Is Macroevolution Testable?

[Springer 5]

Evolutionists frequently affirm that macroevolution in nature is too slow to observe. Fair enough. Supposedly, significant macroevolutionary changes occured by natural selection, such as the evolution of cetaceans from a hippo- like precursor over a period of only 8 million years. The evolution of man from australopithecus supposedly took around 2 million years.

 

My challenge is to produce macroevolutionary changes in drosophila which, under optimal conditions, has a generation time of only 7 days from egg to adult. Mutations can be induced artifically (therefore much more rapidly than in nature), and breeding can be done selectively (far more efficient than natural selection). Thus, time requirements for macroevolutionary changes would be markedly shortened. This fact, combined with a very short generation time, render this experiment feasible.

 

Let's just see if someone can breed a grasshopper or a butterfly or beetle from a drosophila. Anything that happened in nature should be reproducible in the laboratory, given enough time.

[chance 1]

Evolutionists frequently affirm that macroevolution in nature is too slow to observe. Fair enough. Supposedly, significant macroevolutionary changes occured by natural selection, such as the evolution of cetaceans from a hippo- like precursor over a period of only 8 million years. The evolution of man from australopithecus supposedly took around 2 million years.

 

My challenge is to produce macroevolutionary changes in drosophila which, under optimal conditions, has a generation time of only 7 days from egg to adult. <moved> Let's just see if someone can breed a grasshopper or a butterfly or beetle from a drosophila. Anything that happened in nature should be reproducible in the laboratory, given enough time.

?? With all due respect you are speaking to the wrong people, are you proposing that someone on this board take up your challenge?

If you are proposing that some scientific organisation take up the challenge, then I think you best direct the question to them.

 

 

Mutations can be induced artifically (therefore much more rapidly than in nature), and breeding can be done selectively (far more efficient than natural selection). Thus, time requirements for macroevolutionary changes would be markedly shortened. This fact, combined with a very short generation time, render this experiment feasible.

Would dog breeding count?

[Springer 5]

Would dog breeding count?

 

Of course not! Dog breeding is an example of microevolution.

Of course I'm not challenging someone on this forum to prove macroevolution. I'm merely making a point that if macroevolution occured in nature, it should be provable experimentally.

[chance 1]

Of course not! Dog breeding is an example of microevolution.

How could you distinguish, the difference between, dog breeding and experimentation on the drosophila?

 

If, for example, a scientist showed you the very first stage (mutation number one) in the morphing of the drosophila towards a moth, and that was a modification in the wings, to look a little more moth like, how would that be any different to the Mexican Barking Rat (Chihuahua), having shorter legs to resemble a Dachshund? You need to be specific about what you would consider as evidence, yes?

 

Of course I'm not challenging someone on this forum to prove macroevolution. I'm merely making a point that if macroevolution occured in nature, it should be provable experimentally.

It possibly could, but you need to show how one can determine when micro becomes macro, if you can’t do that, perhaps you need to state here what you think macroevolution is and how it can be distinguished.

[ratrat 0]

Of course not!  Dog breeding is an example of microevolution.

Of course I'm not challenging someone on this forum to prove macroevolution.  I'm merely making a point that if macroevolution occured in nature, it should be provable experimentally.

5020[/snapback]

I'm assuming that when you say macroevolution you are referring to speciation, am I right? If so, then dog breeding is actually getting VERY close to being an example of macroevolution. Two organisms are defined as being two separate species if some barrier keeps them from mating, or potentially mating, in nature. You would be hard pressed to get a great dane and a toy poodle to mate in nature without a great deal of effort. Some species of plants near the mouths of mines in North America have developped greatly modified reproductive strategies from their ancestral states (ie, they have different flowering times and self-pollinate more frequently than the ancestral populations) which have caused a reproductive barrier to be formed between them, which causes divergence and leads to speciation.

[Springer 5]

I'm assuming that when you say macroevolution you are referring to speciation, am I right?  If so, then dog breeding is actually getting VERY close to being an example of macroevolution.  Two organisms are defined as being two separate species if some barrier keeps them from mating, or potentially mating, in nature.  You would be hard pressed to get a great dane and a toy poodle to mate in nature without a great deal of effort.  Some species of plants near the mouths of mines in North America have developped greatly modified reproductive strategies from their ancestral states (ie, they have different flowering times and self-pollinate more frequently than the ancestral populations) which have caused a reproductive barrier to be formed between them, which causes divergence and leads to speciation.

5028[/snapback]

There are obvious phenotypic differences between a great dane and a poodle, but both are equally canine and both can easily be traced to a common ancestor by simple selective breeding. Despite a different outward appearance, the genetic differences are trivial. That is totally different from the prospect breeding a reptile from an amphibian, requiring innumerable successive micromutations and major alterations in the reproductive system and salt and water homostasis. Macroevolution is not a simple extrapolation of selective breeding. Selective breeding of dogs, for example, has definite limits. Selective breeding doesn't depend on mutations with deletion, addition, and rearrangement of genetic material..

[ratrat 0]

There are obvious phenotypic differences between a great dane and a poodle, but both are equally canine and both can easily be traced to a common ancestor by simple selective breeding.  Despite a different outward appearance, the genetic differences are trivial.  That is totally different from the prospect breeding a reptile from an amphibian, requiring innumerable successive micromutations and major alterations in the reproductive system and salt and water homostasis.  Macroevolution is not a simple extrapolation of selective breeding.  Selective breeding of dogs, for example, has definite limits.  Selective breeding doesn't depend on mutations with deletion, addition, and rearrangement of genetic material..

5032[/snapback]

The fact that they can be traced to a common ancestor does not prove that evolution has not occured, in fact it proves it has. And i know this is not macroevolution, it is microevolution which leads to macroevolution. And where do you think these phenotypic differences come from? They have different morphologies because they have different genotypes. These differences in phenotypes cause the sharing of genes between these two breeds of dogs to become impossible withouth human intervention. Therefore, the vast majority of mutations that arise in either breed are going to be divergent causing the genotypes to become even more different. If humans can cause a single species to develop two phenotypes which are different enough to prevent natural breeding in, what, a couple thousand years at most, is it entirely unfathomable that nature could do it repeatedly over the span of several billion years??

[Springer 5]

The fact that they can be traced to a common ancestor does not prove that evolution has not occured, in fact it proves it has.

 

I'm merely stating that the phenotypic differences are tracable through selective breeding, which has nothing to do with the proposed mechanism of macroevolution.

 

And i know this is not macroevolution, it is microevolution which leads to macroevolution. And where do you think these phenotypic differences come from? They have different morphologies because they have different genotypes. These differences in phenotypes cause the sharing of genes between these two breeds of dogs to become impossible withouth human intervention. Therefore, the vast majority of mutations that arise in either breed are going to be divergent causing the genotypes to become even more different. If humans can cause a single species to develop two phenotypes which are different enough to prevent natural breeding in, what, a couple thousand years at most, is it entirely unfathomable that nature could do it repeatedly over the span of several billion years??

 

The extrapolation that microevolution over a few thousand years indicates macroevolution over millions of years is naive and is very poor science. All breeds of dogs are the result of various combinations of genes in a defined gene pool. This is totally different than the acquisition of new genetic material required for macroevolution. There is obviously a big diffence between two divergent species of dog and the difference between, say, a turnip and a rhinocerous. Simply adding time into the equation isn't going to change anything.

[The Debatinator 2]

I'd also want to ask if you don't have a canine egg and a canine sperm how can you have a canine pup?

[ratrat 0]

The extrapolation that microevolution over a few thousand years indicates macroevolution over millions of years is naive and is very poor science.

Microevolution doesn't lead to macroevolution on its own. However, if you take one population and cause a reproductive barrier to form between them, then the processes of microevolution in each new population will, over time, cause the original population to become two separate ones (macroevolution). The barrier that is formed is ANYTHING that causes the two populations to be unable to mate. This could be geographical isolation, ecological (behavioural) isolation or morphological. The dog example is not an example of macroevolution yet, I was simply trying to say that the stage has been set for it to occur and it only took us a few thousand years.

 

This is totally different than the acquisition of new genetic material required for macroevolution.

Macroevolution does not require the acquisition of new genetic material, just the change of the old genetic material.

 

There is obviously a big diffence between two divergent species of dog and the difference between, say, a turnip and a rhinocerous. Simply adding time into the equation isn't going to change anything.

 

Agreed. There is a huge difference between two species of dog and a turnip and rhinocerous. The explanation for this is that the dogs would have speciated relatively recently (domestic dogs are beleived to be decendents of a species of chinese wolf about 15000 years ago) whereas the split between plants and animals occurred nearly immediately in the history of the earth (there is evidence of oxygen levels rising (photosynthesis??) 2.5 billion years ago).

[Springer 5]

Macroevolution does not require the acquisition of new genetic material, just the change of the old genetic material.

 

5069[/snapback]

Please explain. Macroevolution is fundamentally different from microevolution. With microevolution, you are, in essence, performing selective breeding. You can't selectively breed a rhinocerous from a turnip. The necessary genetic seequences in a turnip are not there. It has to be added. What are you referring to when you say "change in old genetic material"? How are you proposing that the old genetic material "changes"?

[ratrat 0]

Please explain.  Macroevolution is fundamentally different from microevolution.  With microevolution, you are, in essence, performing selective breeding.  You can't selectively breed a rhinocerous from a turnip.  The necessary genetic seequences in a turnip are not there.  It has to be added.  What are you referring to when you say "change in old genetic material"?  How are you proposing that the old genetic material "changes"?

5078[/snapback]

Ok, the difference between micro and macroevolution is this. Microevolution is a change seen within species. Such as that of the peppered moth. Macroevolution is evolution which occurs in taxa higher than the species level (genus, family etc). Macroevolution is the process through which speciation (the splitting of one species into two) occurs. Say you have a population (call it population A) of plants living in the area of what are now the Himilayans about 150 million years ago. 150 million years ago, this region did not have the mountains we see today, it was more or less flat. When India collided with the asian mainland, it forced up the Himilayans. This act would have devided population A into two separate populations, one to the east and one to the west of the Tibetan Plateau (mt. everest and such). Each new population, A1 and A2, will continue to undergo microevolution to aid them to adapt to their new environment. It is impossible for the two populations to interbreed, and therefore revert the changes of microevolution, keeping the populations stable. Over time, the two populations will diverge to the extent that they are no longer capable of interbreeding even if they were put in a cage together. This could be due to something as simple as the plants from species A1 flowering at a different time than those of A2. Since they are no longer able to interbreed, they are classified as two separate species.

 

Many examples of this have been shown to exist. A species of warbler lives around this plateau in many, small populations who's ranges overlap. They were forced apart into two populations, one to the east and one to the west of the Plateau when the Himilayas were formed. The two species gradually dispersed around the Plateau to the north and to the south, leaving new populations with overlapping ranges. Every population is able to breed with the population on either side of it except for the two that meet at the very north of the Plateau. The explanation for this is that the populations spread to the south faster, therefore meeting each other in the south before they had evolved complete reproductive isolation. However those in the north had evolved enough, that when they met no breeding was possible. This is an example of a ring species, which I am told by my professor are common in the world.

[ratrat 0]

Please explain.  Macroevolution is fundamentally different from microevolution.  With microevolution, you are, in essence, performing selective breeding.  You can't selectively breed a rhinocerous from a turnip.  The necessary genetic seequences in a turnip are not there.  It has to be added.  What are you referring to when you say "change in old genetic material"?  How are you proposing that the old genetic material "changes"?

5078[/snapback]

Sorry I forgot to mention the whole selective breeding of a rhinocerous to a turnip... What evolutionist told you that this was possible??? You cannot breed a rhino from a turnip, you can however take the common ancestor of the two, whereever those to meet at (its a VERY long ways back) and breed it into an animal and a plant. The animal would eventually form a fish, then an amphibian, a reptile, a mammal and then a rhino. The turnip would follow its own pathway to get to its current form.

 

When I say that macroevolution only requires a change in the genetic material, I simply mean that DNA sequence of an organism must only change. I'm not sure if this is what you are saying, but there is no "addition" of genes into the sequence. Evolution does not state that nature somehow splices in sequences of DNA to turn a rhino into a turnip. All that evolution relies on is the changing of a DNA sequence. By this I mean mutation. That's all a mutation is, a change in the DNA sequence. This can be a result from radiation, chemical mutagens or simple errors in DNA replication. For instance, by simply deleting one nucleotide from a DNA chain, you change the reading frame of that gene, changing the protein encoded within it.

[Guest 92g]

Sorry I forgot to mention the whole selective breeding of a rhinocerous to a turnip...  What evolutionist told you  that this was possible???  You cannot breed a rhino from a turnip, you can however take the common ancestor of the two, whereever those to meet at (its a VERY long ways back) and breed it into an animal and a plant.  The animal would eventually form a fish, then an amphibian, a reptile, a mammal and then a rhino.  The turnip would follow its own pathway to get to its current form.

Why not? If we can turn microbes into people, then it must possible to turn a person into a microbe. After all, its just DNA....

 

When I say that macroevolution only requires a change in the genetic material, I simply mean that DNA sequence of an organism must only change.  I'm not sure if this is what you are saying, but there is no "addition" of genes into the sequence.

It requires much more than that. It requires a change that produces functional proteins that are beneficial to the organism. Something that is not that easily done by random mutations.

 

Evolution does not state that nature somehow splices in sequences of DNA to turn a rhino into a turnip.  All that evolution relies on is the changing of a DNA sequence.  By this I mean mutation.  That's all a mutation is, a change in the DNA sequence.  This can be a result from radiation, chemical mutagens or simple errors in DNA replication.  For instance, by simply deleting one nucleotide from a DNA chain, you change the reading frame of that gene, changing the protein encoded within it.

DNA is used to produce proteins that form eyes, and legs, and hearts, and skin, and bones, etc..., etc..., are very specific. They contain information, information that is pre-programmed for a very specific task. These types of things do not occur in nature by random chance, and demand a creator.

 

Terry

[ratrat 0]

Why not? If we can turn microbes into people, then it must possible to turn a person into a microbe. After all, its just DNA....

 

We cannot just "turn microbes into people". It took nature 3 and a half billion years to do that. And it is pretty much impossible to turn a human back into a microbe as human evolution has essentially halted for many reasons.

 

It requires much more than that. It requires a change that produces functional proteins that are beneficial to the organism. Something that is not that easily done by random mutations.

 

Yes you're right. The mutation does have to be favorable to allow the organism's fitness to increase.

 

DNA is used to produce proteins that form eyes, and legs, and hearts, and skin, and bones, etc..., etc..., are very specific. They contain information, information that is pre-programmed for a very specific task. These types of things do not occur in nature by random chance, and demand a creator.

 

You are simply using the argument of "I can't believe it so it didn't happen." This is not a valid argument. That argument has been used for milennia to refute scientific evidence and it has never been right. An example is that of the earth being round. "I can see the edge of it, how can you tell me its round??"

[Guest 92g]

We cannot just "turn microbes into people".  It took nature 3 and a half billion years to do that.  And it is pretty much impossible to turn a human back into a microbe as human evolution has essentially halted for many reasons.

* It supposedly took 3.5 Billion years to turn a microbe into a person.

 

* There is no emperical scientific evidence that microbes, or even some homonid ancestor ever turned into a human.

 

* If your stating that, given another 3.5 billion years, its not possible to turn a human into a microbe, then your underming your whole argument.

 

* Evolution is either not occuring, or occurs at such a slow rate that its not measurable. If its not measurable then you can't really say if its happening now or not.

 

Yes you're right.  The mutation does have to be favorable to allow the organism's fitness to increase.

And,....., it can be estimated what the odds are:

 

From the actual experimental results of Sauer's group it can easily be calculated that the odds of finding a folded protein are about 1 in 10 to the 65 power (6). To put this fantastic number in perspective imagine that someone hid a grain of sand, marked with a tiny 'X', somewhere in the Sahara Desert. After wandering blindfolded for several years in the desert you reach down, pick up a grain of sand, take off your blindfold, and find it has a tiny 'X'. Suspicious, you give the grain of sand to someone to hide again, again you wander blindfolded into the desert, bend down, and the grain you pick up again has an 'X'. A third time you repeat this action and a third time you find the marked grain. The odds of finding that marked grain of sand in the Sahara Desert three times in a row are about the same as finding one new functional protein structure. Rather than accept the result as a lucky coincidence, most people would be certain that the game had been fixed.

 

Experimental Support for Regarding Functional Classes of Proteins to be Highly Isolated from Each Other

 

You are simply using the argument of "I can't believe it so it didn't happen."  This is not a valid argument.  That argument has been used for milennia to refute scientific evidence and it has never been right.  An example is that of the earth being round.  "I can see the edge of it, how can you tell me its round??"

Not at all. I'm stating that if you consider the charachteritcs of life, and the laws of nature, then you arive at the conclusion that life had a creator.

 

In this particular view, its a law of nature that Information requires a mental origin. The cell, is an information processing system. Dr. Gitt has shown what the properties of information are, and this is is key:

 

No information chain can exist without a mental origin.

 

Information and genetics

 

Therefore, moelcues-to-man evolution is false paradigm, no matter how much faith anyone puts it it.

 

Using microevolution as proof of molecules-to-man evolution is a gross equivocation. One is emperical at a certain level, the other is an untestable extrapolation based on faith.

 

Terry

[lwj2op2 1]

Given that there are many such divergences (warbler) for the argument. The next logical discussion is whether a divergence such as this can ever produce a new specie; an organism which is not a bird. Such has never been found to be true, only assumed to be true because the evolutionary hypothesis states this must be so. Often the cry of faithful evolutionists is “it has to be so it must beâ€ÂÂ. In fact the only logical result is groups of birds so unable to intermingle and reproduce you eventually lose some of these smaller groups. We term this extinction. Therefore if this form of selection has a product it is extinction, which does not seem a useful tool for evolution.

[Springer 5]

Therefore, moelcues-to-man evolution is false paradigm, no matter how much faith anyone puts it it.

 

Using microevolution as proof of molecules-to-man evolution is a gross equivocation.  One is emperical at a certain level, the other is an untestable extrapolation based on faith.

Great post! I might mention that Chance and Ratrat have all but conceded on the abiogenesis argument in other threads. What they don't realize is that it totally destroys evolutionary theory.

[ratrat 0]

* It supposedly took 3.5 Billion years to turn a microbe into a person.

 

* There is no emperical scientific evidence that microbes, or even some homonid ancestor ever turned into a human.

 

* If your stating that, given another 3.5 billion years, its not possible to turn a human into a microbe, then your underming your whole argument.

 

* Evolution is either not occuring, or occurs at such a slow rate that its not measurable. If its not measurable then you can't really say if its happening now or not.

 

The reason that given another 3.5 billion years, humans are not going to turn into microbes is that human evolution has all but halted. One of the major reasons for this is tecnollogy. The laws of nature no longer work on us to the same extent they do for other organisms. So the world temperature raised 3 degrees, who cares? We have air conditioning and we can just grow all our food in a building that is 3 degrees cooler than outside under natural light. The point is technology has eliminated our need to, and in some cases our capacity to, evolve.

 

Secondly, one of the major differences between humans and other organisms is our ability to form cognitive thoughts. If you take that away, we are among the most fragile organisms on the planet. If you disagree, go and kick an elk and see who wins the fight. If we lost our intelligence, the result would most likely be our extinction.

 

And there is plenty of evidence for the evolution of man. A series of skulls exists which shows the clear evolution of mankind from our ancestors to Homo erectus, to Homo neandertalis to Homo sapiens (there are a lot of missing species here but quite frankly i'm too lazy to look them up.)

 

As for not being able to measure something so it doesn't exist. While it is true that science has found very few ways to measure evolution (and the ones they have found are pretty much just scrapped by science as having any real meanings anyways) there is still lots of evidence for evolution. Now I'm not trying to start offend anybody here, but just for the sake of the argument, if you want to use not being able to measure something as proof against its existence then why do you believe you have a soul?

 

And,....., it can be estimated what the odds are:

 

From the actual experimental results of Sauer's group it can easily be calculated that the odds of finding a folded protein are about 1 in 10 to the 65 power (6). To put this fantastic number in perspective imagine that someone hid a grain of sand, marked with a tiny 'X', somewhere in the Sahara Desert. After wandering blindfolded for several years in the desert you reach down, pick up a grain of sand, take off your blindfold, and find it has a tiny 'X'. Suspicious, you give the grain of sand to someone to hide again, again you wander blindfolded into the desert, bend down, and the grain you pick up again has an 'X'. A third time you repeat this action and a third time you find the marked grain. The odds of finding that marked grain of sand in the Sahara Desert three times in a row are about the same as finding one new functional protein structure. Rather than accept the result as a lucky coincidence, most people would be certain that the game had been fixed.

 

The analogy I like even more than this is that the likelihood of evolution occuring is somewhat akin to a field of scrap metal being assembled into a fully functioning 747 by a passing tornado. However, if it happened, would you look at the 747 and say it doesn't exist because the odds are too low??

 

Another example is that the laws of statistics say that flipping a coin 10 times and getting all heads is statistically unfavorable. If you did it, would you say that it didn't happen because it's statistically improbable even if the evidence that it happened was staring you in the face?

[Guest 92g]

And there is plenty of evidence for the evolution of man.  A series of skulls exists which shows the clear evolution of mankind from our ancestors to Homo erectus, to Homo neandertalis to Homo sapiens (there are a lot of missing species here but quite frankly i'm too lazy to look them up.)

I said there is no EMPERICAL evidence. Digging bones up out of the ground and interpreting their history is not observational science.

 

All of what you are using as evidence can be interpreted in a different fashion, and are often misinterpreted to stay with a false paradigm. E.g.:

 

Question: ‘Why is the elbow bone from Kanapoi, KP 271, found in East Africa in 1964, called Australopithecus africanus when the computer analysis conducted by evolutionists declares it to be virtually identical to modern humans?’

 

Answer: ‘Because the fossil is dated at 4.4 million years! It would suggest that true humans are older than their evolu-tionary ancestors. No evolutionist worth his salt can follow the facts when they lead in that direction.’

The human fossils still speak!

 

As for not being able to measure something so it doesn't exist.  While it is true that science has found very few ways to measure evolution (and the ones they have found are pretty much just scrapped by science as having any real meanings anyways) there is still lots of evidence for evolution. 

OK, and since its its not measurable, then its not really true to say that evolution is the result of science. Its an interpretation of data and nothing more. Then the question becomes "What is the best way to interpret the data?".

 

Now I'm not trying to start offend anybody here, but just for the sake of the argument, if you want to use not being able to measure something as proof against its existence then why do you believe you have a soul?

This is a very welcome question.

 

I'm not saying that only what can be measured exists. That's a materialistic position, and false paradigm.

 

I'm going to take you back to the Information concept again. Information is the 3rd fundmantal quantity of the universe. There is no way to reduce information to materialistic quantities. All information has a non-material entity origin(i.e. mental origin). Since man can be the origin of information, then he must also have a non-material entity. That is what we call the soul.

 

Christ Jesus had this to say about the soul:

 

MAT 10:28 "And do not fear those who kill the body, but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.

 

Evolution is the product of trying to explain the universe in whole based on a 100% materialistic paradigm. This is obviously a bankrupt concept, and I hope that you will see that it takes more than that to do it.

 

The analogy I like even more than this is that the likelihood of evolution occuring is somewhat akin to a field of scrap metal being assembled into a fully functioning 747 by a passing tornado.  However, if it happened, would you look at the 747 and say it doesn't exist because the odds are too low?? 

Do you really thing it could happen? Of course not....

 

Another example is that the laws of statistics say that flipping a coin 10 times and getting all heads is statistically unfavorable.  If you did it, would you say that it didn't happen because it's statistically improbable even if the evidence that it happened was staring you in the face?

Your looking at it going backwards. This is a useless way to apply statistics, since it already has the assumption underneath the application that it did happen, and so you essentially throw out the laws of probability. If you can fathom any non-zero possibility in your mind, no matter how small, then you say it doesn't matter. That's not how reality works.....

 

In order to apply statistics, you place yourself at the point of it not having happeened, and ask yourself the question "Can I really get there from here?. This is where the illusion of evolution falls apart, since any honest application of statistics nullifies the probablity of neo-darwinian ever evolution occuring.

 

Dan Batten puts it fairly nicely:

 

You probably realize there is something illogical about this line of argument. But what is it?

 

In all the analogies cited above, there has to be an outcome. Someone has to win the lottery. There will be an arrangement of cards. There will be a pile of sand. There will be people walking across the busy street. By contrast, in the processes by which life is supposed to have formed, there need not necessarily be an outcome. Indeed the probabilities argue against any outcome. That is the whole point of the argument. But then the evolutionist may counter that it did happen because we are here! This is circular reasoning at its worst.

Cheating with chance

 

Terry

[chance 1]

Given that there are many such divergences (warbler) for the argument. The next logical discussion is whether a divergence such as this can ever produce a new specie; an organism which is not a bird.

One must remember that Bird is an artificial classification, If one could travel back in time and follow the evolutionary path of a single species, the difference between generations would be small, but the difference between thousands of generations would be greater (as the selective pressures changed). There would be no abrupt change from dinosaur to bird.

 

 

Such has never been found to be true, only assumed to be true because the evolutionary hypothesis states this must be so.

No, there is excellent evidence in the fossil record. You must remember that the fossil record shows the big picture not the exact lineage of individuals.

 

 

In fact the only logical result is groups of birds so unable to intermingle and reproduce you eventually lose some of these smaller groups. We term this extinction. Therefore if this form of selection has a product it is extinction, which does not seem a useful tool for evolution.

Extinction is a very common theme, the only way life has avoided extinction is to change (evolve) with the circumstances.

[chance 1]

I thought I’d take a closer look at the article posted 92g

 

Cheating with chance

by Don Batten Selected quotes:

 

The argument from probability that life could not form by natural processes but must have been created is sometimes acknowledged by evolutionists as a strong argument.

I doubt this.

 

 

The probability of the chance formation of a hypothetical functional ‘simple’ cell, given all the ingredients, is acknowledged2 to be worse than 1 in 10^57800. This is a chance of 1 in a number with 57,800 zeros.

But the author numbers are meaningless because of two important consideration. First a cell is a very complex organism, no proponent of abiogenesis has ever imagined that life suddenly leaps from goo to a single cell, that’s just preposterous. This make much of the authors remaining argument irrelevant.

 

Secondly if the process of abiogenesis is unknown on what is the author basing the improbability?

 

 

Evolutionists often try to bluff their way out of this problem by using analogies to argue that improbable things happen every day, so why should the naturalistic origin of life be considered impossible. For example, they say the odds of winning the lottery are pretty remote, but someone wins it every week. Or, the chances of getting the particular arrangement of cards obtained by shuffling a deck is remote, but a rare combination happens every time the cards are shuffled. Or the arrangement of the sand grains in a pile of sand obtained by randomly pouring the sand is extremely complex, but this complex and improbable arrangement did occur as a result of random processes. Or the exact combination and arrangement of people walking across a busy city street is highly improbable, but such improbable arrangements happen all the time. So they argue from these analogies to try to dilute the force of this powerful argument for creation.

 

You probably realize there is something illogical about this line of argument. But what is it?

 

In all the analogies cited above, there has to be an outcome. Someone has to win the lottery.

The author is very much mistaken, the purpose of the analogies is to make the idea explainable with small numbers, but as the numbers get larger, there will be times when there will be no lottery winner. Would you play a lottery game where you pick 8 numbers out of 100? Lottery is designed to allow, on average, a couple of big winners each week, and the pool size is representative of the population of players.

 

 

 

 

 

Note several other things about these analogies:

 

The arrangement of cards resulting from shuffling would not normally suggest anything other than a random process. However, if all the cards were ordered by their suits from lowest to highest, we would logically conclude that an intelligent agent arranged them (or ‘stacked the deck’ in card-playing parlance) because such an arrangement is highly unlikely from genuine shufflingâ€â€Âa random, non-intelligent process.

The author is missing an important evolutionary point i.e. the pattern that results in abiogenesis only need to happen once, lets say that’s the equivalent of getting 4 aces, once that arrangement has happened the 4 aces glue together, the pattern is not lost, and can’t be unshuffled.

 

 

The arrangement of the sand grains in a pile <snip>, and

 

The arrangement of people crossing a busy street would not normally suggest anything other than a random process. <snip>

Improbability does no make it impossible, the author has made no claim.

 

 

Many scientists today claim that an invisible ‘intelligent cause’ is outside the realm of ‘real’ science. These scientists have redefined science as naturalism (nature is all there is). However, scientists recognise the evidence for an invisible intelligent agent when it suits them. For example, forensic science determines if past events were the result of accident or plan and purpose (‘Who done it?’).

wow!! This is pushing the boundaries of credibility, Science is the exploration of the natural world, it wasn’t “redefinedâ€ÂÂ.

Forensic sciences uses evidence to discover past events, comparing this to investigating the supernatural is stretching the use of analogy to breaking point.

 

 

The Piltdown ape-man fraud was discovered, after some 40 years and numerous postgraduate research theses, when researchers had the opportunity to examine the original bones and not just replicas, and they noticed file marks on the teeth.4 Such marks do not happen by natural processes and the researchers recognised the involvement of a human (intelligent) agentâ€â€Âa hoaxer.

?? Proving what?

 

Likewise, United States taxpayers are spending millions of dollars yearly in funding the Search for Extra-terrestrial Intelligence (SETI). If those listening hear a radio signal with random noise, it is clearly the product of a natural process, but if there is a pattern such as ‘dah-dah-dah-dit-dit-dit-dah-dah-dah’, it will be hailed as evidence for an intelligent, although invisible, source.

perhaps, but with good reason the noise from space is random noise (some exceptions), a signal on a fixed frequency would/should point to an artificial cause.

 

If such evidence indicate an intelligent source then surely the incredible amount of information on the DNA in living things, equivalent to a library of a thousand 500- page books in a human being,5 shouts Creation by a Creator!

Well perhaps to the author, but as DNA is further understood it seems a very haphazard sort of thing with vast areas of inactivity, and a sort of history of evolution recorded in it (reference The recent Documentary “DNAâ€ÂÂ).

[Springer 5]

Secondly if the process of abiogenesis is unknown

Chance, you keep defending abiogenesis by assuming that it happened. You can't use the argument that the mechanism is unknown as a defense, as if it's self-evident that it ever occurred. The fact is, abiogenesis cannot stand on its own. Your only faith in the theory rests with your belief in ToE. You have been hit with mountains of hard evidence which disproves its possibility, and you continue to assert that evolution proves that abiogenesis must have happened.

[lwj2op2 1]

Of the few skulls/skeletons found which have been claimed as proof of human evolution none have passed the test of reasonable doubt. Many have been found to be non-human. One formed by extrapolation was later proved to have been extrapolated from a pig tooth. Those which were found to be human are more readily identified as humans with bone diseases but fully human (Homo Erectus). Look around, most of these “missing link" skulls are walking the streets of America today, though they are more prevalent in third world countries.

 

As for Homo Neanderthal; he is proof of Adam. Orthodontics has proved that the older a person gets the thicker his facial and skull bones get. A 70 years old man cannot fit into the hat he bought when he was 30, his skull in thicker. Run this increase out to the size of the Homo Neanderthal skulls found and you have people of 500 to maybe 1200 years old (biblical, pre-flood ages). There is NO skull which has been unequivocally identified as both Human and not modern Human. Will science prove the Bible? The facts allow the possibility of the Biblical account. The facts argue against the hypothesis of evolution.

[Springer 5]

Well perhaps to the author, but as DNA is further understood it seems a very haphazard sort of thing with vast areas of inactivity, and a sort of history of evolution recorded in it (

That's a very intriguing spin... now you're denying that millions of sequences of coded information isn't that complex.