Evolution - True Or False

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If the odds are one in a trillion per year, it drops to less than half a percent in 4.6 billion years (age of the Earth).

The problem is the lack of information on which to base such probability calculations (including the number of planets capable of supporting life, and possibly even the number of parallel universes), so no-one should be the making definite claim that life could not have developed by chance.
 
You guys can't argue an event that has already occured with probabilities. At this point its either 1 or 0. If you had no information but the starting ingredients, then you could posit the probability of life occuring and it might be one of those large numbers you've suggested. But conditions change, and so does the probability. In this universe, the probability of life occuring constantly increased until it did occur and the probability became 1.

Think of it this way. I've heard this analogy on this forum from someone, I forget who:
you shuffle a deck of cards and lay them out one by one, writing down what each card is. look the order of the cards you dealt. The probability that those cards would come up in that exact order is about 1 in 10^68. And yet you did it on the first try, imagine that!
 
RoyLennigan said:
You guys can't argue an event that has already occured with probabilities.
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No, but you can calculate the probability of an event occuring according to one process as opposed to another. To take your card deck analogy, suppose a friend deals you all the cards from a pack they claim to have shuffled, and you find all the cards are dealt in the same order the cards came in "out of the box". In principle, you could calculate the probability of your friend forgetting to shuffle the pack or deliberately not doing it, compare it with the probability of being dealt the cards randomly in the order you received them, and decide which explanation is more plausible.
 
Evolution is not about complexity and natural selection is not progressive. Evolution is not progressive: it is adaptative. There is no such thing as higher and lower organisms. Natural selection favors individuals that are better adapted to their environment. Proof that it is not progressive is in the fact that we have vestigial morphological parts: a tail bone (coccyx), an ear structure originating from jaw bones, an almost-useless appendix (originally a cecum), goose bumps (from mammalian stiff fur that stands on end), and nipples on males. Are whales more complex than their land-dwelling vertebrate ancestors that had four limbs and could walk or swim? There are countless examples, especially of prokaryotes, that have lost functions and traits and have regressed (bad choice of wording) and become less complex.
 
spidergoat said:
Let's look at the odds, then. We don't need to start with a chromosome, which developed later, but only a self-replicating molecule, such as RNA. Given that the early oceans must have been filled with a stew of complex organic chemistry (there was nothing around to eat it), lets assume that the odds of a single strand of RNA developing in any one year are 1 in a billion. In two years, the odds go down to 1 in 500 thousand. After a mere 30 years, the odds are 1 to 1, in other words not just probable, but almost certain to occur.

Even if you start with the odds at 1 in a trillion, give it a billion years, and it is bound to happen.

At that point, it becomes a runaway process as described by evolution and natural selection.
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I'll have to find my study books and articles, I'll get back to you on those additional probabilties. I'm sure I'll find them if I search long enough.

Heres the problem. There nothing intrinsicly incorrect about establishing odds. Odds and probabily can be established by many different controls. Even in the unknown world of Quantum physcis probabilty works in strange ways.

However a stastical point isn't refrenced from the basis of a year. I feel you're taking that for granted. A stastical refrence point is rather based on reproduction of conditions.

Flipping a coin.
It doesn't matter how fast you flip the coin. That could be any number of seconds...
1 in 9 trillion (the chances of getting heads. or survival of death)
The entire situation must be replicated, that point refers to a complete cycle not a single year.

Mr. Lemus is refering to the complete production of one chromosome in 1 complete cycle. In other their is a 1 in a 9 trillion chances that a single chromosomes will develp on it's own in one cycle.

According to Scientific Evolution that happpend over a period of millions of years. Life needs reproduction in order to last over these long periods of time. By the time the next probable cycle is completed the first chromosome is long dead. And of course theres no garaunte that the next cycle would produce another chromosome.

Once again we run in a zero barrier.
 
Saquist, my problem with that argument is that life didn't start with a chromosome. It's probable that life began with a structure that has no modern equivalent.
 
Because the chromosome is already a highly evolved structure containing DNA. The premise of abiogenesis (a separate theory than evolution), is not that a cell formed spontaneously, but that it emerged gradually from simpler steps, perhaps from RNA. The simpler steps are more probable to form than a complex structure.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RNA_world_hypothesis
 
I can't speak for spidergoat, but I'd say it's probable because simple cell-like structures can form spontaneously in lab settintgs, and the levels of complexity from multi-cellular eukaryote to prion suggest that other sub-"living" things are possible.

Since speciation has been seen in the lab, and a complex array of living things exist today, it is completely plausible that life began with something simpler than we would consider alive today; became more complex over time via chemical interaction alone, crossed the threshold into what we would consider a living-thing (including reproduction), and evolution took over from there.

About 75% of this story is visible in a lab today; and the remaining 25% is not hard to imagine. Whereas a much smaller portion of creationism is visible in a lab, and the remainder requires an omnipotent, self-aware, intelligent, but somehow invisible being.
 
Oh, they're gonna prove that Darwinism is true? Shall we hold our collective breath?

And why are not kinds of creatures morphing into new kinds of creatures in a Darwinian way today? Oh, that's right, too much time, how conveeeeenient.

But wait, "punctuated equilibrium" allows for rapid morphing, why have we not seen that?
 
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We have, you and I are the result of rapid evolution. We replaced the Neanderthals only 60,000 years ago.
 
spidergoat said:
Saquist, my problem with that argument is that life didn't start with a chromosome. It's probable that life began with a structure that has no modern equivalent.
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A fundalment problem is that we weren't there in the first place. What did and did not happen is limmited to speculation less you believe in the Bible account in Genesis. A chromosome according to evolution had to come from somewhere and the probablity just goes up higher, and higher..

The last time I read from my sources it explained that the oods were something with more than 20 zero's behind it. It stated at this point Science considers the possibility was sysnonomous with the word "impossible". That is...anything following 20 zero's....

That prebiotic goo they created in a labortory broke down after it's inception because the conditions that scientist simulated (primordial Earth) were so hostile nothing could have survived and the experiment showed that the amino acids need to be removed from the enviorment completely if to survive. Even furthter still...The building blocks (amino acids) were all they created and couldn't fathom what would combinate them into the structure of DNA. Another curious effect of the experiment was the creation of left and right hand amino acids...It made little sense...All life on Earth is created from left hand amino acids with no exception.

This was confounding to the experiment. Scientist reason that there was no known phenomenon that would remove one type of amino acid from the Earth completely.
 
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IceAgeCivilizations said:
Oh, they're gonna prove that Darwinism is true? Shall we hold our collective breath?
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The idea that things evolved was around long before Darwin - he's famous for suggesting that it occurred due to Natural Selection.

Of course evolution theory via natural selection has changed since Darwin's original text; we know more about the subject that he did. Many of the detail about genes and heredity were unknown to Darwin at the time and has since been added to the collective understanding of how evolution works; however, the idea that evolution is driven by natural selection remains the best theory to explain the evidence that we have.


Tell me - who are your ancestors? I don't mean evolutionarily, but in terms of a family tree. Who is your great-great-great-great-grandfather, and where did he come from? Are you of European, African, Asian, or American descent? How do you know? How can you verify this objectively? Why do you believe this, even though you do not:
1) personally know every one of your ancestors
2) have the bones of each individual available for your direct study
 
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Saquist said:
A fundalment problem is that we weren't there in the first place. What did and did not happen is limmited to speculation less you believe in the Bible account in Genesis.
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"What did and did not happen is limmited to speculation less you believe in the Hindu account in the Upishads."

At least the scientific version attempts to match the likely causes of secondary effects that can currently be seen, instead of trying to modify current observations to fit a pre-concieved story.
 
stumping questions

if evilution is true, then why arn't we evolvig today. why arn't there any transition of species in the middel of evilution in the fossil record. why does evilution defy all the laws of probability and some of the most fundumental scientific laws. if you answer these questions with logic truthful answers than i'll admit evilution to be true!
 
I guess that would lead to another thought about Spontaneous Generation...

Meet Kenneth Llyod Tanaka.

I am a geologist presently employed by the US Geological Survey in Flagstaff, Arizona. For almost three decades, I have participated in scientific research in various fields of geology, including planetary geology. Dozens of my research articles and geologic maps of Mars have been published in accredited scientific journals.

I was taught to believe in evolution, but I could not accept that the immense energy required to form the universe could origninated without a powerful Creator. Something cannot come from nothing. I also find a strong argument in favor of a Creator in the Bible itself. This book gives numerous examples of scientific facts in my field of experise such as that the earth is spherical in shape and hangs "upon nothing." (Job 26:7; Isaiah 40:22) These realities were written in the Bible long before they were proved by human investigation.

Think of the way we are made. We possess sensory perception, self-awareness, inteligent thought, communication abilities, and feelings. In particular, we can experience, appreciate, and express love. Evolution cannot explain how these wonderful human qualities came to be.

Ask yourself, 'How reliable and credible are the sources of information used to support evolution?' The geologic record incomplete, complex, and confusing. Evolutionsit have failed to demostrate proposed evolutionary processes in the laboratory with the use of scientific methodologies. And while scientist generally employ good research techiniques to acquire data, they are often influenced by selfsh motives when interpreting their findings. Scientists have been know to promote their own thinking when the data are inconclusive or contradictory. Their careers and their own feelings of self-worth play important roles.

Both as a scientist and as a Bible reader, I search for the whole truth, which reconciles all known facts and observations to reach the most accurate understanding. To me belief in the Creator makes the most sense.
 
Spaceman said:
if evilution is true, then why arn't we evolvig today.
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we are

Spaceman said:
why arn't there any transition of species in the middel of evilution in the fossil record.
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There are.

Spaceman said:
why does evilution defy all the laws of probability and some of the most fundumental scientific laws.
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It doesn't.

Spaceman said:
if you answer these questions with logic truthful answers than i'll admit evilution to be true!
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Done.
 
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