Can you give any evidence for Darwin's theory?

[ThePinsir]

Wow, he hasn't been back since that "kinds" remark? Maybe he actually learned something?

When things like this happen, do apologists actually admit when their arguments have been dissected and torn apart...or do they just disappear from the forums??

[max-greece]

People say it is true and has tons of facts. I have never been given one. So please, can you give me some evidence?

Ah, yes, well, simple misunderstanding here. You see the evidence was the reason that Darwin reached the conclusions he did. Before Darwin cretinous theists such as yourself would say things like "With all the diversity of life - how else could it have happened other than from God himself?"

You see the evidence was here first - what we needed was a theory to explain it. This is where Darwin came in - evolution through natural selection gave us, for the first time, a reasonable explanation as to the diversity of life observed without requiring a divine creator.

Of course, it should be stressed that many, including Darwin himself, saw evolution as God's tool for creating life, but that's a minor aberration one can forgive - bearing in mind the times he lived in.

[ThePinsir]

Of course, it should be stressed that many, including Darwin himself, saw evolution as God's tool for creating life, but that's a minor aberration one can forgive - bearing in mind the times he lived in.

Nah, Darwin said his theory didn't explain the creation of life itself, but just its diversification.

[max-greece]

Of course, it should be stressed that many, including Darwin himself, saw evolution as God's tool for creating life, but that's a minor aberration one can forgive - bearing in mind the times he lived in.

Nah, Darwin said his theory didn't explain the creation of life itself, but just its diversification.

Correct - my bad - one beer too many.

Have some kudos for the correction.

[Sejanus]

When things like this happen, do apologists actually admit when their arguments have been dissected and torn apart...or do they just disappear from the forums??

I'd like to think I didn't write all this for nothing,

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Ok, most of you are giving examples of evolving in little ways. I should have clarified this but i am talking about a change of kind. IN the case of evolution some people think a fish or a monkey to a human. Do you have evidence of a change of kinds like a fish to a human, or a monkey to a human.

Don't ever use that word when discussing evolution. Ever. Here's a little crash course in high school evolutionary biology. First, let's define the word species. A species is a population of animals that can successfully interbreed to produce fertile, viable offspring. Next, I'll inform you that all individuals in a population show some variation in their genetic make-up, which may or may not manifest itself phenotypically; what the animal looks like. It's the reason you don't look exactly like your parents. This variation comes from - Mutations, crossing over and recombination of chromosomes, among other things (I haven't looked at my High school Biology texts in like, a year, so if this isn't sufficient I will explain the variation in more detail).

So, now we have a population of individuals of the same species that show genetic variation and can successfully interbreed to produce fertile offspring. Big whoop. To produce a new species, mechanisms of speciation must act on the population. There are a whole host of these, so I'll explain one that's easy to understand. Allopatric (means "other-land") speciation occurs when a group of individuals is separated from the main population of the species by some geographical barrier, like a river, a new mountain range, etc. The climate is likely to be different where the small group ends up. As such it will have different selection pressures than the original environment. Remember, the group of individuals shows variation, so those individuals who can best adapt to the selection pressures in the new environment have a better chance to survive to pass on those genes that helped them survive. Hence, over many generations, the group develops similar traits which are best suited to surviving in the environment they live in.

To explain this, I'll give an example. Suppose there is a population of mostly green lizards that was located in a forest. A small group of them end up in the desert, where the colour of the sand is yellow. Birds of prey can easily spot the most green lizards, but have a harder time spotting ones that have a colour closer to yellow (due to variation). The yellow-ish lizards will therefore be more likely to survive, to be able to reproduce and pass on their genes. So the group becomes mostly yellow-ish over time. Which leads me to speciation. Say those yellow-ish lizards make it back to the forest. The original population of green lizards will now not be able to recognize the yellow-ish lizards as potential mates; i.e a post-zygotic reproductive isolating mechanism has developed. (there are many of these, this is just an example. There are also pre-zygotic reproductive isolating mechanisms; a different number of chromosomes, for example, among others). Now we can go back to the original definition of a species; a population of animals that can successfully interbreed to produce fertile, viable offspring. The yellow-ish group do not breed with the original population, and so mutations and other RIMs develop to the point where they are unable to interbreed successfully with the original population. This is the point where a new species has developed.

In order to get your "fish to a human" scenario to happen, there needs to be hundreds of thousands if not more of these speciation events, through billions of generations. I hope I've shown that evolution by natural selection explains how you will never see a fish evolve into a human in one generation, the timescale required for that to happen is geological; in the order of billions of years.

Evolutionary biologists of the forum: feel free to correct me.
Creationists: take notes.

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but, I probably did.

[The Valkyrie]

So here's the counter question, OP: You've been given overwhelming evidence for evolutio, are you going to take it to heart and study/investigate what you've been given, or completely ignore it and continue to deny it?

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Wow, he hasn't been back since that "kinds" remark? Maybe he actually learned something?

When things like this happen, do apologists actually admit when their arguments have been dissected and torn apart...or do they just disappear from the forums??

The sad thing is I've had an almost identical discussion with someone on HuffPost, and they just brought up "kinds".

[Chad32]

Ok, most of you are giving examples of evolving in little ways. I should have clarified this but i am talking about a change of kind. IN the case of evolution some people think a fish or a monkey to a human. Do you have evidence of a change of kinds like a fish to a human, or a monkey to a human.

You must be the product of an American education.

So sad to see a once mighty nation crumble under the weight of accumulated ignorance.

On the other hand my sons are all better educated than this (My youngest is eleven), so should be able to better compete in the global job market.

We are bettering ourselves in some ways, but falling behind in others. Religion is a big reason for falling behind in some places, and is trying it's hardest to stop us from bettering ourselves in the ways we actually are getting better. Basically trying to squash equality and scientific education.

[Rampant.A.I.]

[Anomalocaris]

Ok, most of you are giving examples of evolving in little ways. I should have clarified this but i am talking about a change of kind. IN the case of evolution some people think a fish or a monkey to a human. Do you have evidence of a change of kinds like a fish to a human, or a monkey to a human.

You must be the product of an American education.

So sad to see a once mighty nation crumble under the weight of accumulated ignorance.

On the other hand my sons are all better educated than this (My youngest is eleven), so should be able to better compete in the global job market.

Well, it's not enough to just know that the the god of bronze age Bedouins wasn’t responsible for what's around you. You also need to be able to know chemistry, do math and that kind of things.

[Brakeman]

I think what he wants is this picture.