to the blood stream, the same diffusion laws allowed the gas to diffuse from the blood stream toward the organ. This allowed the fish to adjust its swim bladder without going back to the surface (and also allowed the 'closing' of the swim bladder, hence isolating from pathogens). This is the beginning of the physoclistic fish but, even among them, the organ start, in embryology, as an invagination of the digestive track.
Neil Degrasse Tyson wonders in his funny examples of stupid design video about why the design of our respiratory track is such that we can choke on our food, but there is a very good reason for that and, as usual, the reason is evolutionary.


The story of the limbs is actually quite boring in comparison, I think.
As we have seen, we had fish using their primitive lung and starting to wander in the muddy banks of the swamp they live it.
It is also likely that some species did not actually live the
These fish had most of the features required to make a reasonably efficient land animal, they had ribs, they had a pectoral girdle and they had limbs connecting to this pectoral girdle. More importantly, they had little predators to worry about and only had to out-compete their cousins.
So, the pectoral girdle reinforced itself, and the hyelomedular bone decreased in size, allowing for a better mobility of the neck. More strikingly, the fins reinforced itself, gaining new bones allowing for a better support, and these bones progressively evolved into something strikingly similar to ours:

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/upload/2006/04/tiktaalik_limb_lg.jpg

Tiktaalik is probably a good example of what the first primitive tetrapod limbs looked like...

Dave, 'Rook, 154...

This is why we humor you.

Believe it or not, you are not the first, nor shall you be the last, to start up a forum thread firestorm. However, when it occurs, it is due to posts like the one above.

Never doubt that more people have been educated & enlightened; and most decidedly not in the direction you desire.

Lurkers throughout the world can/have viewed these threads. The forumites bend over backwards, most often, to consider the best case senario of your theories. Not all, there is some flak, but you came here. (Did you not read any of the similar threads before embarking on this?)

The converse is usually not true. Meaningful, informative posts are ignored, while only the chaff is responded to, or even acknowledged.

 

[I Ratant]

We're really flying through these! I think we're ready for part three, right David?

1. Termites. The "little critters" in termites stomachs which digest the cellulose can't survive without the termites and the termites can't survive without the critters. Which evolved first?

Answered! (With refs.)

2. Hovind doesn't know where God comes from and says that science doesn't know where the "dirt" or matter came from as a result of the Big Bang, and since it isn't known he assumes it isn't science. It is religion.

Answered, though the question itself seems to be a little vague and more of a "God did it" statement by Hovind than an actual question or refutation.

3. Conservation of Angular Momentum - If the universe began as a swirling dot why do some planets (2) and moons (6) spin "backward"?

Answered! (With refs.)

4. Galaxies and voids - If the Big Bang were true why isn't matter evenly distributed?

Answered with links, though this is still something being studied.

5. Novas and supernovas - If stars evolve why do star deaths not equal star births? Supernova are observed every 30 years but there are less than 300 of them in billions of years. (keeping in mind that I don't believe in a YEC)

Answered! (With refs.)

6. Radio polonium halos - If the Earth formed from a hot mass 4.6 billion years ago then why would the polonium halos not have melted?

Answered with informative link.

.
And every one of those "questions/proofs" can be answered with just a little time spent looking for those subjects on the net personally, instead of having others do the work, which as is DH's wont, always discarded when it's presented.

 

[Flesh]

With great pleasure!
Somebody mentioned the evolution of the lung and limb and I do not believe it has been answered yet.

The story of the evolution of the lung is actually quite ancient and start in the middle of the silurian, around 420 million years ago.
Osteichthyan are just on the verge of branching out between the actinopterygians*(ray-finned fishes) and the Sarcopterigian (lobe-finned fish).

This is also the time were fish are colonizing fresh waters for the first time. It's a new environment, and quite a rich one at that, so it is a pretty good move, but there is a problem with that...
You see, freshwaters mean shallower bodies of water and these can become quite hot and the ideal gaz law tells us that warmer temperature contain less dissolved oxygen than cooler one. So, the fish were often confronted to oxygenation problem.
One thing they did to compensate that, and contemporary fish are still doing it, is to go to the surface to "gulp" some air. Air above the surface was at a roughly constant level, one significantly higher than in the hot waters.
So the fishies swallowed big gulp of air. This air came into contact with the mucosa of the digestive track and started to diffuse into the blood vessels, after all, the mucosa had already evolved as an optimal area for the diffusion of small molecules from nutrients.
So, that wasn't a very efficient way to do so, but it allowed the fish enrich their blood-stream in sweet, sweet oxygen and that gave them an advantage.

Over time, the digestive track started to invaginate, slowly, into a pocket. This allowed to keep more air at a time, and allowed more gaseous exchange to take place.
Not surprisingly, this invagination took place rather high in the digestive track, just by the heart, in order to provide this very important muscle in oxygen.

As you'd predict, this innovation was selected upon for many generations of fish that stayed in shallower water; mud ponds or swamp environments. Indeed, some probably started to the surface, maybe to escape predators, or to go look for some food they wouldn't have to share with other fish species, or to move away from a pond that started to dry up and into a safer one. Progressively, their primitive lungs grew and became more vascularized allowing them to stay for longer and longer periods of time.
And, the fish that did best at staying out of the water did better, they could find more food, or avoid predators better (remember the old joke, 'I don't have to outrun the lion, I just need to outrun YOU'; these fish didn't have to stay out of the water all their life, they just had to stay longer than the neighbor and only get back when the big bad predator was no longer hungry...).
Today, several species of catfish have adopted a similar behavior, wandering, sometime for miles at a time, in the night. Some other species, such as the Australian mudfish, are able to bury themselves in the mud and wait for several weeks for the return of the rains...

On the other hand, some among these fish actually moved away from these shallow waters. They did not loose their "proto-lung", however, instead, in these species, the organ took a different evolutionary root and started moving toward a more dorsal position.
There, it allowed the fish to equilibrate himself in the water without having to constantly swim. Not only was it great to save energy, it allowed the fish to become more stealthy, wonderful for ambushing preys.
This was so useful that this swim bladder soon become dominant among bony fishes (the condrichtyan, sharks and rays, and the agnathean don't have it, though, as the organ appeared after their split from the osteichthyan lineage).
After a while, however, one more evolutionary innovation took place in the swim bladder. Rather than going to the surface to gulp air, some fish started reversing the initial gas diffusion process. Rather than a breathing organ where the gas diffused from the organ to the blood stream, the same diffusion laws allowed the gas to diffuse from the blood stream toward the organ. This allowed the fish to adjust its swim bladder without going back to the surface (and also allowed the 'closing' of the swim bladder, hence isolating from pathogens). This is the beginning of the physoclistic fish but, even among them, the organ start, in embryology, as an invagination of the digestive track.
Neil Degrasse Tyson wonders in his funny examples of stupid design video about why the design of our respiratory track is such that we can choke on our food, but there is a very good reason for that and, as usual, the reason is evolutionary.


The story of the limbs is actually quite boring in comparison, I think.
As we have seen, we had fish using their primitive lung and starting to wander in the muddy banks of the swamp they live it.
It is also likely that some species did not actually live the
These fish had most of the features required to make a reasonably efficient land animal, they had ribs, they had a pectoral girdle and they had limbs connecting to this pectoral girdle. More importantly, they had little predators to worry about and only had to out-compete their cousins.
So, the pectoral girdle reinforced itself, and the hyelomedular bone decreased in size, allowing for a better mobility of the neck. More strikingly, the fins reinforced itself, gaining new bones allowing for a better support, and these bones progressively evolved into something strikingly similar to ours:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/upload/2006/04/tiktaalik_limb_lg.jpg
Tiktaalik is probably a good example of what the first primitive tetrapod limbs looked like...

Thank you, I learned something new today! This is why I lurk in long threads like these. I know somewhere along the way gems such as this will show up.

 

[Pup]

Which particular aspect of it marks it out as Lamarckian rather than Darwinian?

Okay, here's Evolution for Dummies. This shows why people who present these supposed paradoxes are clueless about what evolution actually is, and why it's silly to take them seriously, and why we keep saying "straw man."

Let’s take a man and his wife, and say they live by the ocean. They swim in the ocean all the time, and hold their breath and swim underwater every day. Then they have kids, which also swim all the time, and hold their breath to swim underwater, because they are all pearl divers. Generation after generation of this family stays by the ocean, each son and daughter marry other people who live by the ocean and swim all the time. How long will it take before one of the children has the ability to breath underwater? The correct answer is never, but evolutionists believe that in a situation like this, eventually one of the children will be born with gills, and will be able to breath underwater.

Here's something like what evolution would predict:

The family has kids. Some of them, because kids vary, have greater lung capacity than others.

If there's a reason that the best swimmers have better health (say, they can spear-fish better and get better nutrition that way), the kids with the greater lung capacities will tend to have healthier families who have more offspring.

The ones with poor lung capacity will have scrawny families that reproduce less in comparison. Eventually, after enough generations, greater lung capacity will be a common trait, because more people with greater lung capacity will be reproducing.

The key points:

--Genetic variation which produces a trait that's useful in the environment. Lamarck would say just trying hard is good enough.

--Something that affects the reproduction rates of those with and without the variation, not just a habit or desire to swim a lot.

The story completely omits those two things, which are the whole engine that drives evolution. As others have mentioned, whales are an example of how far this can go. But there's no way to know exactly how the people would eventually adapt if swimming was the source of health and nutrition; the combination of environmental pressures and genetics are too unpredictable.

 

[GrandMasterFox]

I most often see this argument used as a way to try and get evolution out of public schools. If evolution is a religion, it can't be taught in science class. Or, conversely, their religious beliefs (creationism) should ALSO get to be taught in science class.

Which is why I keep wondering why we don't talk about Xenu and Scientology in the classroom. All beliefs should be taught equally right?

 

[Brainache]

Which is why I keep wondering why we don't talk about Xenu and Scientology in the classroom. All beliefs should be taught equally right?

The Flying Spaghetti Monster is your friend.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster

 

[Simon39759]

Dave, 'Rook, 154...
This is why we humor you.
Believe it or not, you are not the first, nor shall you be the last, to start up a forum thread firestorm. However, when it occurs, it is due to posts like the one above.
Never doubt that more people have been educated & enlightened; and most decidedly not in the direction you desire.
Lurkers throughout the world can/have viewed these threads. The forumites bend over backwards, most often, to consider the best case senario of your theories. Not all, there is some flak, but you came here. (Did you not read any of the similar threads before embarking on this?)
The converse is usually not true. Meaningful, informative posts are ignored, while only the chaff is responded to, or even acknowledged.

Thank you, I learned something new today! This is why I lurk in long threads like these. I know somewhere along the way gems such as this will show up.

Waw... shucks; thanks guys!

Here is the thing, I didn't write this post (and the equally verbose one on the Big Bang theory a few pages back) for anybody in particular.

Now, Dave's last few posts suggest that he is able to admit when he is wrong and to try to correct his misconceptions. That's an admirable trait and one that, I believe, is all too rare, in believers and skeptics alike, but I didn't particularly target him and am not 'trying to convert him'. If he can read some of these posts and realize that the modern scientific positions are not pulled out of their butt but that they have good and valid reasons to think as they do, yeah, good for him. If he does not and choose to convince himself that scientific knowledge is but one more religious dogma, well, it's his lost.

Now, the main reasons I wrote this is that, it's bloody ****in' interesting! I love to read about this stuff, and I love to write about it. If I can share this love with some other nerd, all the best! My love for science is a fully open, polyamourous even, relationship!

 

[nescafe]

I don't agree with Hovind on much, I just think, quite possibly in my admitted ignorance, that he has raised some good points.

He hasn't. All of his "points" are based on his hilariously inaccurate understanding of, well, everything. See Thunderf00t's "Why do people laugh at creationists" series for a sound mocking.

 

[Dancing David]

I will explain this again. This thread is the first of 11 parts dealing with the subject of evolution as given in 6 definitions, the first being Cosmic evolution - the origin of time, space and matter. Big Bang.

If there are objections to that being what you would term as "evolution" please state why it isn't and then address the two points of contention I raised from the video.

1. What Exploded? Which has been addressed as space and time, which I don't think is a very good answer but it is the best I have from this forum.

As stated before, there was not an explosion. The theory does not attempt to answer that, there are some great speculative explanations.

But if my layman answers aren't sufficient, maybe SMT can help.

The boffos will tell you it is an inherent part of GR and the 'negative pressure' of gravity or some such.

I highly recommend Guth's book.

2. Why the Big Bang Theory has changed so much in a relatively short period of time? Which has been addressed as being what science does.

I would argue that what has changed is the measurements, the Hubble constant has been refined, the understanding of Gr and relevant measures have been found. There was a period of exploration to determine the structure of the CMB as well.

But really the parameters of the theory that have changed, an understanding of the unity of the electromagnetic and weak force, and the unity of the weak force and the strong force. These were basically big changes in the theoretical physics of the 70s and 80s, now when and if super symmetry and the unity of gravity si found, maybe at the LHC, maybe not, then theory will change its parameters again.

The theory remains the same, there is the Hubble constant, interpreted as cosmological redshift. But the understanding of the physics does change and the theory is expanded by it.

And really the match from the theory to the actual elemental abundance is pretty cool.

Most recently the measurement that is looks like the rate of expansion is increasing ahs led the resurrection of lambda in GR and the theory of dark energy.

My next post will be Part 2 of 11.

 

[Foster Zygote]

You do realize that, according to the Biblical kind if humans are apes then no evolution took place? The Biblical kinds are divisions of life forms wherein each division allows for cross fertility within its own limits. The boundary then is drawn where fertilization ceases to occur.

Could you please quote chapter and verse regarding exactly where the Bible states this?

Now according to science can an ape and a human produce? According to the Bible they can't. Which one is right.

I'm sorry, are you under the impression that evolutionary biology maintains that humans and other ape species are able to produce viable offspring?

I know that isn't a fair question because evolution is stupid and the Bible is true, but it was fun.

How is it an unfair question? It's an utterly ridiculous statement that demonstrates nothing but obstinate ignorance.

There are 14 pages of responses to my OP so far. I'm on page 4 going down through them all. No one has even attempted to answer my questions thus far.

This statement is blatantly false.

What exploded in the Big Bang.

And you have been told a number of times that the universe is "exploding". The more accurate way of saying this is that the universe is expanding. The universe is expanding right now.

How do you explain the rapid transmogrification of the BBT?

It's called the scientific method. If you really insist on this objection then you must object to all of science. Expansion cosmology was refined just like atomic theory was refined. Do you believe in atoms?

 

[Schrodinger's Cat]

Thank you, I learned something new today! This is why I lurk in long threads like these. I know somewhere along the way gems such as this will show up.

that was a great post

 

[Schrodinger's Cat]

I'm sorry, are you under the impression that evolutionary biology maintains that humans and other ape species are able to produce viable offspring?

Again, the problem with people who do not actually study evolution, but base what they think evolution is off of fundamentalist websites.

I actually had success one time on a thread with a poster on Wired that I had forgotten about. Unlike David, he was a creationist who was honestly trying to learn why people accept evolutionary theory. He posted all these things about what evolution said and why they were ridiculous. I explained to him, point by point, that evolutionary theory does not say this, someone just made that up (i.e. an ape and a human can interbreed) and I told him what evolutionary DOES say instead. And he actually read what I said, and he looked it up himself after I gave him some sources. And he did admit that, while he wasn't quite convinced, evolution was not nearly as ridiculous and implausable as he had thought. He had been misled by lying creationist propaganda that evolutionary theory claimed things that it never ever claimed, and that it worked a completely different way than he had been lead to believe.

 

[Foster Zygote]

Again, the problem with people who do not actually study evolution, but base what they think evolution is off of fundamentalist websites.

I actually had success one time on a thread with a poster on Wired that I had forgotten about. Unlike David, he was a creationist who was honestly trying to learn why people accept evolutionary theory. He posted all these things about what evolution said and why they were ridiculous. I explained to him, point by point, that evolutionary theory does not say this, someone just made that up (i.e. an ape and a human can interbreed) and I told him what evolutionary DOES say instead. And he actually read what I said, and he looked it up himself after I gave him some sources. And he did admit that, while he wasn't quite convinced, evolution was not nearly as ridiculous and implausable as he had thought. He had been misled by lying creationist propaganda that evolutionary theory claimed things that it never ever claimed, and that it worked a completely different way than he had been lead to believe.

This sounds similar to my own rejection of creationism and acceptance of evolutionary biology. In my case it was due to a very good anthropology professor.

 

[edge]

Edge,
It only took one sdfee838KKKKsdfee838KKKK minute of veiwing ^8-djdj.n**799dkr;e099 that video to determine that "DNA, the most ;mdkr;e0dkr;e0&)0|e densely packed information in the universe" is just ()*YYhhhxxso3h
()*//hhhxxso3h like our written language!*&*jgeu3fow

You've opened my eyes!!!

post script;
not to be impolite, but I do believe you owe me a single example of the evidence against evolution being swept under the rug.

That's not what they are saying.
Explain what this is? (sdfee838KKKKsdfee838KKKK)?
Second video explains it better.
Did you view that one?
They are saying that the first DNA had to be created, because it contains information that started it all, basically. And it is machine like which had to be programmed.
Much better than computers today. They even want to model computers in the same way and are looking into that.

My thought is that evolution was set free for millions of years to a point where it was stopped at Neanderthals., we were or they were re-created to become spiritual beings able to have the first contact with the creator.
If it had not been that way we wouldn't be where we are at today.
If we were inserted into the world or re-created those same laws continue in our line and we are now evolving too but to what end.
I believe since Cro-Magnon we have evolved separate and that we are now evolving with more mind powers that are starting to show which may be considered paranormal even though they can't be proved yet because it is in it's infancy.

The ultimate would be that we draw all our energy from starlight like plants and maybe minerals from the earth, with more advanced minds capable of things that are indistinct now.
The example I am giving you does not eliminate God, and Christians have to adapt to this.

 

[kerikiwi]

They even want to model computers in the same way and are looking into that...


My thought ...
If we were inserted ..
I believe ..
The ultimate would be ..

Who are 'they'?
Your thought, if we were, you believe, the ultimate would be.
Well, that's nice. Now,back to the real world where things are based on evidence not fantasy..

 

[Paulhoff]

My thought is that evolution was set free for millions of years to a point where it was stopped at Neanderthals., we were or they were re-created to become spiritual beings able to have the first contact with the creator.

I sure hope you are kidding, evolution, stopped.

And Spiritual Beings, what a downgrade.

Paul

 

[SOdhner]

I believe since Cro-Magnon we have evolved separate and that we are now evolving with more mind powers that are starting to show which may be considered paranormal even though they can't be proved yet because it is in it's infancy.

This whole thing is so very, very far from everything we're talking about here it should probably be in another thread. If everyone were to try to address the ideas you've raised it would completely derail the conversation.