Evolution - A serious question.

[One Brow]

That must be why I keep asking questions about "this," but the responses have done nothing to convince me that "this" is anything other than absurd "concept" speculation with no empirical evidence to back it up.

Responses are guided in part by expectations toward that response. In particular, when it is pointed out that there is no Hopeless Monster in evolution by different posters in different ways, and you keep coming back to that idea, people feel it's not worth an investment of time to get really serious.

This is especially true given the wealth of evidence presented at sites like talkorigins.org, including page after page of details on empical evidence. I think it's rude to paste in pages of copied text/pictures, personally. I also think that if I provide links, you'll ignore them. have you read any of the links provided so far? Which ones?

 

[billyshelby]

I like the way this thread turned out. The pseudo intellectuals got weeded out fast, the militantly blinded endure unbelievable shelling to put their points up on a tee, and the 3 people who actually know anything keep wacking those points out of the park. Carry on.

 

[TroutBum]

I like the way this thread turned out. The pseudo intellectuals got weeded out fast, the militantly blinded endure unbelievable shelling to put their points up on a tee, and the 3 people who actually know anything keep wacking those points out of the park. Carry on.

It's way too technical for me and my uber-high school education, but thanks to google, I am sort-of keeping up. (but not really)

 

[The-Joker]

I like the way this thread turned out. The pseudo intellectuals got weeded out fast, the militantly blinded endure unbelievable shelling to put their points up on a tee, and the 3 people who actually know anything keep wacking those points out of the park. Carry on.

I'll have you know I don't know anything...

Unless I'm one of the militantly blinded, then carry on.

 

[billyshelby]

It's way too technical for me and my uber-high school education, but thanks to google, I am sort-of keeping up. (but not really)

It's way too technical for almost anyone. I like the anecdotal stuff since the science is over my head. The Hollywood story about Darwin is that he was nearly scooped. He had his theory after the Beagle voyage but spent like 15 years studying Mollusks. It was only when some other guy was about to take credit for his idea that he came forward. Brilliant guy, but human like the rest of us.

 

[Jazz Spazz]

I absolutely encourage you to keep on laughing. It's much easier than the alternative.

Well, that's pretty damn harsh right there. If I could +8 you again, I would.

What's so harsh about it? It seems pretty breezy, chillin on the beach weaksause to me. Get a clue bub. There is no alternative to laughter.

 

[Jazz Spazz]

I like the way this thread turned out. The pseudo intellectuals got weeded out fast, the militantly blinded endure unbelievable shelling to put their points up on a tee, and the 3 people who actually know anything keep wacking those points out of the park. Carry on.

It's way too technical for me and my uber-high school education, but thanks to google, I am sort-of keeping up. (but not really)

What he's saying is he likes how this thread has evolved.
The Cro-Magnon man is gone, but the Ape's are still here and are fighting with the closest thing to Homo Sapiens we have in this thread, who by the way are using the Ape grunts as batting practice balls.

The funny thing is, it will take God to tell us who is in which category.

 

[PearlWatson]

when it is pointed out that there is no Hopeless Monster in evolution by different posters in different ways,

No, you all claim it was a gradual process but I point out that there is no evidence of a gradual process.
Even the "ancestral population" of the supposed ape-like ancestor is still a "concept" because it doesn't show up in the fossil record.

David Raup (geologist): The evidence we find in the geological record is not nearly as compatible with darwinian natural selection as we would like it to be. Darwin was completely aware of this. He was embarrassed by the fossil record because it didn't look the way he predicted it would and, as a result, he devoted a long section of his Origin of Species to explain and rationalize the differences. There were several problems, but the principle one was that the geologic record did not then and still does not yield a finely graduated chain of slow and progressive evolution.​

 

[One Brow]

No, you all claim it was a gradual process but I point out that there is no evidence of a gradual process.

You point it out incorrectly. We have osberved new secies being formed, it is always a gradual process.
https://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.html
https://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/speciation.html

If it is a gradual process today, why would it have been different in the past?

Even the "ancestral population" of the supposed ape-like ancestor is still a "concept" because it doesn't show up in the fossil record.

We actually don't know. Autralopithecines may or may not be human ancestors, same for habilus and erectus. So we may indeed have human acestors. What we do have is a plethora of fossils illustrating the transitions from proto-ape to human in varying ways.

https://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/specimen.html

David Raup (geologist):

https://commondescent.net/articles/Raup_quote.htm

Now let me take a step back from the problem and very generally discuss natural selection and what we know about it. I think it is safe to say that we know for sure that natural selection, as a process, does work. There is a mountain of experimental and observational evidence, much of it predating genetics, which shows that natural selection as a biological process works. ... Now with regard to the fossil record, we certainly see change. If any of us were to be put down in the Cretaceous landscape we would immediately recognize the difference. Some of the plants and animals would be familiar but most would have changed and some of the types would be totally different from those living today. . . This record of change pretty clearly demonstrates that evolution has occurred if we define evolution simply as change; but it does not tell us how this change too place, and that is really the question. If we allow that natural selection works, as we almost have to do, the fossil record doesn't tell us whether it was responsible for 90 percent of the change we see or 9 percent, or .9 percent.

 

[The-Joker]

No, you all claim it was a gradual process but I point out that there is no evidence of a gradual process.
Even the "ancestral population" of the supposed ape-like ancestor is still a "concept" because it doesn't show up in the fossil record.

David Raup (geologist): The evidence we find in the geological record is not nearly as compatible with darwinian natural selection as we would like it to be. Darwin was completely aware of this. He was embarrassed by the fossil record because it didn't look the way he predicted it would and, as a result, he devoted a long section of his Origin of Species to explain and rationalize the differences. There were several problems, but the principle one was that the geologic record did not then and still does not yield a finely graduated chain of slow and progressive evolution.​

As you super-Christians like to say... absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

 

[PearlWatson]

We have osberved new secies being formed
We actually don't know. Autralopithecines may or may not be human ancestors, same for habilus and erectus. So we may indeed have human acestors. What we do have is a plethora of fossils illustrating the transitions from proto-ape to human in varying ways.

We've seen mice turn into other types of mice.
We see wildflowers become slightly different types of wildflowers.
We can see humans turn into different colors of humans.
Woopdeedoo.
What you can't show me is the gradual progression from a single celled organism to a mouse, or the gradual progression of any of that mouses physical attributes.

What we have with your "proto-ape" is your assurances that this "proto-ape" evolved into a human (through random mutation and natural selection). We have no idea whatsoever if we even descended from the "proto-ape." Fossils don't reveal parent-child relationships. Just because Janet Reno looks like Elton John doesn't mean that is proof that Reno gave birth to John.

This excerpt from your Raup quote is pretty funny.

Raup: This record of change pretty clearly demonstrates that evolution has occurred if we define evolution simply as change; but it does not tell us how this change took place, and that is really the question.

So this record of change shows that change has occured! Awesome! (Actually the record shows vast diversity of different kinds of plants and animals, it can't be established that they changed from something into something else). I do love Darwin's storys about how a fish might have become a bird by jumping out of the water into the air, or how a bear became a whale by falling into the ocean.

Hope and Change! Liberals love the word "change" but they never can explain the details of that "change."

 

[PearlWatson]

As you super-Christians like to say... absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Absence of evidence means you can't support your theory...making it on par with Christianity and other religions.