Um, where?
I do know about a population of a type of worm that is native to the Pacific. About thirty years ago a sample group was brought to Woods Hole for research. Just a few years back it was discovered that the worms at Woods Hole can no longer interbreed with the parent population.
Speciation via genetic drift and founder effect.
The one refuting the validity of arguments based solely on willful and persistent ignorance. 
um, redtail, you seem to have dropped your context somewhere. If you can find it, please let us know…
Sorry, didn’t really mean to make such a deal of it.
How’s this?
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?postid=757804#post756340
The difference between the sequoia analogy and what I am demanding is that you can prove that the sequoia seed came from the sequoia plant. Evolutionists claim that mammals came from birds who came from reptiles, etc. What you show with the fossil and other findings is that the One who created these kinds of animals, used the similar building blocks for them. If one has a new Java program that is made from libraries from other Java applications, and I say that the new one was randomly made, would you call me crazy? Yet, you are asking me the same for transspecies evolution.
And another thing. The same people who accuse others of protelyzing for their religion see no problem advocating their atheism when it comes to the evolution debate, and calling others who are religious idiots who disagree with them. It is one thing to say that evolution was the method that life began and developed on earth (and I agree about development within the species as being evolutionary based). It is quite another to say that evolution is in of itself proof that there is no God or Divinity. Those who are devoutly religious would naturally reject such a notion, because of the implied advocacy of atheism, and as a result would be turned off in general by those advocating evolution. If you lay off the proselytizing of atheism in the evolution debate, and instead discuss it as the possible tool that the Divine used to create life on Earth, then more people will join the bandwagon.
Capacitor:
You know, it really helps to understand what biologists say before attempting to criticize it. Mammals and birds both evolved from reptiles; mammals did not evolve from birds.
I’m not sure what you’re talking about when you mention the similar building blocks. Why would God build in a twin-nested hierarchy unless he did so through evolution? Why would God plant evidence of now extinct transitional species like Archaeopteryx just to fool scientists? Similar building blocks may explain why all living organisms have the same DNA bases or whatnot, but it fails to explain why protein sequencing falls as it does. It fails to explain why transitional fossils are imbedded in the geological record exactly as evolutionary theory would predict. It fails to explain biogeography, anatomical paralogy, etc.
Once again, a misunderstanding of evolution. Java programs do not reproduce; organisms do. Also, evolution does not say that new species are randomly made, quite the opposite.
Very few people use evolution as an argument against the existence of God. In fact, the Internet Infidels had a recent call for papers in which they wanted exactly such a thing. They mentioned that fundamentalists and creationists the world over had insisted that evolution=atheism, but they had not been able to find a single paper written by an evolutionist, purporting evolution as evidence for atheism.
It is appropriate however, to note that virtually all modern objections to evolutionary biology are based upon religious dogma, rather than scientific evidence.
I can only assume that you are replying to someone else here
since I never mentioned anything about God or religion in my post at all, but I thought this was a point which deserved rebutting anyway.
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How so?
And are you claiming that you can prove that new species can appear out of nowhere? I mean, do you really want to go there? We have shown that small changes can accumulate over time to result in new species. Beyond that point, there’s no reason to think that those changes couldn’t accumulate to create changes from one higher taxon to another, since the higher taxa are really just human-made categories. Can you show even that much direct proof of the creation of animals from empty space?
I’m reminded of the old “evolution violates the Second Law of Thermodynamics” canard. How come you people aren’t bothered by the fact that creationism violates the First Law of Thermodynamics?
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Capacitor, you don’t seem to understand science. Just saying that things are similar because God made them all doesn’t cut it. You have to address the details:
If God used the same materials for everything, then why didn’t he use exactly the same materials? Why are there changes when one compares proteins from different species?
Why do parsimonious phylogenetic trees based on genetics agree with the fossil record? What sort of phylogenetic tree does “God did it” suggest, and why?
Why did your supposedly perfect designer do so much jerry-rigging? Why are there proteins with completely different functions and sequences which are encoded by such similar genes?
What about processed pseudogenes? Why did God stick them in?
Why does the fossil record show transitions from one taxon to another over time, rather than all organisms appearing at once in the lowest strata?
You see, you think you have an argument when you say the Lord God made them all, but you don’t- it’s just a religious slogan, not a scientific hypothesis. If you’re really going to explain anything that way, you have to provide more detail.
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Plase, capacitor, no one has called you an idiot yet, and things might stay that way if you talk science instead of trying to distract attention from the real issue here. Namely, how do you explain the observed evidence for evolution? Thus far, your explanation is too minimal for us to really know what you’re talking about. So God made everything- how does that explain the fossil evidence at all?
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Did I say that? Capacitor, do you really think people here are dumb enough to fall for such a clumsy straw man?
Ok, capacitor, I’m throwing down the gauntlet: here is my challenge to you.
Present me with one quote from this thread in which I call someone an idiot merely for being Christian.
Present me with one quote from this thread in which I advocate atheism, or equate evolution with atheism.
Flesh out your ideas in sufficient detail that they can be intelligently discussed in scientific terms; in other words, answer the questions I asked about protein homology and the fossil record above.
-Ben
Ben, I did not say that you personally advocate atheism through the theories of evolution. I am saying that the way evolution is currently presented, it is implied that no form of divinity is needed for the process to be carried out. I am certain that the scientific proofs you offer are valid, and there may come a time when evolution will be established once and for all as the natual method of the development of life.
However, the question on the OP was: “What it would take to make to make you believe in evolution?” This is my final answer: to stop using it as proof, implied or blatantly, that the Divine doesn’t exist, that it is all randomized. I’ll even back away from the one about new species, since requesting proof in my lifetime may be an unreasonable request. I’m sorry if I threw a change up on those who want to prove once and for all the scientific validity of evolution, but I thought the OP allowed for open-ended answers.
Since you responded that very few actually believe and advocate that evolution is proof that there is no God, then I can feel more comfortable that the evolution theory, both microevolution and macroevolution, was the most likely method the Divine used to develop life on Earth.
Here was what you said, after showing ways in which an ‘efficient’ God may not be so efficient after all:
“You see, you think you have an argument when you say the Lord God made them all, but you don’t- it’s just a religious slogan, not a scientific hypothesis. If you’re really going to explain anything that way, you have to provide more detail.”
A ‘religious slogan’? This is one example of what I am talking about.
An example of what? I characterized your “argument,” quite accurately, as a religious slogan rather than a scientific hypothesis, and gave a detailed account of what would be needed to whip it into shape. You now tell me that in doing so I either a) called you an idiot for no reason other than that you are a Christian, or b) said that evolution is necessarily atheistic.
Clearly your inference has nothing to do with my original quote. You made a comment about how all the evidence could be explained by the fact that God did it. I pointed out that you have to elaborate a lot more. Where is the problem?
-Ben
The problem was in the insulting matter that you present the question. Anyway, I’ll try to answer as best I can. The organization of the Milky Way galaxy is such that the suns are moving around its center without colliding into each other. Same goes with the planets orbiting around the sun. The Earth is one of these planets. It is now a relatively stable planet, that can support life on it. Its orbit and angle tilts during the year is just right for the support of life under a yellow star.
The model of a solar system has been discovered to be similar to that of an atom, with electrons orbiting around its nucleus in a similar way that planets orbit around the sun. A particular atom is part of a cell, which is aknowledged to be a very complex design in itself. This cell characteristics is made with a 3000 protein sequence of DNA in its neucleus. It is one of about 50,000,000,000,000 that makes up a healthy human body. This human being is part of a group that rationally questions about all things on earth, using logic and mathematics to prove points. One question: what is the likelihood that there would be an occurence of this human being, made up of all of these complex cells working together to keep him alive, on a relatively stable planet such as Earth, in the galaxy Milky Way, by pure randomness? I’ll leave you to calculate this.
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If I shoot a bullet in Wyoming, and someone else shoots a bullet in Kathmandu, it is a miracle that the bullets don’t hit each other?
Do you have any idea how small stars are compared to the empty space between them?
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Indeed it does! The earth is 93 million miles from the sun, and a few thousand miles in diameter.
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A few comments:
The solar system model of the atom was abandoned what, 100 years ago?
Even if your model of the atom were accurate, are you suggesting that Jesus is steering the electrons around to keep them from hitting each other?
Why would he need to, since electrostatic repulsion would do the job just fine?
What does this imagined and thorougly erroneous similarity of atoms and solar systems have to do with evolution?
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This isn’t grammatical enough for me to be able to figure out what you’re saying. Are you saying that a cell needs to have, at minimum, 3000 different proteins to function? If so, you’re wrong- the real number is roughly 300. Are you saying that a human cell needs roughly 3,000 proteins to survive? If so, you’re wrong again- the real number is (AFAIK) much higher.
Why? Are you too lazy to calculate it yourself? Because it’s pretty obvious that you’re too lazy to actually explain this “creationism” idea in any detail beyond “God did it.” Maybe that’s why creationists can’t get their papers published in a real journal.
Look, capacitor, you’re talking about how the scientific facts make it fantastically unlikely for humans to be here, but your ignorance of science is so vast that you don’t even know what the basic scientific facts actually are! Even if you had the gumption to perform these calculations, they would be based on such blatantly erroneous assumptions that they would mean nothing.
Let me ask you a question:
If I shuffle a deck of cards and turn over all 52 cards one by one, they will form a sequence. What are the odds of that precise sequence having turned up?
Since those odds are so low as to be essentially impossible, does that mean that the sequence I observed didn’t really happen?
And last but not least, are you going to answer my questions about protein homology? Are you going to at least acknowledge that the question was asked, or are you going to hope, like all the other creationists, that if you ignore the question we will think you really know the answer and just aren’t telling?
-Ben
Capacitor.
Oh do hurry up and answer the question’
Where is the evidence, any evidence, god did it?
You have posted many times sinse the question was put, but we all wait on the edge of our seats.
Please have your next post answer the question.
(preferably with references to sources)
Not precisely the question- what I’m asking is that he simply explain “God did it” in enough detail that we can examine whether it really fits the evidence as well as he claims. He’ll never do it, though. Creationists never do.
And do you know why?
-Ben
Here’s a variant by which evolution <> atheism. I don’t really accept it, but I can’t say that it is disagreeable.
What if God gave Moshe the true story on Mount Sinai 3500 years ago? What if it really was divine intervention? The story Moshe received had the Big Bang, evolution, and the whole lot. The only problem is that it remained as an oral tradition for 1000 years before anybody thought to write it down. I think that no one has a problem in accepting the fallability of humanity. Genesis now represents not the true word of God, but rather the true word of God misinterpreted by 1000 years of human transmission.
I don’t think our purpose here is to blindly adhere to something which completely lacks evidence in the world around us. If we see God’s hand in driving nature, why can’t we accept the immutable facts around us rather than the almost definitely tainted story?
Palm Cove, I am proving evidence of the universe being designed by arguing that it first happened all by chance. Calculate the odds of just what I mentioned above happening purely by random.
The odds are pretty high already, isn’t it. Then factor in the countless other animals on this planet with similar building blocks as man. Factor in the fact that the species are mutually exclusive in regards to reproduction. Then factor in the strucute of plants, which most of them recipricates the animals’ breathing in oxygen and breathing out mostly carbon dioxide by phtosynthesis, which does the opposite. Then factor in this animal man developing rational thought completely by random. What are the odds of all this happening completely by random?
That is sort of the point of evolution. It is very unlikely that all living things would have so much in common owing completely to chance. So it is reasonable to conclude that all life could be related. Of course, there is other evidence that points toward this, I’m just saying that the lousy odds that all adaptations occur completely independent of one another points to a common ancestry.
Let me stress what others have said, evolution is not a random process. It is governed by the rules of selection and by the laws of probability. It is not predicable but we can look back and make sense of its effects.
Thank you Dr. Lao, that was the answer I was looking for.
Thank you, Dr Lao, well put.
Capacitor has still not come up with ANY evidence.
Given the probable number of suitable planets in the universe, it is probable, maybe even highly likely, that an intellegent species could evolve.
Just saying that it is too improbable to have occured does not provide tangible proof “god did it”.
I repeat, please provide evidence (preferrably verifiable, evidence)that “god did it”.
Ben, I AM, even if you are not, asking him to provide evidence for creationism that can be checked. I am equally sure that he will be unable to do so.
Note: Until I started to visit SDMB, I had always thought that creationists were an urban myth, that they had died out years ago. I had never met one.