The Problem with Christians

[Silver]

If there was any kind of real evidence for design, then we would not be having this discussion.

[AJW333]

About 0.000444% of the total time earth has been around.

If the climate change does precipitate into a truly inhospitable environment, there will definitely be some observable evolutionary changes.

A period of time, additionally, during which humans have increasingly been the dominant species on the planet, who aren't influenced by environmental factors due to the totality of the way we change our environment. There really aren't any selection pressures capable of motivating large changes in the human species because our environment is largely one we control and bend to our will, rather than having to coexist with in the way that any other animal has to. Even assuming that 200,000 years is some huge span of time on an evolutionary scale, our stasis wouldn't be too surprising; we're an apex species with no selection pressures to prompt us to change.

Apples and oranges. Species change is dependent on major changes to the DNA through mutation. Given the prevelance of mutation in the human genome, shouldn't we have seen some major changes by now? Like eyes in the back of your head or something?

Isn't it interesting that, around the time I started pointing out all the ways that this guy severely misunderstands his subject matter, and cannot provide positive evidence for his god, he started ignoring my responses?  

I've not ignored you at all. I try to answer every post that I can. Those that I don't are usually answered elsewhere, in response to a similar question.


Concerning the 0.000444% figure, this isn't really relevant since most of the explosion of life apparently occurred in the 20 million year Cambrian period - hence the 1% figure that I came up with.

[IATIA]

Concerning the 0.000444% figure, this isn't really relevant since most of the explosion of life apparently occurred in the 20 million year Cambrian period - hence the 1% figure that I came up with.

Life started on this earth about four billion years ago.

[Mudhammam]

Apples and oranges. Species change is dependent on major changes to the DNA through mutation. Given the prevelance of mutation in the human genome, shouldn't we have seen some major changes by now? Like eyes in the back of your head or something?

There have been plenty of "major changes," though we have not been around to actually observe and document step-by-step what the evidence shows has indeed occurred over countless generations and a few billion years. And yes, mutations sometimes include severe deformities such as eyes growing in areas where they serve no real purpose--which is why if they did grow in the back of a person's head, that individual's genes likely would not spread throughout the population.

[IATIA]

A period of time, additionally, during which humans have increasingly been the dominant species on the planet, who aren't influenced by environmental factors due to the totality of the way we change our environment. There really aren't any selection pressures capable of motivating large changes in the human species because our environment is largely one we control and bend to our will, rather than having to coexist with in the way that any other animal has to. Even assuming that 200,000 years is some huge span of time on an evolutionary scale, our stasis wouldn't be too surprising; we're an apex species with no selection pressures to prompt us to change.

Apples and oranges. Species change is dependent on major changes to the DNA through mutation. Given the prevelance of mutation in the human genome, shouldn't we have seen some major changes by now? Like eyes in the back of your head or something?

Species change is dependent on mutation AND environment.  Eyes in the back of your head?  OK, I will address this ridiculous response.  If you noticed, there are certain patterns to the different subphylum: Vertebrata.  Two legs, two arms, eyes in FRONT of the head, etc..  There are also similarities between different Phylum as the parrot beak shows us.  Octopus, triceratops, even some insects.  Different world, different circumstances, possibly "eyes in the back of your head" might have been so, but that is not the path evolution took here on earth.

[pocaracas]

The "failed intermediates" never survived enough to breed and pass on their failed genetic makeup. How would you be expecting to spot them?


Also, I think that, in the beginning, there must have been lots of similar self-replicating "organisms" which all self-assembled spontaneously in the same "soup" conditions...

 Failed intermediates may not be the best terminology. I was wondering why we don't see a stack of weird half breeds or transitional species in the fossil record. Given that there are so many thousands of different species that presumably evolved from one life form, why don't we see an abundance of evidence for species transition?

Well, Esq already mentioned it, but I figured you need some extra hand on this.

The fossil record presents us with glimpses of what happened way back when. Of animals that lived long ago.
I'm sure you'd agree that those animals who died in such a way as to become fossils would be rare. Most would get eaten within hours of death, or decomposed by bacteria over a few days or weeks.

Also, fossils appear to us a bit misshapen, due to eons of rock upon rock pressing upon them.
On top of that, archeologists can, and have been known to, mistake individuals of a particular species, but of different age groups, as belonging to different species. This goes to show how difficult it is to identify what we do find.

I do not know what transitional fossils you are looking for, but maybe "half breeds" abound, however you may be looking at them as actual "breeds" and wishing to find yet some other "breed" in between the known "breeds".

Here are a few for elephants, with extra soft tissue added for illustration purposes from the experts' best guesses:


Here's the same for whales:


Here's the same for the wing in birds:


For primates:


But what you want... really... is something like this, with all the pictures in there for you to scrutinize (hiding, because the image is large):

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As you can see, the above is huge... it represents millions of different species of life on this planet.
Some links in there may be wrong... most should be correct.
If you wish to analyze them all, you should become an evolutionary biologist. If you are not one, then I'm not sure you're in a position to defy those who have devoted their lives to built up that tree.

[abaris]

If you wish to analyze them all, you should become an evolutionary biologist. If you are not one, then I'm not sure you're in a position to defy those who have devoted their lives to build up that tree.

Oh, I'm sure, he's not qualified to defy these persons. He rather goes with Ray Comfort and his banana, which, by the way, is a very apt fruit for Comfort and his ilk.

Guy's like, my grandfather looked the same as I do, so where's the evolution?

[robvalue]

Are we still at "this is unlikely so it was magic"?

Or has something more nuanced been proposed?

[TheRocketSurgeon]

Apples and oranges. Species change is dependent on major changes to the DNA through mutation. Given the prevelance of mutation in the human genome, shouldn't we have seen some major changes by now? Like eyes in the back of your head or something?

I just wanted to repeat this one... because I'm just baffled that this entered someone's (anyone's) head (or the back of it) for even a moment as a real possibility for "How Evolutionary Biologists Think It Works™".

Wow. Just...WOW!

[Esquilax]

Apples and oranges. Species change is dependent on major changes to the DNA through mutation. Given the prevelance of mutation in the human genome, shouldn't we have seen some major changes by now? Like eyes in the back of your head or something?

As I told you before- it really does seem like you're just ignoring correction and pretending nobody has answered you, now- the period of time that human beings have existed is almost nothing, on an evolutionary timescale. In that time, we have seen some notable mutations that, business as usual for you apparently, you're unaware of before deciding they don't exist; populations of tetrachromatic women able to see more of the light spectrum than normal humans, another small population with hyper-dense bones making them resistant to breaks, a genetic abnormality that increases resistance to AIDs, that sort of thing. They aren't, like, "ooh, here's a person with wings," or anything like that, but if that's truly what you're asking for, then I need to ask you why you're insisting evolution behave like a cartoon version of itself, rather than what the process actually describes.

But my comment about selection pressures and the human population isn't an apples and oranges comparison, because natural selection is sort of the second half of the evolutionary process. Ignore it at your own risk. Humans control practically every aspect of their personal environments, they cultivate those environments to suit their needs, so what, exactly, are the selection pressures that would propagate this big, cartoony mutations you seem to want through the population? Where are the factors causing humans without those changes to die out, in a system where it's trivial to protect human life from its environment? Where are the factors causing those with certain mutations to flourish in that same environment, ensuring that their genes spread through the general population? In a world where humans can be preserved and allowed to live no matter what mutations they carry, what impetus is there for those mutations to be retained at any greater rate than a normal human genome, and intensified therein?

To recap, not only is your understanding of the situation completely wrong, but even if your misrepresentation were one hundred percent accurate, it still wouldn't lead to the conclusion you've reached. Again I ask you: how much research into this subject have you actually done, before deciding that it's wrong?

Concerning the 0.000444% figure, this isn't really relevant since most of the explosion of life apparently occurred in the 20 million year Cambrian period - hence the 1% figure that I came up with.

There's more wrong with what you're saying than the figure...