Evolution

[SouthernMo]

4 minutes ago, snowflake said:

You seem to be convinced that evolution is a "scientific fact".....why?  I would start there.......I've come to the conclusion it is more of a religion that science. 

I concede that “proof” or “fact” is difficult to know for certain from a philosophical perspective.

I’ll put it this way: there is far more evidence of our planet existing for billions of years and life evolving slowly here than there is for the traditional religious narrative that this place is 7,186 years old, and life was just “kerplopped” down here every thousand years or so.

[clarkgoble]

1 hour ago, CA Steve said:

Given the way members and leaders generally react to anyone specifically pointing out where leaders are/were wrong, especially living leaders, maybe McConkie was just wrong when he said this.

Or maybe they just disagree with you over where people are wrong.

5 minutes ago, snowflake said:

You seem to be convinced that evolution is a "scientific fact".....why?  I would start there.......I've come to the conclusion it is more of a religion that science. 

The evidence for evolution is pretty overwhelming and with the discovery of DNA, RNA and the various ways mutations can occur the mechanism for evolution is now very well understood. It's empirical with data pointed to so I'm surprised you'd say it is a religion. In my experience those saying that sort of thing typically are pretty woefully ignorant of what scientists mean by evolution and why they think it happens. At this point you can watch evolution happening in a lab. So it's one of the better established theories in science.

[CA Steve]

9 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

Or maybe they just disagree with you over where people are wrong.

 

I don't understand what you are saying here. Please elaborate.

 

10 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

The evidence for evolution is pretty overwhelming and with the discovery of DNA, RNA and the various ways mutations can occur the mechanism for evolution is now very well understood. It's empirical with data pointed to so I'm surprised you'd say it is a religion. In my experience those saying that sort of thing typically are pretty woefully ignorant of what scientists mean by evolution and why they think it happens. At this point you can watch evolution happening in a lab. So it's one of the better established theories in science

If evolution can be considered a religion, so can gravity.

[clarkgoble]

2 minutes ago, CA Steve said:

I don't understand what you are saying here. Please elaborate.

You said:

1 hour ago, CA Steve said:

Given the way members and leaders generally react to anyone specifically pointing out where leaders are/were wrong, especially living leaders, maybe McConkie was just wrong when he said this.

My point was that often say leaders are wrong in places where not everyone agrees there wrong. Having to possibility of being wrong in any point doesn't mean they are wrong in any particular point. So if people are saying the brethren are wrong on say LGBT issues and others including leaders disagree, it doesn't mean that the principle McConkie taught is wrong.

Put an other way instead of talking theology and LDS leaders, change the people we're talking about. Scientists are noted fallibilists. Talk to any of them and they'll point out scientists can be wrong and probably even will point out places they've been wrong in the past. However if someone takes that and says they're wrong about say gravity or evolution they'll strongly disagree. That's because just because scientists can be wrong, it doesn't follow they're wrong about what people claim they're wrong about.

 

[clarkgoble]

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Edited December 11, 2018 by clarkgoble

[snowflake]

2 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

The evidence for evolution is pretty overwhelming and with the discovery of DNA, RNA and the various ways mutations can occur the mechanism for evolution is now very well understood. It's empirical with data pointed to so I'm surprised you'd say it is a religion. In my experience those saying that sort of thing typically are pretty woefully ignorant of what scientists mean by evolution and why they think it happens. At this point you can watch evolution happening in a lab. So it's one of the better established theories in science.

The evidence for evolution is pretty much pie in the sky nonsense according to many leading scientists. Sure we see small micro variations among populations but no truly beneficial mutations that lead to differing species. The mechanism itself is woefully inadequate to explain the diversity of life. The mechanism simply cannot create no information which is why breeding fruit flies for literally thousands of generations still produce fruit flies. Now, just because you have been indoctrinated into the evolution lie since kindergarten does not make it true or science.

Please share how we can watch evolution happening in the lab. 

[snowflake]

2 hours ago, SouthernMo said:

I’ll put it this way: there is far more evidence of our planet existing for billions of years and life evolving slowly here than there is for the traditional religious narrative that this place is 7,186 years old, and life was just “kerplopped” down here every thousand years or so.

I would disagree, you have just been told that story literally hundreds of times throughout your education, probably started in kindergarten.  There is plenty of evidence that support a young earth. 

[SouthernMo]

21 minutes ago, snowflake said:

Please share how we can watch evolution happening in the lab. 

Since you mention fruit flies:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/08/170809140249.htm

[clarkgoble]

1 hour ago, snowflake said:

The evidence for evolution is pretty much pie in the sky nonsense according to many leading scientists.

Name one. Note that "leading scientist" means published in the top journals in their field.

1 hour ago, snowflake said:

Sure we see small micro variations among populations but no truly beneficial mutations that lead to differing species.

Completely untrue. Speciation happens all the time. There's several bushes in the west desert in Utah that have mutated to the point they actually have different number of chromosomes and can't interbreed due to highways splitting areas. A friend of mine studied them while at BYU. (Sorry don't remember the name of the bush) Goatsbeards are an other example of speciation that's happened within the last 100 years here in Utah. Heliconius butterflies have speciated due to evolution. Apple maggots are in the process of speciating and are being studied precisely because of that. Lots of other examples if you Google. (Remember that speciation just means there's enough change - either genetically or morphologically to prevent breeding)

1 hour ago, snowflake said:

The mechanism itself is woefully inadequate to explain the diversity of life. The mechanism simply cannot create no information which is why breeding fruit flies for literally thousands of generations still produce fruit flies.

That makes no sense if DNA counts as information. By definition then any change to DNA is new information.

And breeding fruit flies for generations produces fruit flies that can't interbreed with each other. Which again is the definition of a new species. That's why the fruit fly speciation experiment is pretty much extremely hard evidence for evolution.

1 hour ago, snowflake said:

Please share how we can watch evolution happening in the lab. 

With microbes it's trivial, although I'll assume you'll redefine terms and not accept that. For complex life. But the wiki lists lots of other experiments with complex life.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laboratory_experiments_of_speciation

1 hour ago, snowflake said:

I would disagree, you have just been told that story literally hundreds of times throughout your education, probably started in kindergarten.  There is plenty of evidence that support a young earth. 

LOL. Once you look at the fossils, see their similarities and how they vary with time that's pretty compelling evidence. There's no evidence for a young earth. This is a parody account. Right?

[katherine the great]

2 hours ago, snowflake said:

The evidence for evolution is pretty much pie in the sky nonsense according to many leading scientists.

CFR please. 

Edited December 11, 2018 by katherine the great

[Ouagadougou]

5 hours ago, snowflake said:

The evidence for evolution is pretty much pie in the sky nonsense according to many leading scientists. Sure we see small micro variations among populations but no truly beneficial mutations that lead to differing species. The mechanism itself is woefully inadequate to explain the diversity of life. The mechanism simply cannot create no information which is why breeding fruit flies for literally thousands of generations still produce fruit flies. Now, just because you have been indoctrinated into the evolution lie since kindergarten does not make it true or science.

Please share how we can watch evolution happening in the lab. 

Please tell me you are joking...CFR that it is "pie-in-the-sky nonsense to many leading scientists."

"Evidence of Evolution"

"Scientists have discovered a wealth of evidence concerning human evolution, and this evidence comes in many forms. Thousands of human fossils enable researchers and students to study the changes that occurred in brain and body size, locomotion, diet, and other aspects regarding the way of life of early human species over the past 6 million years. Millions of stone tools, figurines and paintings, footprints, and other traces of human behavior in the prehistoric record tell about where and how early humans lived and when certain technological innovations were invented. Study of human genetics show how closely related we are to other primates – in fact, how connected we are with all other organisms – and can indicate the prehistoric migrations of our species, Homo sapiens, all over the world. Advances in the dating of fossils and artifacts help determine the age of those remains, which contributes to the big picture of when different milestones in becoming human evolved."

http://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence

http://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/human-family-tree

Edited December 12, 2018 by Ouagadougou

[snowflake]

17 hours ago, SouthernMo said:

Since you mention fruit flies:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/08/170809140249.htm

I don't deny that micro evolution occurs, tiny differences in the shape of the wing?  This is evidence against evolution....200 generations later and you still have........fruit flies. 

[snowflake]

16 hours ago, katherine the great said:

CFR please. 

What is the main driving force in the theory of evolution? At university i was taught it was survival of the fittest....turns out that is not the mechanism at all....it is genetic mutation. I just don't see how genetic mutation can lead to the diversity of life we see to day. 

And how do we get past the abiogenesis problem? 

[snowflake]

13 hours ago, Ouagadougou said:

Please tell me you are joking...CFR that it is "pie-in-the-sky nonsense to many leading scientists."

"Evidence of Evolution"

"Scientists have discovered a wealth of evidence concerning human evolution, and this evidence comes in many forms. Thousands of human fossils enable researchers and students to study the changes that occurred in brain and body size, locomotion, diet, and other aspects regarding the way of life of early human species over the past 6 million years. Millions of stone tools, figurines and paintings, footprints, and other traces of human behavior in the prehistoric record tell about where and how early humans lived and when certain technological innovations were invented. Study of human genetics show how closely related we are to other primates – in fact, how connected we are with all other organisms – and can indicate the prehistoric migrations of our species, Homo sapiens, all over the world. Advances in the dating of fossils and artifacts help determine the age of those remains, which contributes to the big picture of when different milestones in becoming human evolved."

http://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence

http://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/human-family-tree

Now you have a lot of faith......you mean from a fossil you can tell what somebody ate?  You can tell how they walked around? Were they married, did they have children? All i'm saying is that you have a lot of faith....not a lot of evidence for your theory. Your theory which is embraced by "all the scientists" also says that there is no God.....are you willing to embrace this too?.....Because all the scientists say so. 

[snowflake]

16 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

Name one. Note that "leading scientist" means published in the top journals in their field.

Completely untrue. Speciation happens all the time. There's several bushes in the west desert in Utah that have mutated to the point they actually have different number of chromosomes and can't interbreed due to highways splitting areas. A friend of mine studied them while at BYU. (Sorry don't remember the name of the bush) Goatsbeards are an other example of speciation that's happened within the last 100 years here in Utah. Heliconius butterflies have speciated due to evolution. Apple maggots are in the process of speciating and are being studied precisely because of that. Lots of other examples if you Google. (Remember that speciation just means there's enough change - either genetically or morphologically to prevent breeding)

That makes no sense if DNA counts as information. By definition then any change to DNA is new information.

And breeding fruit flies for generations produces fruit flies that can't interbreed with each other. Which again is the definition of a new species. That's why the fruit fly speciation experiment is pretty much extremely hard evidence for evolution.

With microbes it's trivial, although I'll assume you'll redefine terms and not accept that. For complex life. But the wiki lists lots of other experiments with complex life.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laboratory_experiments_of_speciation

LOL. Once you look at the fossils, see their similarities and how they vary with time that's pretty compelling evidence. There's no evidence for a young earth. This is a parody account. Right?

You embrace this theory as fact.....do you take the theory to the end and come to the conclusion that there is no God? If not.....why?

[katherine the great]

4 minutes ago, snowflake said:

What is the main driving force in the theory of evolution? At university i was taught it was survival of the fittest....turns out that is not the mechanism at all....it is genetic mutation. I just don't see how genetic mutation can lead to the diversity of life we see to day. 

And how do we get past the abiogenesis problem? 

I asked for supporting references for your statement. I'm an anthropologist and I am not aware of any "leading" biologist or anthropologist who considers evolutionary theory "pie in the sky". It is one of the most well supported theories in science. It is the backbone of biology. Please state who these "leading" scientists are along with their credentials.

[katherine the great]

1 minute ago, snowflake said:

Now you have a lot of faith......you mean from a fossil you can tell what somebody ate?  You can tell how they walked around? 

Um YES! You really need to brush up on your anatomy, biology, anthropology and geology because you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about on this topic. Dental patterns and tooth shape gives us an enormous amount of information about the diet of an organism. If there is any dental calculus left, isotope analysis can tell us exactly the type of foods that were being eaten. And the skeleton my dear tells us exactly how an animal walked around.

[SouthernMo]

6 minutes ago, katherine the great said:

I asked for supporting references for your statement. I'm an anthropologist and I am not aware of any "leading" biologist or anthropologist who considers evolutionary theory "pie in the sky". It is one of the most well supported theories in science. It is the backbone of biology. Please state who these "leading" scientists are along with their credentials.

In defense of @snowflake, one leading heart surgeon I know of believes similarly to him:

“...to think that man evolved from one species to another is, to me, incomprehensible. Man has always been man. Dogs have always been dogs. Monkeys have always been monkeys. It’s just the way genetics works.”

-Russell M. Nelson, 2007

[CA Steve]

10 minutes ago, SouthernMo said:

In defense of @snowflake, one leading heart surgeon I know of believes similarly to him:

“...to think that man evolved from one species to another is, to me, incomprehensible. Man has always been man. Dogs have always been dogs. Monkeys have always been monkeys. It’s just the way genetics works.”

-Russell M. Nelson, 2007

To be fair, when he said that, he was only speaking as an evolved primate.

😎

[clarkgoble]

39 minutes ago, snowflake said:

You embrace this theory as fact.....do you take the theory to the end and come to the conclusion that there is no God? If not.....why?

In science a fact is a theory you have confidence in. There's really no distinction between the two. Everything is a theory. 

And clearly I believe in God. Evolution in no way implies there's no God.

31 minutes ago, SouthernMo said:

In defense of @snowflake, one leading heart surgeon I know of believes similarly to him:

“...to think that man evolved from one species to another is, to me, incomprehensible. Man has always been man. Dogs have always been dogs. Monkeys have always been monkeys. It’s just the way genetics works.”

-Russell M. Nelson, 2007

Yes, which is a bit surprising given his medical background. But most doctors don't end up taking as much science as you would imagine. And Nelson in particular got a BA not a BS at the U - and then back in 1945 well before the discovery of DNA. So how it was taught then was considerably different since the mechanism of evolution wasn't yet known.

 

Edited December 12, 2018 by clarkgoble

[snowflake]

36 minutes ago, katherine the great said:

I asked for supporting references for your statement. I'm an anthropologist and I am not aware of any "leading" biologist or anthropologist who considers evolutionary theory "pie in the sky". It is one of the most well supported theories in science. It is the backbone of biology. Please state who these "leading" scientists are along with their credentials.

Stephen C Meyer, David Burlinski, here is a group of scientists who don't believe in Darwinian evolution. 

https://evolutionnews.org/author/pnelson/

[snowflake]

37 minutes ago, katherine the great said:

Um YES! You really need to brush up on your anatomy, biology, anthropology and geology because you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about on this topic. Dental patterns and tooth shape gives us an enormous amount of information about the diet of an organism. If there is any dental calculus left, isotope analysis can tell us exactly the type of foods that were being eaten. And the skeleton my dear tells us exactly how an animal walked around.

It can't tell you if it reproduced, it can't tell you if it relocated from somewhere, and no you are incorrect, tooth shape gives you zero information on what the diet of an organism was....for example....look at my wife's grill.........is she a vegan, or on the adkin's diet .....all of this is speculation no? 

[snowflake]

33 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

Yes, which is a bit surprising given his medical background. But most doctors don't end up taking as much science as you would imagine. And Nelson in particular got a BA not a BS at the U - and then back in 1945 well before the discovery of DNA. So how it was taught then was considerably different since the mechanism of evolution wasn't yet known.

Please explain this mechanism of evolution.....is it survival of the fittest or genetic mutation?....or something else? 

I was always taught these were the mechanisms.  I just find it incredible that there are no sufficient mathematical models to explain the rise of life and Darwinian evolution...or am in incorrect? 

[snowflake]

38 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

In science a fact is a theory you have confidence in. There's really no distinction between the two. Everything is a theory. 

And clearly I believe in God. Evolution in no way implies there's no God.

Yes, which is a bit surprising given his medical background. But most doctors don't end up taking as much science as you would imagine. And Nelson in particular got a BA not a BS at the U - and then back in 1945 well before the discovery of DNA. So how it was taught then was considerably different since the mechanism of evolution wasn't yet known.

 

Here is a great article by a mathematician I think you would enjoy Clark....katherine the great too!

http://math.utep.edu/Faculty/sewell/articles/mathint.html

[Anijen]

Kathryn the Great is one of my favorite posters and I don't think I have ever disagreed with her (except I'm a BYU fan and she is too, but will root more for Boise). She knows what she is talking about.

I would like to make a note for some of the other posters replying to this topic.  The earth being 4.6 + billion years old is different than the theory of evolution. I believe that the earth is billions of years old and I also believe in microevolution. I have not seen any convincing evidence for a fly becoming a giraffe. I do believe a lot of life came out of the water. I do believe there has been evolution within a species.  I believe there were Neanderthals walking on the earth before Adam left the Garden of Eden, but I still hold that Adam was the first man. 

Having said that; when I die I'm sure I am going to find out a lot of stuff and you know what, the newly learned stuff is not going to bother me.