Evolution discussion

[Darkwing Duck]

Whoa, I need to go all One Brow here. But fear not, it will not be a one sentence reply.

What you've described makes some sense, and it follows plausible logic. Basically, you're saying that if a species evolves to a certain point via a process of genetic transmutation it might not be able to (or need to) evolve/mutate much further, and moreover the process of genetic transmutation the species has experienced may not be reversible.

This is incorrect in multiple manners. When looking at evolutionary processes, you look at a population, not a species. You look at that population's gene pool in relation to other populations of the same species. If the population can no long create viable, reproducing offspring, then they are no longer the same species. There is no appreciable line that the two populations cross to say "yesterday we were the same species; today we're not." This is seen with horses and donkeys. They can't make offspring that reproduce (mules). However, there have been some documented cases of a female mule giving birth to a viable offspring. Also, terms like "reversible" and "further" are improper terms to use for examining evolution. A population's gene frequency could return to past level, but I would imagine that the genotype would be very difficult to return to if two population were at the brink of speciation. It would be asking horses and donkey's to naturally evolve their genotypes to become viably the same species again. Thirdly, evolution CAN'T stop, since it's about gene frequencies in a population. Only if a species stops reproducing does evolution stop, and after that generation dies, you're extinct. Otherwise, gene frequencies will always be different across generations. Populations will grow or decrease. There is no concept of "evolve further." Traits might stagnate, but the environment, both physically and behaviorally, is tremendously dynamic that natural selection will always be an influence on gene frequencies and populations, and thus evolution.

However, such a theory fails to take into account a few valid and significant bodies of evidence that indicate:

1) Certain species, most notably mankind itself, did not come into existence at the time that Darwin proposed in his theory. There is compelling physical evidence that advanced human civilizations existed on multiple continents (and on land masses now submerged) hundreds of millions of years ago. This is before such genetic and cultural development would be plausible or even possible had mankind systematically evolved from other 'apelike' organisms. In other words, mankind made his entrance on the world stage and became civilized too early to have developed along Darwin's proposed evolutionary time scale.

"Hundreds of millions of years ago?" Need to show your work on that one. Modern day humans (species sapiens) date back to around 500,000 years ago. The specific human line (genus Homo) dates back to about 2 million years ago. The general human line, what fossils that have distinct human physical traits, dates somewhere in the 4-6 million year ago range. Hundreds of millions of years ago is the dinosaur age and prior, so you have to actually bring actual evidence with dating techniques for that claim.

2) If you accept the theory that mankind evolved from an organism in Africa now euphemistically called the "missing link" (between man and a type of ape) you would need to accept that ALL human beings ultimately are descended from that species since that is the origin of critical genetic transmutation. Moreover, mankind would have migrated from that geographic point of origin to populate the earth. Again, however, archeological evidence does not reveal a pattern population development and migration that fits the 'we-all-came-from-Africa' idea. It becomes a real long shot.

There are, looking at the one table I'm looking at, at least a dozen fossils that share traits that are distinctively human that predate the fairly well established Homo line. These things were more ubiquitous than you might think. Human timelines, and any existing and extinct species evolutionary timeline, get modified upon existence of new evidence. That's what science is. 50 years ago, the thought of feathers on dinosaurs would have been preposterous to paleontologists.

3) The "leaps" of evolutionary development between species are often quite dramatic rather than small, and this directly implies that there should be at the very least one generation's worth of intermediate organisms documenting the categorical advancement of one species to another. In fact, there should be multiple intermediate organisms representing not only the ones that became a surviving species, but also those that failed to make the evolutionary cut and died out. Yet, in the fossil record these intermediate organisms do not appear.

Not particularly. Look at Canis lupus. I'll throw some pictures in for you of two animals that are of the same species.

That's quite the diversity for one species. Plus, one generation is completely negligible on an evolutionary scale. Ten generations is negligible, unless there's a radical change in the gene pool, either through a drastic cut in the amount of the population, or a dramatic increase in the pool through the combination of two or more populations of the same species.

In sum, I can appreciate if someone wishes to adhere to the 'origin of species' theory. A person is free to believe whatever he or she wishes, and even better if s/he is willing to explore the subject scientifically. However, taking a step back from the microscope and looking at the bigger picture, I don't think evolutionary biologists can claim that Darwin's theory is anything more than that, a theory. Moreover, it is a theory that seems to rely upon a limited amount of circumstantial evidence, as well as rather subjective interpretation of that evidence.

This is a serious question. How can anyone believe you've in any way shape or form looked at evolution scientifically when you use the "it's just a theory" line? I understand that you haven't used it in this context for the Theory of Evolution, and just Darwin's hypothesis from one hundred and fifty years ago, but the Theory of Evolution is on par, scientifically, with the Theory of Gravity, and the Theory of Plate Tectonics, amongst a myriad of other scientific theories, so any legitimate proofs against that theory would have to be on the same scale of evidence that would debunk Gravity, Relativity, and so on.

 

[Darkwing Duck]

Yahoo link on a prediction of what we will evolve to look like:
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/human-face-might-look-100-171207969.html

I don't know. It'd creep me out going down on a bug eyed freak. Unless you're taking reproduction of the hands and *****/****** of the actual person and population as a whole, then any physical traits have to be some sort of attractive base, else anime boy and girl are going to die alone.

 

[MVP]

1) Certain species, most notably mankind itself, did not come into existence at the time that Darwin proposed in his theory. There is compelling physical evidence that advanced human civilizations existed on multiple continents (and on land masses now submerged) hundreds of millions of years ago. This is before such genetic and cultural development would be plausible or even possible had mankind systematically evolved from other 'apelike' organisms. In other words, mankind made his entrance on the world stage and became civilized too early to have developed along Darwin's proposed evolutionary time scale.

your claim is most ridiculous scientific controversy I read in this discussion so far and obviously is incorrect. Unless you made sincere mistake and meant thousands of years instead of hundreds of millions.

2) If you accept the theory that mankind evolved from an organism in Africa now euphemistically called the "missing link" (between man and a type of ape) you would need to accept that ALL human beings ultimately are descended from that species since that is the origin of critical genetic transmutation. Moreover, mankind would have migrated from that geographic point of origin to populate the earth. Again, however, archeological evidence does not reveal a pattern population development and migration that fits the 'we-all-came-from-Africa' idea. It becomes a real long shot.

Seriously where are you getting your data? What missing link you talking? There is no missing links - homo sapiens evolution from apes is well documented and understood. Watch "Walking with caveman" - great documentary if you to lazy to read.
We all owe Africa for our ancestry. Hominid migration and spread from Africa is well described fact. Not sure why you even questioning that?

 

[Ferguson_Mellochill]

Okay, let me see what I can 'dig up' for you as evidence that intelligent man existed hundreds of millions of years ago.....

I'll update this post with edits.

#1 - Large-scale, open-air nuclear fission reactor discovered in Gabon Republic, dated to be 1.8 bn years old. It exceeds our current technology.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/science/nuclear-reactor-in-use-18-billion-years-ago-32926.html

https://www.spacedaily.com/news/early-earth-04n.html


#2 - Numerous discoveries are documented in the work of Michael A. Cremo and Richard L. Thompson in their book Forbidden Archeology and research publications. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/88473.Forbidden_archeology_

Over the past two centuries archeologists and anthropologists have ignored, forgotten and suppressed vast quantities of evidence showing that human beings like ourselves have existed on this planet for tens of millions of years. Forbidden Archeology documents a systematic process of "knowledge filtration" and constitutes a serious challenge to the Darwinian theory of evolution.(less)

Human skulls - https://www.forbiddenarcheology.com/skbones.htm

'Man-made' artifiacts - https://www.forbiddenarcheology.com/anomalous.htm


Several published research studies and lectures; here are a few:


Cremo, M. A. (2003) "The Nineteenth Century California Gold Mine Discoveries: Archeology, Darwinism, and Evidence for Extreme Human Antiquity." World Archaeological Congress 5, June 21-26, 2003 Washington, D.C.

Abstract

In 1880, Harvard University’s Peabody Museum of Natural History published The Auriferous Gravels of the Sierra Nevada of California, by Dr. Josiah D. Whitney, state geologist of California. In this book, Whitney documented extensive discoveries by California gold miners of advanced human artifacts and anatomically modern human skeletal in undisturbed Tertiary deposits. According to modern geological reporting, most of the discoveries occurred in Eocene river channels, capped by solid layers of Miocene latite several hundred feet thick. The discoveries attracted the attention of scientists worldwide, but were rejected primarily because they contradicted the then emerging Darwinian picture of human evolution.

Note: Tertiary is the term for a geologic period from 65 million to 2.6 million years ago, a time span that lies between the superseded Secondary period and the Quaternary. (Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tertiary)


Cremo, Michael A. (2000) "The Discoveries of Carlos Ribeiro: A Controversial Episode in Nineteenth Century European Archeology" Presented at the "History of Archeology" session of the European Association of Archeologists Annual Meeting, September 11-15, 2000, Lisbon, Portugal.

Abstract:

Carlos Ribeiro was director of the Geological Survey of Portugal and a member of the Portuguese Academy of Sciences. In the years 1860-63, Ribeiro surveyed discoveries of stone tools found at various sites in Portugal, and was surprised to find that some of the sites were of Tertiary age. Ribeiro proceeded to make his own collections of implements from Tertiary formations in Portugal. He presented his discoveries in 1871 to the Portugeuse Academy of Sciences at Lisbon and in 1872 to the International Congress of Prehistoric Anthropology and Archeology at Brussels. Some scientists accepted the human manufacture of the objects and their Tertiary provenance, but others did not. Ribeiro presented more specimens at the meeting of the International Congress of Prehistoric Anthropology and Archeology in Lisbon in 1880. A special commission was appointed to judge them. As part of their investigation, the commission members took a field trip to the Miocene formations at Monte Redondo, at Otta, and there one of the commissioners discovered an implement in situ. For many decades, Ribeiro's discoveries had influential supporters in archeology. But the discovery of Pithecanthropus erectus in Pleistocene formations in Java ended serious consideration of Tertiary toolmakers. The discoveries of Ribeiro, and other evidences for Tertiary man uncovered by European archeologists and geologists, are today attributed (if they are discussed at all) to the inevitable mistakes of untutored members of a young discipline.


Cremo, Michael. A. (1995) "The Reception of Forbidden Archeology: An Encounter Between Western Science and a Non-Western Perspective on Human Antiquity." Kentucky State University Institute for Liberal Studies Sixth Annual Interdisciplinary Conference: Science and Culture.

Kentucky State University Institute of Liberal Studies, Sixth Annual Interdisciplinary Conference: Science and Culture, held at Frankfort, Kentucky, March 30 - April 1, 1995. A short abstract is published in the conference proceedings. The entire text of the paper appears in ISKCON Communications Journal (Vol. 5, No. 1, 1997).

Abstract:

Forbidden Archeology, by Michael Cremo and Richard Thompson of the Bhaktivedanta Institute, documents voluminous scientifically reported evidence contradicting current ideas about human antiquity. This suppressed evidence supports accounts of extreme human antiquity encountered in ancient India's Puranic literature. Responses to Forbidden Archeology from mainstream and nonmainstream knowledge communities illuminate Western science's descent from self-proclaimed epistemic superiority into a diverse multipolar global intellectual constellation from which may emerge a new consensus on human origins.

 

[Darkwing Duck]

Okay, let me see what I can 'dig up' for you as evidence that intelligent man existed hundreds of millions of years ago.....

I'll update this post with edits.

#1 - Large-scale, open-air nuclear fission reactor discovered in Gabon Republic, dated to be 1.8 bn years old.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/science/nuclear-reactor-in-use-18-billion-years-ago-32926.html

https://www.spacedaily.com/news/early-earth-04n.html

And very much natural, from what I've read so far. What's the point?

Here's a paper on it. https://www.physics.isu.edu/radinf/Files/Okloreactor.pdf

 

[Ferguson_Mellochill]

And very much natural, from what I've read so far. What's the point?

Here's a paper on it. https://www.physics.isu.edu/radinf/Files/Okloreactor.pdf

Believe that if you'd like, but nuclear reactors of that scale and precision simply aren't naturally occurring. From the Epoch Times article:

Faced with these findings, scientists consider the mine to be a “naturally occurring” nuclear reactor. However, Dr. Glenn T. Seaborg, former head of the United States Atomic Energy Commission and Nobel Prize winner for his work in the synthesis of heavy elements, pointed out that for uranium to “burn” in a reaction, conditions must be exactly right. For example, the water involved in the nuclear reaction must be extremely pure. Even a few parts per million of contaminant will “poison” the reaction, bringing it to a halt. The problem is that no water that pure exists naturally anywhere in the world.

Besides, several specialists in reactor engineering remarked that at no time in the geologically estimated history of the Oklo deposits was the uranium ore rich enough in U-235 for a natural reaction to have taken place.

* * *

When new discoveries are made, they can be uncomfortable and controversial. There is likely to be natural resistance from others in the scientific community. However, if you look at evidence objectively, it cannot simply be dismissed, and to do so is subjective.

 

[Ferguson_Mellochill]

Seriously where are you getting your data? What missing link you talking? There is no missing links - homo sapiens evolution from apes is well documented and understood. Watch "Walking with caveman" - great documentary if you to lazy to read.
We all owe Africa for our ancestry. Hominid migration and spread from Africa is well described fact. Not sure why you even questioning that?

Because I don't regard it as true, but rather a subjective interpretation of data that may not lead to that conclusion

 

[Darkwing Duck]

Believe that if you'd like, but nuclear reactors of that scale and precision simply aren't naturally occurring. From the Epoch Times article:

Faced with these findings, scientists consider the mine to be a “naturally occurring” nuclear reactor. However, Dr. Glenn T. Seaborg, former head of the United States Atomic Energy Commission and Nobel Prize winner for his work in the synthesis of heavy elements, pointed out that for uranium to “burn” in a reaction, conditions must be exactly right. For example, the water involved in the nuclear reaction must be extremely pure. Even a few parts per million of contaminant will “poison” the reaction, bringing it to a halt. The problem is that no water that pure exists naturally anywhere in the world.

Besides, several specialists in reactor engineering remarked that at no time in the geologically estimated history of the Oklo deposits was the uranium ore rich enough in U-235 for a natural reaction to have taken place.

* * *

When new discoveries are made, they can be uncomfortable and controversial. There is likely to be natural resistance from others in the scientific community. However, if you look at evidence objectively, it cannot simply be dismissed, and to do so is subjective.

So that fella was in Gabon 1.8 Billion Years Ago? Everything that I read, which wasn't a newspaper article, rather a scholarly paper, state that there was absolutely zero evidence that those weren't anything but naturally occurring nuclear reactor. You know what else is a naturally occurring natural nuclear reactor? The sun. I hope you aren't going to argue that man made that.

 

[Darkwing Duck]

Because I don't regard it as true, but rather a subjective interpretation of data that may not lead to that conclusion

To paraphrase Indiana Jones, [Science] is the search for fact, not truth. If you want truth, start a philosophy thread.

 

[Ferguson_Mellochill]

In the 1880s and beyond there has been ample archeological evidence to draw Darwin's origin of species into question, if not into doubt altogether. However, such evidence has been suppressed and subjectively interpreted by some in a scientific community who are personally pre-invested in the Darwinian paradigm.

Telling me that such and such is a "well accepted" theory does not make it true, especially when there are reputable scientists who are willing to argue to the contrary even at the expense of their academic careers.

Also, posting two disparate pictures of dogs does not satisfy my question seeking evidence of intermediate organisms. There are glaring gaps in the fossil record across the entire spectrum of Darwin's proposed tree of evolution.

 

[Ferguson_Mellochill]

To paraphrase Indiana Jones, [Science] is the search for fact, not truth. If you want truth, start a philosophy thread.

Fair enough. Yet certain objective facts render Darwin's 'origin of species' theory highly improbable.

 

[MVP]

There are glaring gaps in the fossil record across the entire spectrum of Darwin's proposed tree of evolution.

Can you describe what glaring gaps you personally see? And as we all know very well there were millions of new fossils and discoveries since Darwin, so his proposed tree of evolution was adjusted numerous times in regards to those findings. See whale evolution video again.