Problems with conventional evolutionary theory

[Cuddles]

On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life fully explains the origins of biological diversity.

stopped reading at "fully explains the origins of biological diversity". Let me guess the rest, creationist ramblings? Don't we have a religion/spirituality section?

 

[expiated]

If the fossil record doesn’t support macroevolution, exactly what does it evidence?

If one looks at the fossil record objectively, there can be no denying that instead of witnessing the evolution of living creatures—rather than finding innumerable examples of life gradually transforming from one biological group into another exhibiting radically different properties through a series of successive intermediate forms—one instead sees the sudden appearance of new life forms, with new biological groups showing up explosively in the fossil record, almost as if out of nowhere.

And not only is there a near absence of transitional intermediates, the fossil record is characterized by stasis, which is to say, instead of seeing gradual change over time, once new forms appear, they remain unchanged over vast periods of time.

One of the most remarkable examples of sudden appearances of new forms in the fossil record is something known as the "Cambrian explosion." This happened approximately 540 million years ago when, judging by the fossil record, a veritable explosion of complex multicellular animal life appeared. For the first time in earth’s history one sees anywhere from 50% to 80% of the animal phyla that have ever existed. Moreover, these organisms show up in a window of time that is arguably close to 2 to 3 million years in duration, though some would argue the Cambrian explosion lasted for about 13 to 25 million years.

Virtually out of nowhere comes this incredible diversification of complex animal forms. And when we look at the fossil record, we see that prior to the Cambrian explosion, we find nothing that looks like complex animal life whatsoever. It is new life showing up virtually out of nowhere.

Simon Conway Morris, an evolutionary biologist and one of the leading scientists who study the Cambrian explosion stated the following:

"William Buckland knew about it, Charles Darwin characteristically agonized over it, and we still do not fully understand it. 'It,' of course, is the seemingly abrupt appearance of animals in the Cambrian 'explosion.'" [PNSA 97 (2000)]

The Cambrian explosion just simply makes no sense from an evolutionary perspective. In fact, Charles Darwin's book titled On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life actually has a couple of chapters where he deals with problems for his theory, and one of the problems was the Cambrian explosion, about which he wrote:

"There is another and allied difficulty, which is much more serious. I allude to the manner in which species belonging to several of the main divisions of the animal kingdom suddenly appear in the lowest known fossiliferous rocks…

To the question why we do not find rich fossiliferous deposits belonging to these assumed earliest periods prior to the Cambrian system, I can give no satisfactory answer…”

In other words, in Darwin’s day, the Cambrian explosion—the idea that new animal life appears explosively in the fossil record without any evolutionary history preceding it—was already well known. Darwin hoped that future studies would uncover these missing transitional forms, but they have not. So, here we are 150 years later, and though we now know of many, many more fossils than Darwin knew in his day, the nature of the Cambrian explosion is still exactly the same.

In fact, even the atheist Richard Dawkins, on page 299 in his book The Blind Watchmaker, laments about the Cambrian explosion. He writes…

..the Cambrian strata of rocks, vintage about 600 million years, are the oldest ones in which we find most of the major invertebrate groups. And we find many of them already in an advanced state of evolution, the very first time they appear. It is as though they were just planted there, without any evolutionary history.

This is indeed a significant challenge to the evolutionary paradigm, but it is not just limited to the Cambrian explosion. Every time there is biological innovation that happens in the history of life on earth, it happens explosively.

This includes the origin of life about 3.8 billion years ago, the eukaryotic big bang about 2 billion years ago (when single-celled eukaryotic organisms appear for the first time), as well as each time there is biological innovation with regard to animal life after the Cambrian Explosion (i.e., it happens as what paleontologists call "radiation" where there is an explosive diversification of new forms, with there being radiations for fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals).

Again, these radiation events challenge the notion of biological evolution (i.e., the gradual unfolding of life on earth and the gradual emergence of new biological groups).

It’s also interesting that when scientists look at the fossil record, they see extinctions. There are many mass extinction events that scientists can document in life’s history such as the Permian extinction and the K-T extinction (Cretaceous-Tertiary) where the dinosaurs disappeared and where one shortly thereafter sees the mammalian radiation.

What is interesting is that in looking at each of these major mass extinction events, one finds they are closely followed by mass origination events where entirely new lifeforms and ecosystems appear. Again, they appear explosively and virtually out of nowhere—a pattern that does not fit what one would expect to see if biological evolution (or macroevolution more specifically) were a fact.

 

[stu]

Of course fossil fuels form over hundreds of millions of years, everyone knows that really. Maybe creationists, especially young earth creationists, shouldn't be using things like fossil fuel if it hasn't had time to "evolve".

 

[expiated]

Evolution as summarized by Jordan Peterson...

The cosmos is fifteen billion years old, and the world is four and a half billion years old. And there’s been life for three and a half billion years, and there were creatures that had pretty developed nervous systems three hundred to six hundred million years ago. And we were living in trees as small mammals sixty million years ago. We were down on the plains between sixty million and seven million years ago and that’s when we split from chimpanzees. And modern human beings seem to emerge about a hundred and fifty thousand years ago. And civilization pretty much after the last Ice Age, something after fifteen thousand years ago.

• The cosmos is 15,000,000,000 years old.
• The world is 4,500,000,000 years old.
• There’s been life for 3,500,000,000 years.
• There were creatures that had pretty developed nervous systems 300,000,000 to 600,000,000 years ago.
• We were living in trees as small mammals 60,000,000 years ago.
• We were down on the plains between 60,000,000 and 7,000,000 million years ago, and that’s when we split from chimpanzees.
• Modern human beings seem to emerge about a 150,000 years ago.
• Civilization pretty much after the last Ice Age, something after 15,000 years ago.

 

[expiated]

The Latter Timeline​

 

[easymon1]

-1 energy -2 particles -3 atoms -4 compounds -6 replicating molecules
-7 microbes -8 humans -9 x -10 god(s) -11 God -12 y

What is the % likelyhood that -9 in the above spectrum is real?
(>-9, see religion thread)

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Human accelerated regions
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Human accelerated regions (HARs), first described in August 2006,[1][2] are a set of 49 segments of the human genome that are conserved throughout vertebrate evolution but are strikingly different in humans. They are named according to their degree of difference between humans and chimpanzees (HAR1 showing the largest degree of human-chimpanzee differences). Found by scanning through genomic databases of multiple species, some of these highly mutated areas may contribute to human-specific traits. Others may represent loss of functional mutations, possibly due to the action of biased gene conversion [2][3] rather than adaptive evolution.[4][5][6]


Characterisation of HAR1-HAR5 regions, from a paper on Forces shaping the fastest evolving regions in the human genome by Katherine Pollard et al.[2]
Several of the HARs encompass genes known to produce proteins important in neurodevelopment. HAR1 is a 106-base pair stretch found on the long arm of chromosome 20 overlapping with part of the RNA genes HAR1F and HAR1R. HAR1F is active in the developing human brain. The HAR1 sequence is found (and conserved) in chickens and chimpanzees but is not present in fish or frogs that have been studied. There are 18 base pair mutations different between humans and chimpanzees, far more than expected by its history of conservation.[1]

HAR2 includes HACNS1 a gene enhancer "that may have contributed to the evolution of the uniquely opposable human thumb, and possibly also modifications in the ankle or foot that allow humans to walk on two legs". Evidence to date shows that of the 110,000 gene enhancer sequences identified in the human genome, HACNS1 has undergone the most change during the evolution of humans following the split with the ancestors of chimpanzees.[7] The substitutions in HAR2 may have resulted in loss of binding sites for a repressor, possibly due to biased gene conversion.[8][9]

 

[expiated]

Archaeopteryx

Why haven’t you mentioned archaeopteryx, which appears about 155 million years ago? It’s probably because it is a classic example of how the fossil record does indeed display gradual evolutionary transformations where one major group transitions into another major group—part of a series of numerous transitional intermediate forms, thus supporting the theory of evolution and validating the evolutionary paradigm.

Archaeopteryx is a perfect midpoint between reptiles and birds!

Well actually, archaeopteryx is a true bird. It’s an ancient bird that belongs to a group known as Archaeornithines. Also, it appears quite suddenly in the fossil record without any true transitional form leading up to it.

Though evolutionary biologists are convinced that birds evolved from ancient reptiles known as thecodonts (which gave rise to birds) the problem is that there is a 100 million year gap between the appearance of thecodonts in the fossil record and when archaeopteryx appears—and there are no transitional forms connecting these ancient reptiles to the very first birds. Moreover, thecodonts and birds lack similar characteristics to each other, which undermines the idea that there is an evolutionary connection between reptiles and birds.

But hold on! In more recent years, scientists have argued that the transitional form that produced birds would be feathered dinosaurs belonging to the group known as theropods.

Yes, this is true, but the problem here is the presence of temporal paradox, where the transitional form appears in the fossil record after the forms that it is supposed to have evolved into (around 125 million years ago).

And finally, following the sudden appearance of archaeopteryx, we don’t observe the gradual evolutionary transformation and diversification of ancient birds into more modern birds. Instead, we see stasis followed by explosive radiation events in three separate instances, the last one being 60 million years ago with the introduction of modern birds on the surface of the earth.

None of this looks like what one would expect if evolution is to indeed explain the history of life on earth.

 

[piezoe]

Perhaps the vast majority of people believe that Charles Darwin’s theory proposing continual evolution of species published in 1859 and titled On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life fully explains the origins of biological diversity.

However, honest and fair-minded men and women of science such as Denis Noble recognize that Neo-Darwinism ignores much contemporary molecular evidence and invokes a set of unsupported assumptions about the accidental nature of hereditary variation.

More specifically, not only are Neo-Darwinists ignoring important rapid evolutionary processes such as symbiogenesis, horizontal DNA transfer, action of mobile DNA and epigenetic modifications, some have even elevated Natural Selection to a unique creative force that solves all the difficult evolutionary problems without a real empirical basis.

As a believer who has witnessed time again how those who have stated that biblical accounts are not supported by history have often had to "eat their words" as new historical documents and artifacts have been discovered or uncovered which proved otherwise, I would not be surprised to see the same type of phenomena occurring in the area of science as well.

As a career educator, I feel I have a duty and a responsibility to share such developments with students. Unfortunately, virtually all of the science books produced by today’s main textbook publishers—not to mention the general public and even many scientists—are not aware of decades of research in evolutionary science, molecular biology and genome sequencing which contradict Darwin’s explanations for how novel organisms have originated in the long history of life on earth.

I hope to use this thread to begin exploring some of these alternative ideas in language accessible to the average elementary, middle, and high school student in preparation for publishing educational materials of my own—especially on how the DNA record does not support the assertion that small random mutations are the main source of new and useful variations, along with empirical data on areas that have been glossed over by Neo-Darwinian viewpoints.

I liked your post, it does mention new developments that will bear on evolution of the various species on our planet. These new development do not invalidate the key Darwin message on Natural Selection, they simply reveal that Darwin's hypothesis of adaptive evolution is incomplete, and there is much more to learn beyond natural selection. Natural selection adequately explains why some species thrive, and reproduce, but inadequately explains the mechanism of intra-species evolution. Darwin's hypothesis also adequately explains why some species die out, but there too, it is incomplete. Today it is hard to imagine the impact Darwin had, at least until we recall his hypothesis ran smack up against the entrenched common wisdom of 6 days and a day of rest to create everything. Darwin's hypothesis does not explain how species arise in the first place. In Darwin's time, of course, any thought of evolutionary mechanisms at a molecular level was out of the question.

One of the widely accepted but possibly incorrect current hypotheses is the "Out of Africa" hypothesis of the paleontologists and anthropologists for the origin of hominids. This is still an hypothesis only, though it is true that the oldest remains, so far, of hominids have been found on the African Continent. But this alone is an inadequate proof. It could simply be due to circumstance.

A highly questionable, yet popular, hypothesis is "the single origin for life forms hypothesis." This has not been dis-proven any more than "the seeding from another planet hypothesis" has been, but it is called into serious question by the existence of primitive species that have no redundancy in their DNA codons, with two different species having either this or that codon for the same amino acid. This strongly suggests multiple origins.*

The chance of there being googolplex of genesis sites where life on the planet could potentially begin is very high, and it is virtually certain that a googolplex of similar sites exist today. At each site the exact same rules of chemistry and physics must be followed, leading to similar but not identical results. Although the possible paths are highly limited at the outset, the possible paths increase with each step. Because there are so many genesis sites, even though events at each individual site have a vanishingly small probability of leading to the formation of living matter, a number of genesis sites that approaches infinity will virtually assure that some matter will evolve to create living species. According to this hypothesis the spontaneous formation of living matter of Earth is beyond possible, it's a virtual certainty.

Other hypotheses explain why some species eventually evolve far more rapidly than could be explained by even an evolutionary process highly directed by the laws of physics and chemistry, which limit possible paths and thus speeds evolution. One hypothesis, for which very strong arguments can be made, is that hominids eventually began to unconsciously effect their own evolutionary rate, greatly accelerating it.

There is at least one thing we can be absolutely certain of, however, God did not create the Earth and everything on it in six days and then rest for a day. We can be similarly certain that all religions, to the extent they teach at all, teach truth mingled with falsehoods. We will learn nothing of value with regard to evolution of the species from religious teaching. In that respect, religion is a waste of time.

_____________________
*Advocates of the seeding from another planet hypothesis" will note that this observation of unique codons in some primitive species would probably require more than one flying saucer landing.

 

[piezoe]

Did humans evolve from ape-like ancestors?
(Based on a presentation by Dr. Fazale Rana)

When looked at objectively, the popular notion that human beings evolved over vast periods of time through a series of transitional intermediate forms seems to be at odds with the fossil record, even though many people would argue that such discoveries provide powerful support that human beings did indeed come from monkeys.

But if this evidence is so strong, why did Charles Dawson feel compelled to invent Piltdown Man by assembling a hodgepodge of human and orangutan bones (using dental putty to hold the teeth in place), wearing them down with a file, and staining them with iron and acid to give them the appearance of age?

Why did scientists build an entire ancient hominid labeled the “Nebraska Man” around a misidentified pig’s tooth?

This example of a horrendous misinterpretation of fossil remains and of an outright forgery illustrate how scientists can, in their desperation to find transitional intermediate fossils, be led by preconceived ideas in place of scientific integrity and rigor, or to see what they want to see when it would be more appropriate for them to exercise objectivity and to subject even their own findings to the strongest scientific scrutiny.

Such incidences notwithstanding, there are vast numbers of fossils that have been discovered which really do appear to document the existence of genuine hominid creatures, and in fact, there are probably 15 to 20 different species that have been discovered in East Africa, South Africa, Central Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and Europe which appear between six million years ago to about a hundred thousand years ago (when modern humans appeared on the scene).

But, just because these hominids exist in the fossil record doesn’t mean they necessarily represent transitional intermediates going from ape-like creatures to modern humans. Clearly these creatures once walked the earth, but one cannot simply assume they were our ancestors, for it is possible that they were no different from any number of other creatures that existed on earth for a period of time and then later went extinct.

If these hominids are to be considered true evidence for human evolution, they must satisfy two requirements:

1. They must form a very clear evolutionary pathway through the hominid fossil record connecting an ape-like creature to modern humans.
2. They should serve as clear evidence for transitional forms in the fossil record that document this pathway.

As it turns out however, many of the hominids touted (in student textbooks) as our ancestors—creatures like Lucy, Homo habilis, Homo antecessor, Homo erectus and Neanderthals—are considered by today’s evolutionary biologists to be dead ending evolutionary side branches.

Most evolutionary biologists do not believe that these creatures are part of the direct evolutionary ancestry of modern humans. In fact, evolutionary biologists cannot point to hominids in the fossil record that clearly have a direct connection to modern humans. Again, the hominid fossil record does not show direct connection to modern humans. There is an absence of clear transitional forms and there is no clearly documented evolutionary pathway that exists in the fossil record that can account for the origin of humanity.

Yet another requirement is for there to be the gradual emergence of brain size, the ability to walk erect (bipedalism), and advanced human culture, given that these are defining features of human beings. Again, if these emerged through an evolutionary process, we should see a gradual increase in brain size, a gradual emergence of the ability to walk erect, and the gradual emergence of a sophisticated culture.

But the fossil record does not exhibit gradualism. Rather, it evidences sudden appearances. For example, the evolutionary model has long held that when hominids were forced from a woodland environment into the open savanna, this drove the ability of these creatures to stand erect, and then begin to walk around on two feet to promote their survival.

Now, going from a knuckle-walking ape to a creature that can stand erect and move around through bipedal locomotion requires a wholesale reworking of the anatomy, and one would expect this reworking of the anatomy to take place over a vast period of time.

But instead of seeing a gradual emergence, bipedalism appears rather suddenly, with the very first hominids able to walk erect living in a woodland environment—not in an open savanna—meaning there is no identifiable evolutionary driving force one can assign responsibility for the origin of bipedalism.

And not only does bipedalism turn up rather suddenly, once it does, it appears to undergo vast periods of stasis, with no evolutionary change.

Scientists used to think that creatures like Lucy were walking around with a very crude form of bipedalism, and that it was only later in the natural history of hominids with the emergence of Homo erectus that the type of bipedalism modern humans use appeared.

But it now turns out that Lucy seems to have been walking erect just like Homo erectus, Neanderthals and modern humans. In other words, there is not a progression from crude bipedalism to sophisticated bipedalism. Rather, bipedalism appears all at once and in a very sophisticated form at its earliest appearance. (This does not match what one would predict from the evolutionary model.)

And finally, regarding the origin of sophisticated human behavior…though it is true that hominids such as Homo habilis, Homo erectus and Neanderthals made tools and had a culture of sorts; the types of tools they made were crude and cumbersome. In fact, what they did is comparable to what we observe chimpanzees and gorillas doing in the wild today. Their behavior was no more sophisticated than that of today’s great apes.

And when they made these tools, when these new “technologies” appeared on the scene, they remained unchanged for up to a million years in some instances without any kind of appreciable development or advancement.

On the other hand, when humans appear on the scene, suddenly we see an incredibly sophisticated tool kit, along with incredibly sophisticated manufacturing practices. And we see art for the first time, as well as music, religious expression and the capacity for symbolic representation and thought (known as the “sociocultural big bang”). It happens explosively virtually out of nowhere as soon as modern humans appear on the scene.

So in conclusion, when we look at the hominid record, while it’s clear that these creatures did indeed exist, it is extremely difficult to argue that they somehow demonstrate the validity of human evolution.

You'd make a great campaign chairman, or press secretary, for Donald Trump! You have the perfect mentality.

 

[expiated]

You'd make a great campaign chairman, or press secretary, for Donald Trump! You have the perfect mentality.

What does this have to do with Donald Trump? You made some good points in your previous post, but now I think you are just trying to be disagreeable, which does not interest me. So, I'm simply going to ignore you.