How do you know God isn't dead?

[The Grand Nudger]

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…so Sociologists that claim race is nothing more than a social construct are wrong? There are documented cases of Europeans being the best tissue matches with Aboriginals for organ transplants, the differences are trivial; so no divergent evolution, sorry.

You have to be really committed to continue with this, but I'll play along. Why would a tissue match contradict anything that I've said? Have I not repeatedly stressed that no matter where the human is, it is one of us? Have I not taken the time to explain to you how long this has been the case? Race is a social construct with relation to human beings as a species - but it doesn't take a very bright person to see that a diverging evolutionary paths have been taken. MC1R, KITLG, ASIP, SLC245A5, SLC45A2, TYR, and OCA2. Evolution is not a matter of what you deem to be trivial, it is only a matter of change. The markers behind the color of a persons skin are very clearly mutations - that much is well demonstrated and well evidenced. Why a mutation for pigmentation would somehow make tissue more or less suitable for transplant- or why it would be a significant enough difference to incur speciation - is a mystery...and frankly, it's a mystery why you would wonder such things.

No, it is living long enough to have sex and have kids that live long enough to have sex and have kids. Anything that prevents someone from living long enough to have sex and have healthy children is known as a selective pressure. You seem to be unable to postulate a selective pressure or group of selective pressures that would develop modern day human cognitive abilities in primitive man.

You should probably find a way to word that first sentence in a way that makes it coherent. Anything that prevents a person from reproducing is a selective pressure, and? Does this have any power to modify my statement? No, it does not. You were given two candidates for the pressure you asked about. Two candidates which you are about to quote. I could give you a third, but it would be tied at the hip to the other two (sometimes). Between three candidates that are well evidenced, well established, and well demonstrated and one "because of fairies" - there's hardly a choice at all.

Yup, more storytelling. They do not know how evolution did it but they have faith that it did it.

We have a point where we find no evidence of behavioral modernity - then we have a point where we do. Certainly, there's room for another explanation - nevermind the observation that this all coincides with our evolutionary development regardless - care to suggest one?

Which is what creationists have been claiming for decades.

What cretinist claims? I keep hearing that they exist, but like the spirits they invoke they never seem to make an appearance.

Ah, the ever elusive but apparently rather frequent in the past but just not today beneficial mutation that increases genetic information. You’ve got a lot of faith in that which is unseen.

No faith is required. Nothing elusive about mutation - as I said, it happens all the time. Mutations do not need to be beneficial, nuetral, or deleterious for evolution to have occurred - it will have occurred in every case. The results will be different, but evolution is constant in this regard.

No we’re not; we’re talking about Neo-Darwinism, which is not even an empirical science.

Unifying theory of biology. Let that sink in.

A user-generated site? Why is the number of chromosomes not relevant to the classification? Who determined this classification?

You're going to have to do better than "a user generated site" or "who determined the classification". The number of chromosomes went largely unnoticed in classification for a fairly simple reason. The folks who devised the system had no idea what a chromosome was. Of course we do now, and genetics -has- given us reason to shuffle it around a bit. In fact, genetics finally gave us the power to complete the picture - to more accurately determine what was related to what, and how closely. Without genetics, evolutionary theory was incomplete. That's why our current theory is called "modern synthesis". Speaking of chromosomes, and since you'll be asking for predictions in a moment (albeit predictions for a different conjecture) I find it useful to mention that the distinction between ourselves and our nearest primate relatives along the lines of chromosomes was itself the subject of a prediction made in support of both modern synthesis and common descent. Guess what happened? It panned out, we found the distinction precisely where we expected to find it. Perhaps you should choose your metrics more wisely.

You only provided some arbitrary classification that places people in the order of Primates, as I pointed out earlier, simply calling Humans primates does not prove they are indeed primates.

You're the one that asked the question Statler, human beings are primates because we meet the definition of a primate. Why did we decide to pigeonhole our family tree into this particular group? Why not include racoons? I wouldn't know, but specificity is useful - so that's probably part of the "why".

You need some actual evidence demonstrating they are related to the primates.

You've been given ample evidence. I'm not sure why being a primate has you so ruffled up - it isn't as though you had choice in the matter. Your parents were primates.

Additionally, you never used the term Physical Science, you used the term Physics. Are you really so ignorant you do not know the difference between those two terms?

Because wear patterns on bone and their likely arrangement in any given organism is something that physics helps us to establish. Keep up.

Prove it, don’t just assert it. Give me a case of something evolving without the mechanism of Natural Selection being involved.

Science isn't a proving sort of thing. In any case, this has already been explained to you. Mutations occur. End of.

Simple, according to the theory animals do not develop traits they do not use in survival.

According to what theory? As I said, it's clear that you haven't taken the time to even -begin- to learn what modern synthesis is.

Any organism that did so would be out competed by other organisms that were putting their energy to actually surviving. Chance and necessity; you have no necessity.

You'd be discussing a deleterious mutation in this case, not a beneficial or neutral one.

That’s a faulty analogy, anaerobic respiration serves a purpose in animals, but having the ability to do mathematical analysis that was not developed until thousands of years later does not serve a purpose. Why did Humans develop that ability and yet no other animals did?

It's a perfect analogy. It doesn't "serve a purpose" in animals with access to air and aerobic respiratory systems. Not that this would matter, as the process we're discussing doesn't give a shit about purpose. Nevertheless, the ability to carry out complex mental tasks - to think ahead, to plan, to communicate, to abstract - this all served us very well, so suggesting that adaptations to the apparatus that makes this possible would serve no purpose is a -bit- shaky. Hilariously - none of this matters- sit back and enjoy while I explain why, again.

In essence, you're asking me why a trait would be expressed before whatever you imagine it's purpose to be has materialized. The answer is that it is unlikely that it would, evolution is not a matter of responding to the environment. Any organism left behind the ball is more likely to wind up in the "also ran" pile than an organism that already possesses the mutation, one that is in front of the ball - selectively neutral.

Unless you can give me a very specific explanation of how the neurological pathways necessary for the mental cognitive abilities to do calculus and advanced levels of thinking could arise as a simple neutral mutation this is nothing more than wishful thinking and “just-so” storytelling. You’re really becoming the “Evolution-did-it” guy aren’t you?

No one is saying that our cognitive apparatus was a selectively nuetral issue at the point where we became homo-sapiens. There had been a pronounced and decided bent towards precisely that for quite some time in our lineage.

You’re the one defending the theory (rather poorly so), the onus is on you to defend it, not on the skeptic. If you want to tell stories about how all of this stuff happened then fine, but that does not demonstrate that any of it actually happened, and I have every right to reject such stories as just that, fantastic stories.

The theory requires no defense from me Stat. Again, it's the unifying theory of biology. You're certainly free to reject any part of it that you like - but your rejection does not alter the reality of the situation.

First I’ll challenge the absolute garbage you tossed out above your question. What successful prediction has been made that could only have been made if someone believed in Common Descent? What observations have been made that demonstrate Common Descent?

Common descent was first proposed in 1740. Those who proposed common descent expected to find vast uniformity between all living creatures, uniformity that they themselves probably weren't all to justified in expecting (upon what basis would you propose uniformity between an octopus and a human being in 1740?). Then we (twice) discovered this little thing we call "genetics" - which validated their expectations in such a dramatic and thorough way, that it became one half of -the unifying theory of biology-. This is exceedingly simple. The genes we carry are a matter of inheritance. This much is in evidence. Two creatures with vast genetic uniformity (every living thing on this planet - you share roughly 15% of your DNA with mustard greens) got those genes from -somewhere-. The only somewhere we're aware of is mentioned above.

Nope, Darwinism, the two are very different.

Modern synthesis is the unifying theory of biology.

Yes, this discussion has definitely illuminated ignorance on the subject matter, but it certainly has not been mine. My favorite was your assertion that biologic evolution occurs devoid of natural selection, priceless. I’ll have to give you my old Advanced Evolutionary Biology professor’s email address (don’t worry he’s an atheist), I am sure he’d love to hear you try and defend that fantastic claim.

Evolution does occur without selective pressures. Selective pressures modify the outcome of evolution as measured by population genetics. The only fantastic claims in this thread have been the those claims that arose as you attempted to explain "how evolution works". Evolutionary theory doesn't give a shit if someone is an atheist or not, and regardless of a person religious affiliations the evidence is what it is.

In fact, Creationists support rapid speciation by Darwinistic means. How can you argue against a position you are so embarrassingly ignorant of? There’s also nothing in science that presupposes naturalism, it only requires trial uniformity. You’re amusing; I’ll grant you that Rhythm.

They support no such thing. They find it useful to include something that sounds sciencey - because apparently, even though they wish to propose magic, it makes them uneasy to have it stated so bluntly. No freebies Stat.

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TLDR Version. You appear to be entirely unaware of what modern synthesis is and what it entails, though you feel compelled to argue against it, and from this point of ignorance you;re stumbling trying to understand evolutionary theory. This is obviously in addition to the barrier presented by believing in djinn but not geology.

The key points
-Evolution is not a top down directive whereby an individual organism mutates in response to it's environment or any goal. For example, birds weren't jumping of cliffs trying to evolve wings-any more than human beings were doing trig, trying to evolve a bigger brain.

-All that is required for evolution to have occurred is mutation. Mutations can be deleterious, neutral, or beneficial. Only the latter two will express themselves in an existent population (though the former could also be said to express itself if only as an indicator o what didn't work at the time. Of those two - either will satisfy biological continuity and inheritance - until they don't (while deleterious mutations are obviously a non-starter neutral and beneficial mutations can become deleterious, as they can swap places with each other - regardless of whatever classification we may be justified in giving them at some point in the past)

-Modern synthesis is the unifying theory of biology.