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Fair enough. You've certainly improved my estimation of your character, if not necessarily your proof-writing skills.


Absolutely not: one has to source his statements, no? I'll get around to the article later tonight.

Are the other two as... fun as this one?

I can't recall where it was, but I have responded to this recently, but here goes again >_>;;
Fun times.

Wait... I think I responded to you... your name is familiar.


Start with an insult when a respected scientist declares there is no controversy. Interesting opening.



I see a typo. That should read "in favour of", rather than against wink


All fossils are transitional and complete.
To suggest otherwise shows a lack of education of how evolution works. For more detail see previous posts on the subject.


This is a lie.


All fossils are transitional.


Why is this a point? Trying to stretch the list a bit?


Not related to the theory of evolution.
And they come from nuclear fusion of lighter elements. This question is covered in basic astrophysics lessons, so why present it as an unanswered question?


Loaded question. But to answer, it's a natural consequence of how the universe works. Also, the number of electrons does not increase. It's 2 in the first shell, and 8 in subsequent shells. Or do you mean that there is one per proton? In which case, that is the number attracted to the protons.



Chemical reactions. That's chemistry 101 people.


It's not determined, but simply a natural consequence of how the universe works. One bond is simply one shared electron, the total number depends on how many shared electrons are needed to make the molecule neutrally charged.


After, obviously.
Stupid question.
Exposes nothing more than the sheer contempt with which this man holds his readers, if he thinks they're dumb enough to swallow this tripe.


All of them of course, as well as the other forms of matter. Matter = matter. It's not hard.


Scientists do not use the term primordial soup, only creationists do.


Those things are covered in other parts of science text books. Should you ever bother reading one. They're not covered in evolutionary biolodgy because they're mostly physics and chemistry questions.


Like this:



From the structure of our brains.


Based on how DNA works, not on the flawed "blueprint" analogy, it's very likely that symmetry would result. more likely than not.


As this is not what happened, it doesn't matter how likely it is. Simply, hermaphrodites came first, sharing genetic code, before individuals diversified and specialised in different parts of the sexual process.


Various species can have anything from 1 to 4 or 5 different genders.


Evolution proceeds as offspring compete for the ability to reproduce themselves.
The reason being that sharing genetic code is advantageous. It begins in microorganisms presumably.


Organs develop from simpler organs.
The evolution is the eye is especially well documented. Frankly, this sort of "Durrr, 10% of an eye is useless" idea is pathetic.
It took me 20 minutes to write a reply last time, not doing it again. Google the blind watchmaker.


The first animal? With all of the basic organs of modern mammals? A fish I believe. the evolution of fish to amphibians is well documented as well.


It's called a balancing act, it's exactly the sort of thing evolution is best at.
And your claims about (50% x and 50% y chromosomes is ridiculous, all major animals have that, but most produce more females than males, the two are unrelated)


That's nice. It's not science though.


No. Not really.


Big numbers = god

Interesting argument.


No.
Certainly not a scientific argument.


Because there is none.

Pot, meet kettle.
Creatioism begins with a conclusion and stomps data into shape to agree with it if it can, or ignores it entirely.
Evolution begins with the simple observed fact that species compete, and change over time.
Also, read the quote closer. Evolution was the only scientific explanation, because special creation is clearly incredible. i.e. that it was unsupportable.
The mere fact that science is the search for a antural explanation for phenomenon is important here.


None of those are anything to do with evolution.
Only one is even biology.
I read this claim a lot, but... I can never see how anyone can come to that conclusion by accident. it seems purely to be an attempt to slander the theory they disagree with.



The idea of coercive proof is a philosophical one, not a scientific one.
There exist no coercive proof of anything in science, including gravity.
Secondly, and again, you are asking for proof of something that is not evolution.


No.


Ah, this explains a lot. The idea of this paper is to try to tongue-tie badly trained and overworked biology teachers in order to convince young children that there is something wrong with science.
I see. How very... underhand. Lying to kids to get them to think your creationist ideas are more than simply wrong.

Laziness mostly.
Most of the claims are obvious lies anyway, dealt with earlier in the post.

I never said that. I said they were lies following from points I made previously in that same post.



Or from the response to the article your posted.


Both of them displayed massive misunderstandings (deliberate ones I assume) about how evolution works.

It shows my position on the matter, yes. It tells you nothing of how I arrived at it.



To state it as simply as I can, the offspring are always different from the parents (a combination of mutations, and inheriting different genes from the two parents). These differences mean that when there is competition among the offspring for limited food and mating rights, there will be some that are better suited to surviving and reproducing than others. Those that don't survive to reproduce, or simply don't reproduce, never pass their genes on to the next generation. Those that do, will pass their genes on. This process continues indefinitely, with the criteria for survival and reproduction rights changing all the time as well, as competition drives females to find the best mate, and males to mate the most.
Basically this results in the frequency of alleles (individual "versions" of genes) changing as generations come and go. This is how evolution is defined.

Didn't get around to it when I said I would, but better late than never.


'Transitional' is an odd term to use when discussing current evolution. To say that something represents a transitional phase implies a retroactive labeling of a period of development occurring between a known starting point and a known ending point. Where I to look at a modern organism, I'd be hard pressed to say if it were transitional or not, seeing as I'd have no knowledge of what it was transitioning too. Of course, Dr. Morris seems to think that 'transitional' implies some kind of obvious hybridization (what with his talk of 'dats' and 'cogs'), which is simply not how evolution works.

Morris also overstates the differences between micro and macroevolution: while they are distinct phenomena (operating on the population level and the species level, respectively), micro and macroevolution operate using, essentially, the same process. Enough 'horizontal' changes will eventually lead to the 'vertical' evolution that Morris discounts.


Produced, no, but the emergence of new species (or incipient species) has been observed outside the laboratory, which, one would think, would be even more convincing than a experimentally produced species. Again, Morris is omitting important facts to advance an argument driven by ideology, not science.


Ignoring for the moment the fact that we do, from time to time, see evolution in action (see above), it should be pointed out that the observations and experiments that provide evidence for the theory of evolution (in the fields of anatomy, genetics, paleontology, etc) are, indeed, replicable. For example, Darwin's conclusions about the Galapagos finches can be experimentally validated.


This statement is unequivocally incorrect. Further, to demonstrate the fallacy of creationist claims about transitional fossils, I invite you to imagine the following scenario:

On a table, I place two balls, Ball A and Ball E, like so:
A_________________E

You claim that there is a gap between A and C, so to fill it, I place another ball (C) between the first two:

A________C________E

But now, you tell me, there are two more gaps. Rather than solve the problem, I've actually multiplied my gaps. So I place two more balls (B & D) on the table:

A____B___C___D____E

Now, of course, I have four gaps where once I had one, and even though I now have a smooth transition from A to E, you won't be satisfied until I've filled in those new gaps, and so on, ad infinitum.


Firstly, the only controversy about known transitional forms comes from the creationist community, not the scientific community. And secondly, there are ample transitional forms for many evolutionary progressions, although it's worth noting that there will never be 'billions' of any sort of fossil, given their relative rarity. Morris is simply wrong here.


As I've stated before Evolution =! Abiogenesis. The fact that abiogenesis is a primarily hypothetical field right now has no bearing on the validity of the theory of evolution, which deals strictly with how organisms change over time.

As the rest of the 'Evolution Never Happened in the Past' section is mostly a compendium of context-less quotes, I will simply say that I rather doubt that Morris has any idea what the scientists he's quoting are talking about (see Quote Mining); the man was a hydraulic engineer, not a biologist. Further, I have twice supplied a link with rebutting his claims about transitional fossils (make sure you click the links contained therein), and will give several more on the other topics touched on in this section:

Abiogenesis (see also here).
Human Evolution


And here is where I run out of patience for what I'm increasingly seeing as yet another litany of tired creationist tropes. Onward came the links!

Similar forms, similar Designer? Not really.
Vestigial organs vestigial after all.
'Junk' DNA really just junk.


It's an open system, stupid.
And that 'complexity' think is bunkum.
*Sigh*


It's really not a religion.

Sorry about the links, but I'm only going to waste so much time saying what's already been said before. At a certain point, it simply makes more sense to economical with my time.

You mean Talk Origins? When they touch on Christianity or any other religion it's to rebut specific anti-evolution claims made by said religion's adherents. The entire 'Biblical Creation' section of the Index to Creationist Claims is premised on refuting bible-based arguments against evolution. It's a very comprehensive index.