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um, I mentioned evolutionary biology to someone and he spent 30 minutes ranting about how wings couldn't have evolved because they are "irriducibly complex". He didn't use that phrase, but that's basically what he was saying. That half a wing doesn't confer any benefit. UGH. How do I debate that? Is this a wrong thing to post in this thread? I don't know.

The one thing that pisses me off so much is when someone tries to argue about evolution without any rudimentary knowledge in biology. The majority of arguments against evolution can be disproven using a high school biology textbook. And when they do make an argument that makes sense, it is mostly about the odds of life evolving, but that still doesn't disprove evolution. In my opinion, arguing for creationism is pretty much pointless.

Well some creationist (not all) always seem like you can't change there minds. ninja They must be really devoted thats all I can say but there spearding lies to others. Well not lies just not true fact! pirate

The Urey millar experiment produced exactly that, amino acids. Other experiments have produced similar results. It is well known that these can be produced by non-organic processes.


The evidence for evolution... apart from direct observation? Ummm... doesn't get much better than that, and you should probably check the links page closer, btw. wink

The 100% stuff is from it actually happening. chance only applies to the future, when looking at the past, recorded history is always 100% certain in the sense that there are no longer predictions that need be made, just recordings.

Irrelevant, if true. The other experiments I mentionned used different chemicals and achieved similar results. It is now known that it is a reasonably simple operation to produce amino acids without life. It doesn't matter if the experiments faithfully emulated the general atmospheric content on the surface of the earth way back... whenever. It was a simple proof of the concept. And as such it succeeded spectacularly.

Also, life need not have arisen on earth, or the amino acids need not have.


"Macro evolution" has also been directly observed. Not counting the overwhelming evidence that supports historical evolution. The fossil record, anatomical similarities, genetic similarities, biochemical similarities, etc...
All agreeing that modern life forms share common ancestors in line with the fossil record.
And as for an explanation, well, any basic biology text should explain that well enough. It's simply a matter for a population to evolve to a point where we decide that it is sufficiently different from the original species to justify calling it by a new name. Species is an entirely human concept, it has no real measure in nature. We don't even have a concrete definition of the term. Again there should be plenty on the links page, or I can paste you a load of links, if you really want.



This is actually irrelevant. Evolution occurs no matter what the origins of life are. Much like the theory of relativity presumes that space exists, and doesn't need to explain how it does, the theory of evolution presumes that life exists, and doesn't need to address how.

No one said it was. It is simply one of the necessary steps towards a biological cell.


Life need not have arisen on the surface of the earth, it simply needs to have gotten there at some point.


I count direct observation as observation. What definition are you using?


Yes, it does. Explicitly.


It might be best if you check them against the list at talk origins, just so you don't repeat the same tired old arguments that have been refuted a thousand times before.


There are no actual "evolutionists". There are scientists. And many of them are religious. The official position of the catholic church is that evolution in no way contradicts their religion.
And as I said, the origins of life are immaterial as far as the theory of evolution goes. Regardless of where life came from, it evolves. Evolution is directly observable.

I am anti-creationist in the sense that I am anti the YEC, anti-science, anti-reality crap that is mostly coming from american evangelical churches, and I am against the spread of these lies, many of them obvious lies, to children in schools and on the net. This guild is here to oppose the spread of those lies on gaia.

I am unsure of the numbers, as we never considered our members religions to be relevant, of members which are religious. But I do know that a fair number of the founding members are religious.

This is not atheism vs religion.

This is observed reality vs an overly literal interpretation of religion.

No. Intelligent design is not a scientific idea. It's bad philosophy, not science, as it has no evidence supporting it. For a while it had the poster boy of irreducible complexity, but that's long since shot to death.


We agree on that at least. Good.


No it doesn't. It shows clear lines of descent for all major groups of animals. The only problem is that fossilisation is a rare event, so sometimes we have entire species represented by only a few fossils, or even just one. But there are enough to show that the principle of common descent is sound. Especially when the lines of descent shown by the fossils agree with genetic analysis of modern creatures for example.


It is a fact that creatures evolve. Direct observation of it makes it a fact. The theory of evolution is our proposed explanation for this fact, and it does a damn fine job of it.