[_ Old Earth _] Evolution: Possible or Impossible?

[carbon]

I have two comments.

1) The title of this thread: There is a difference between *possible* and *probable*. Is it possible? Absolutely. Nearly anything is possible. Stating something is impossible is just ridiculous. Stating it's not *probable* is something entirely different.

2) Humans breed humans and nothing else because they're not able to. Why? In evolutionary theory: speciation. Would a chimp suddenly have a human baby? No. There would have to be something in between it and the human. Take a look at the evolution of the horse to see a little more on how things evolve according to evolutionary theory.
Also...mutations. mutations cause cancer. That's proof enough they change into something other than themselves as you put it. Genetically passed on diseases? Due to mutations. Again, look at evolution of the horse and what you'll see is the following: First, take a look at the hooves. There will be a mutation that caused the horse to have 3 toes instead of 4 (iirc). This horse survived better than the 4 toed horses. Thus it survived and lived on. That's how evolutionary theory would explain it. Also there is a lot of genetic ancestry that they go by with very similar animals, yet they *speciate*.
Another flaw: A flower would not turn into an elephant due to evolutionary theory. They do not come from the same ancestry. And that would be a TON of mutations. It's why the platypus is so weird.

Note: You didn't get my opinion on evolution. I do not want to get into it. I just wanted to clarify scientifically a few things.

 

[lordkalvan]

Science has NEVER shown that mutations have transformed into anything other then themselves, in spite of numerous studies. Humans breed humans.

Do you seriously believe that evolutionary theory posits that a female common ancestor of humans and chimps one day gave birth to a 'modern' human while on another day another such female gave birth to a 'modern' chimp? If so, you have a serious misunderstanding of evolutionary theory.

What is your opinion of ring species? What do you think nested hierarchies based on shared traits imply? What about the implications of phylogenetics and DNA sequencing? Do you think the prediction and discovery of tiktaalik suggests anything about the soundness of evolutionary theory?

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2006/04/tiktaalik_makes_another_gap.php

There is persuasive evidence of dinosaur-to-bird transitional fossils; what do you make of this?

http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/diapsids/avians.html

It would be like taking a tsunami and turning it into a submarine. A bird turning into a helicopter. A flower turning into an elephant.

No, it wouldn't. Even the punctuated equilibrium 'variant' of evolutionary progress requires specific conditions and many generations of descent with modification before new species arise from old.

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

Other scientists have also created formulas, such as Coppledge's, and they all say the probablity of evolution is nil.

Citations? It is clear that Coppedge's work is out-dated and flawed. Without being able to examine the work of these 'other scientists', it is impossible to evaluate the worth of this observation as it stands. I might as well argue that other scientists wholly endorse the actuality of evolution, including several scientists who are devout Christians.

From one cell, compound, chemical, however you believe life to begin, will never be able to explain the vast differences in creation itself.

Argument from personal incredulity. Even if your statement were to be correct at the moment (which I would dispute), you have no idea what future knowledge may reveal. Or do you believe that science has taught us nothing about the natural world and the Universe in the last few hundred years?

On a side note, all of your points could have been expressed in about a 4 sentence concised paragraph as most of it was repeating itself anyway......sometimes less is better.

No comment....

 

[John]

2) Humans breed humans and nothing else because they're not able to. Why? In evolutionary theory: speciation. Would a chimp
suddenly have a human baby? No.

Carbon. What about the ridiculous theory of punctuated equilibrium :rolling

Again, look at evolution of the horse and what you'll see is the following: First, take a look at the hooves. There will be a mutation that caused the horse to have 3 toes instead of 4 (iirc). This horse survived better than the 4 toed horses. Thus it survived and lived on. That's how evolutionary theory would explain it. Also there is a lot of genetic ancestry that they go by with very similar animals, yet they *speciate*.

The horse evolution is all garbage and I'll explain why.

In 1841, the earliest so-called “horse†fossil was discovered in clay around London. The scientist who unearthed it, Richard Owen, found a complete skull that looked like a fox's head with multiple back-teeth as in hoofed animals. He called it Hyracotherium. He saw no connection between it and the modern-day horse.

In 1874, another scientist, Kovalevsky, attempted to establish a link between this small fox-like creature, which he thought was 70 million years old, and the modern horse.

In 1879, an American fossil "expert", O. C. Marsh, and famous evolutionist Thomas Huxley, collaborated for a public lecture which Huxley gave in New York. Marsh produced a schematic diagram which attempted to show the so-called development of the front and back feet, the legs, and the teeth of the various stages of the horse. He published his evolutionary diagram in the American Journal of Science in 1879, and it found its way into many other publications and textbooks. The scheme hasn't changed. It shows a beautiful gradational sequence in “the evolution†of the horse, unbroken by any abrupt changes. This is what we see in school textbooks.

The question is: “Is the scheme proposed by Huxley and Marsh true?â€Â

The simple answer is “Noâ€Â. While it is a clever arrangement of the fossils on an evolutionary assumption, even leading evolutionists such as George Gaylord Simpson backed away from it. He said it was misleading.

If it were true, you would expect to find the earliest horse fossils in the lowest rock strata. But you don't. In fact, bones of the supposed “earliest†horses have been found at or near the surface. Sometimes they are found right next to modern horse fossils!

O.C. Marsh commented on living horses with multiple toes, and said there were cases in the American Southwest where “both fore and hind feet may each have two extra digits fairly developed, and all of nearly equal size, thus corresponding to the feet of the extinct Protohippusâ€Â.

In National Geographic (January 1981, p. 74), there is a picture of the foot of a so-called early horse, Pliohippus, and one of the modern Equus that were found at the same volcanic site in Nebraska. The writer says: “Dozens of hoofed species lived on the American plains.†Doesn't this suggest two different species, rather than the evolutionary progression of one?

There is no one site in the world where the evolutionary succession of the horse can be seen. Rather, the fossil fragments have been gathered from several continents on the assumption of evolutionary progress, and then used to support the assumption. This is circular reasoning, and does not qualify as objective science.

The theory of horse evolution has very serious genetic problems to overcome. How do we explain the variations in the numbers of ribs and lumbar vertebrae within the imagined evolutionary progression? For example, the number of ribs in the supposedly “intermediate†stages of the horse varies from 15 to 19 and then finally settles at 18. The number of lumbar vertebrae also allegedly swings from six to eight and then returns to six again.

Finally, when evolutionists assume that the horse has grown progressively in size over millions of years, what they forget is that modern horses vary enormously in size. The largest horse today is the Clydesdale; the smallest is the Fallabella, which stands at 17 inches (43 centimeters) tall. Both are members of the same species, and neither has evolved from the other.

Why do science textbooks continue to use the horse as a prime example of evolution, when the whole schema is demonstrably false? Why do they continue to teach our kids something that is not scientific? Dr. Niles Eldredge, curator of the American Museum of Natural History, has said:

“I admit that an awful lot of that (imaginary stories) has gotten into the textbooks as though it were true. For instance, the most famous example still on exhibit downstairs (in the American Museum) is the exhibit on horse evolution prepared perhaps 50 years ago. That has been presented as literal truth in textbook after textbook. Now I think that that is lamentable …â€Â.

I agree 100%

REFERENCES

1. O. C. Marsh, “Recent Polydactyle Horsesâ€Â, American Journal of Science 43, 1892, pp. 339-354 - as quoted in Creation Research Society Quarterly correspondence, Vol. 30, December 1993, p. 125.

2. Niles Eldredge, as quoted in: Luther D. Sunderland, Darwin's Enigma: Fossils and Other Problems, fourth edition (revised and expanded), Master Book Publishers, Santee (California),1988, p. 78.

 

[Spiffy]

Also...mutations. mutations cause cancer. That's proof enough they change into something other than themselves as you put it.

No, cancer cells cause cancer and change into more cancer cells, which then turns into a mass or a growth. Cancer cells beget more cancer cells.

 

[lordkalvan]

I see Niles Eldredge quotemines are still alive and kicking.

For a different 'take' on the validity of the evidence supporting the evolutionary history of the horse, it is worth checking out this article by Brian Switek:

http://laelaps.wordpress.com/2007/0...es-creationists-take-on-an-icon-of-evolution/

Eldredge was criticising specifically the presentation of horse evolution as a stately ladder of progression - small-and-old leading inevitably to large-and-modern - rather than the complex bushiness of current understanding developed since the mid-20th Century. There are over 200 identified 'horse species', living and extinct, and more than 100,000 catalogued fossils.

Source: USGS. Compare this with Marsh's ordered progression:

Source: Biblical Creation.

The following observation from the referenced article by Brian Switek is also apposite:

As discussed previously in my summary of horse evolution, the development and radiation of various equids over the past 55 million years is one of the most celebrated examples of evolution in action. While we are fortunate to have such detailed examples of past evolutionary transitions, the presentation of the evolution of horses proceeding in a straight line from small, four-toed Eohippus to the extant Equus has sometimes done more harm than good. While the branching bush of horse evolution has been recognized in scientific circles since the middle of the 20th century (at the latest), a more orthogenic model has often still been presented in popular works and taught in schools, and David Godfrey has corroborated this in the comment thread of my previous essay. It is this weakness in using a “simple†illustration that has opened the door up to creationist complaints, and in this appendix to my original work I will attempt to review some of the more recent remarks made by the likes of Jonathan Wells (affiliated with the Discovery Institute) and Ken Ham (president of Answers in Genesis) on the evolution of horses.

 

[Spiffy]

2) Humans breed humans and nothing else because they're not able to. Why? In evolutionary theory: speciation. Would a chimp
suddenly have a human baby? No.

Carbon. What about the ridiculous theory of punctuated equilibrium :rolling


[quote:1jlabxg2]Again, look at evolution of the horse and what you'll see is the following: First, take a look at the hooves. There will be a mutation that caused the horse to have 3 toes instead of 4 (iirc). This horse survived better than the 4 toed horses. Thus it survived and lived on. That's how evolutionary theory would explain it. Also there is a lot of genetic ancestry that they go by with very similar animals, yet they *speciate*.

The horse evolution is all garbage and I'll explain why.

In 1841, the earliest so-called “horse†fossil was discovered in clay around London. The scientist who unearthed it, Richard Owen, found a complete skull that looked like a fox's head with multiple back-teeth as in hoofed animals. He called it Hyracotherium. He saw no connection between it and the modern-day horse.

In 1874, another scientist, Kovalevsky, attempted to establish a link between this small fox-like creature, which he thought was 70 million years old, and the modern horse.

In 1879, an American fossil "expert", O. C. Marsh, and famous evolutionist Thomas Huxley, collaborated for a public lecture which Huxley gave in New York. Marsh produced a schematic diagram which attempted to show the so-called development of the front and back feet, the legs, and the teeth of the various stages of the horse. He published his evolutionary diagram in the American Journal of Science in 1879, and it found its way into many other publications and textbooks. The scheme hasn't changed. It shows a beautiful gradational sequence in “the evolution†of the horse, unbroken by any abrupt changes. This is what we see in school textbooks.

The question is: “Is the scheme proposed by Huxley and Marsh true?â€Â

The simple answer is “Noâ€Â. While it is a clever arrangement of the fossils on an evolutionary assumption, even leading evolutionists such as George Gaylord Simpson backed away from it. He said it was misleading.

If it were true, you would expect to find the earliest horse fossils in the lowest rock strata. But you don't. In fact, bones of the supposed “earliest†horses have been found at or near the surface. Sometimes they are found right next to modern horse fossils!

O.C. Marsh commented on living horses with multiple toes, and said there were cases in the American Southwest where “both fore and hind feet may each have two extra digits fairly developed, and all of nearly equal size, thus corresponding to the feet of the extinct Protohippusâ€Â.

In National Geographic (January 1981, p. 74), there is a picture of the foot of a so-called early horse, Pliohippus, and one of the modern Equus that were found at the same volcanic site in Nebraska. The writer says: “Dozens of hoofed species lived on the American plains.†Doesn't this suggest two different species, rather than the evolutionary progression of one?

There is no one site in the world where the evolutionary succession of the horse can be seen. Rather, the fossil fragments have been gathered from several continents on the assumption of evolutionary progress, and then used to support the assumption. This is circular reasoning, and does not qualify as objective science.

The theory of horse evolution has very serious genetic problems to overcome. How do we explain the variations in the numbers of ribs and lumbar vertebrae within the imagined evolutionary progression? For example, the number of ribs in the supposedly “intermediate†stages of the horse varies from 15 to 19 and then finally settles at 18. The number of lumbar vertebrae also allegedly swings from six to eight and then returns to six again.

Finally, when evolutionists assume that the horse has grown progressively in size over millions of years, what they forget is that modern horses vary enormously in size. The largest horse today is the Clydesdale; the smallest is the Fallabella, which stands at 17 inches (43 centimeters) tall. Both are members of the same species, and neither has evolved from the other.

Why do science textbooks continue to use the horse as a prime example of evolution, when the whole schema is demonstrably false? Why do they continue to teach our kids something that is not scientific? Dr. Niles Eldredge, curator of the American Museum of Natural History, has said:

“I admit that an awful lot of that (imaginary stories) has gotten into the textbooks as though it were true. For instance, the most famous example still on exhibit downstairs (in the American Museum) is the exhibit on horse evolution prepared perhaps 50 years ago. That has been presented as literal truth in textbook after textbook. Now I think that that is lamentable …â€Â.

I agree 100%

REFERENCES

1. O. C. Marsh, “Recent Polydactyle Horsesâ€Â, American Journal of Science 43, 1892, pp. 339-354 - as quoted in Creation Research Society Quarterly correspondence, Vol. 30, December 1993, p. 125.

2. Niles Eldredge, as quoted in: Luther D. Sunderland, Darwin's Enigma: Fossils and Other Problems, fourth edition (revised and expanded), Master Book Publishers, Santee (California),1988, p. 78.[/quote:1jlabxg2]

John, you ROCK! Thanks for supplying this information, I will be reading the included references. It is improbable, not probable, impossible (covering all the basis for carbon) that anything evolved into anything else. BTW, this is how dragons were made:


:toofunny

 

[carbon]

Also...mutations. mutations cause cancer. That's proof enough they change into something other than themselves as you put it.

No, cancer cells cause cancer and change into more cancer cells, which then turns into a mass or a growth. Cancer cells beget more cancer cells.

Why are cancer cells there in the first place?

What are some causes of cancer?

There are 4.66 MILLION responses on google when you search "cancer mutations" without the quotes.

http://www.cancerhelp.org.uk/help/default.asp?page=97 This one is good. These others get a bit technical.
http://www.lclark.edu/~reiness/cellbio/ ... lect32.htm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/6424117.stm

John: I was stating that that is how evolutionists view horse evolution.

Let me also state another fallacy your source makes: Size.
Horses, believe it or not, although they shared a common ancestor, the breeds descended from different ancestors that probably evolved differently in a different part of the world. Take for example your Przewalski Horse. It's a very primitive horse. It's smaller in stature but built for that area of Asia. Then let's say it grew in size again but the Przewalski Horse could survive where it was whereas a group had migrated elsewhere and another type survived better.

There are a few "Foundation" horse lines. You would call these Arabian, Barb, and Turkoman. From these three horses, many light horses known today are descended.

From wikipedia on draft horses and ponies: "Draft horses may have originated with primitive ancestors such as the Forest Horse and the "draft subtype", wild subspecies that may have descendants as diverse as the large Shire horse and the small but sturdy Shetland pony. These wild prototypes were adapted by natural selection to the cold, damp climates of northern Europe."

And this is the theories for speciation of the horse (far more eloquent than I): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_ ... .22_theory

 

[lordkalvan]

Indications that there may, indeed, be evidence for life on Mars, although we will have to wait a while before scientists can determine whether the observed methane is the result of geological or biological activity:

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/090115-mars-methane-news.html

 

[Rick W]

I think "they" already have a pretty good idea where the methane is coming from. :yes

From the posted article:

Another possibility is a process called serpentization, which transforms iron oxide into a mineral known as serpentine.

Where else is methane produced chemically?

NASA Reports That Methane Drizzles on Saturn's Moon, Titan

Liquid methane drizzles on the surface of Titan, a moon of Saturn, according to a paper by NASA and university scientists that appears in today's issue of the journal, Nature.

Data from the European Space Agency's Huygens probe indicates there is a lower, barely visible, liquid methane-nitrogen cloud that drops rain to the surface of Titan, reported a team of scientists from universities, an observatory and NASA. The probe collected the data on January 14, 2005, when it approached and landed on Titan.

"The rain on Titan is just a slight drizzle, but it rains all the time, day in, day out. It makes the ground wet and muddy with liquid methane. This is why the Huygens probe landed with a splat. It landed in methane mud," said Christopher McKay, a scientist at NASA Ames Research Center in California's Silicon Valley and second author of the study. The principal author is Tetsuya Tokano from the University of Cologne, Germany.

On Titan, the clouds and rain are formed of liquid methane. On Earth, methane is a flammable gas, but Titan has no oxygen in its atmosphere that could support combustion. Also, the temperatures on Titan are so cold -- minus 300 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 149 degrees Celsius) -- that the methane can form liquid. Titan's landscape includes fluvial, river-like features that may well be formed by methane rain, scientists noted.

Titan's Methane Not Produced by Life, Scientists Say

Based on data collected by Huygens' instruments, Sushil Atreya, a professor of planetary science at the University of Michigan in the United States, believes a hydro-geological process between water and rocks deep inside the moon could be producing the methane.

"I think the process is quite likely in the interior of Titan," Atreya said in a telephone interview.

The process is called serpentinisation and is basically the reaction between water and rocks at 100 to 400 degrees Celsius (212 to 752 degrees Fahrenheit), he said.

Back on Mars...

New light on Mars methane mystery

If the methane is produced by geological activity, it could either originate from active Martian volcanoes or from a process called serpentinisation.

The latter process occurs at low temperatures and occurs when rocks rich in the minerals olivine and pyroxene react chemically with water, releasing methane.

Olivine

Evidence for extensive, olivine-rich bedrock on Mars

HONOLULU, Hawaii – By using new, high spatial resolution infrared data from NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft, Victori Hamilton from the University of Hawaii at Manoa and Philip Christensen from Arizona State University have concluded that region on the surface of Mars known to contain olivine-rich rocks is actually 4 times larger than previously estimated.

The bedrock in question is adjacent to Syrtis Major, one of Mars' largest volcanoes. This region is of interest to scientists because it lies in a relatively old region on Mars, and yet contains significant amounts of olivine, a mineral that can weather rapidly in the presence of water.

These results are reported in the June 2005 cover story of the journal Geology.

The region is northeast of the Syrtis Major volcanic shield, and was previously shown to have an area of ~ 30,000 km2. In this new study, the deposits in question are now shown to be 113,000 km2, almost 4 times larger than previously thought. As a comparison, the Big Island of Hawai'i, with its five volcanoes, has a surface area of ~10,500 km2 – almost 11x smaller than the deposits on Mars. These olivine-rich basalts appear to be present in the form of in-place, layered rock units that are being exposed by tectonic uplift and the erosion of younger rocks. One of the findings of the study is that at least some of these rocks were erupted onto the surface of Mars, where they might have been exposed to more water and weathering than if they had been intruded into the subsurface, as previously proposed.

Pyroxene

Olivine and Pyroxene Diversity in the Crust of Mars

Data from the Observatoire pour la Minéralogie, l'Eau, la Glace, et l'Activité (OMEGA) on the Mars Express spacecraft identify the distinct mafic, rock-forming minerals olivine, low-calcium pyroxene (LCP), and high-calcium pyroxene (HCP) on the surface of Mars. Olivine- and HCP-rich regions are found in deposits that span the age range of geologic units. However, LCP-rich regions are found only in the ancient Noachian-aged units, which suggests that melts for these deposits were derived from a mantle depleted in aluminum and calcium. Extended dark regions in the northern plains exhibit no evidence of strong mafic absorptions or absorptions due to hydrated materials.

PDF
STRONG PYROXENE ABSORPTION BANDS ON MARS IDENTIFIED BY OMEGA: GEOLOGICAL COUNTERPART.

 

[lordkalvan]

Which is why I used the word 'may'. The fact that methane is produced by geological activity elsewhere in the Solar System is not itself evidence that methane on Mars can only have been produced by geological activity, any more than the fact that the majority of methane on Earth is produced by biological activity is for the alternative hypothesis. From the referenced article:

The most tantalizing possibility though is that the methane comes from subsurface Martian microbes.

Possible Earth analogues are the communities of microorganisms that thrive in gold mines a few kilometers below the surface in the Witwatersrand Basin of South Africa. The microbes use molecular hydrogen (produced as radioactivity in the surrounding rocks breaks apart water molecules) as an energy source, turning carbon dioxide to methane. Because photosynthesis isn't required, this same process could be taking place below the cryosphere boundary deep below the surface of Mars, where water transitions from ice to liquid water.

Of course, Mumma cautions, "we cannot state that we have detected biology or refute it."

Meanwhile, Tullis Onstott of Princeton University and colleagues are working on a new device for a potential future rover mission that could trace the origin of the methane.

Source: http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/090115-mars-methane-news.html

 

[Rick W]

Wasn't meant for evidence concerning Mars at all but rather an example that methane can indeed be present but not due to biological activity.

Some years ago I read a science fiction thriller called "Code of the Lifemaker", a story of robots evolving on Titan. Anyway, in the story they "sipped" on brews concocted of methane. Their world was full of it in brooks, streams, lakes etc much like water here. I was intrigued because at the time I was under the false assumption that methane came only from biological sources. And back then there were no space probes and the like to look at Titan. That's when I learned about other processes that produce methane.

When interest in Mars was beginning to grow, just before the Mars rovers were launched I learned of Olivine, a rather interesting material. Martian ice was pretty much known to exist though there really wasn't any "Hands down" proof. The rovers simply confirmed the observations, including fly-bys. But what about the Olivine?
Olivine reacts readily with water and vapor and isn't present on the surface of earth in it's natural chemical form to much extent because of that fact. Knowing that ice existed on Mars along with quantities of Olivine, sometimes found on the surface in vast areas or just under the surface, along with the ages of the surface material it exists in, suggested there hadn't been been liquid water on Mars for at least half it's lifetime, a couple billion years by estimates from scientists studying Mars. Add to that the constant bombardment of UV due to the much thinner Martian atmosphere and it's highly unlikely life as we know it could have survived on the surface during that time.
So what we're looking for in the way of life will have to be subterranean. And that, if life does indeed exist or existed, most likely will not be in multi-cellular form.
Drill baby, drill !!

The problem lies in the observed seasonal production of methane. Olivine reacts only with water in liquid or vaporous form. It's possible that the water content may be consumed by reaction with the Olivine leaving little if any water available for life to exist. Seasonal production of methane isn't to our advantage in the way of finding life. So drilling in the right spot/s will be crucial and not something one would want to do on a random basis.

 

[lordkalvan]

Okay, I follow, and thanks for the response. I think that if life is found on Mars it will most likely be at the bacterial level and subsurface.