Dumb Designer

[Heehoos]

Which just proves you don't know a goddamn thing about evolution.

Anyone surprised?

Be careful about making assumptions and being argumentative. I am asking honest questions. If you cannot answer them, then admit it. I'm being honest here.

The deal is this. Evolution requires that adaptations and specializations of living organisms are the products of natural selection, a process whereby the genetic variations -- such as size, shape, and coloration -- that give individuals the best chance to survive and reproduce are passed on to subsequent generations.

Say, for example, that one day by a freak chance of nature a fish pokes its head above water and is able to breathe. The problem then becomes the idea that out of millions of fish in an enormous ocean, the same freak chance of nature happens to another fish and these two fish just happen to breed. This MUST happen in order for this trait to be passed on and the species to evolve. Further, this trait must be a dominent trait or the chances for the gene to pass on must overcome enormous odds.

How is this explained?

Anyway, I'm asking a question. Want to throw back another insult, or would you like to try to answer it?

[Lotharia]

Have you ever thought that science has gained so much complex information over the years that, now, the average human with average intelligence just will NOT be able to grasp it and will therefore reject it -- such as those who can't or won't learn about evolution?

[Zhavric]

But shouldn't we have SOME sort of evidence that we could see where an attribute would be added, rather than subtracted? In the thousands of years that humankind has been around, haven't we seen one attribute grow and stick?

Oh sure. For one, we're getting taller and bigger.

Ever been to the Cleveland Museum of Art? It has a room filled with medeval suits of armor. The expensive ones that cover a person from head to toe in big metal plates. At 5'11", I TOWER over each suit of armor. There isn't a single one I'd be able to fit into. They're for people who probably averaged 5 feet in height.

Consider also my old boss who showed us, his skeptical employees, a dental X-ray of his jaw. He has a one in a 1.5 million genetic anomoly that affects his teeth. He has SEVERAL rows of new adult teeth underneath his existing adult teeth ready to grow in should he lose one. We could clearly see that he'd lost his upper right canine in a car accident and that a new one was growing in. He may or may not have kids and may or may not pass it on to them.

[Heehoos]

Oh sure. For one, we're getting taller and bigger..

This could easily be explained by better diets. As our weaponry and farming technology has improved, so have our diets. More protein, more regular vegetables, and they are more readily available.

Also, it depends on where you go. For example, people in southern Italy are generally shorter than in Northern Italy. Again, it could be their regular diets.

[edited because I missed some of Zhavric's post]

Consider also my old boss who showed us, his skeptical employees, a dental X-ray of his jaw. He has a one in a 1.5 million genetic anomoly that affects his teeth. He has SEVERAL rows of new adult teeth underneath his existing adult teeth ready to grow in should he lose one. We could clearly see that he'd lost his upper right canine in a car accident and that a new one was growing in. He may or may not have kids and may or may not pass it on to them.

How can you tell that this is a recessive gene situation? There are people who have internal twins with hair and teeth. This is not a gene trait, it is a birth defect that will likely not pass on. There has to be a gene responsible for it in the first place for it to be passed on.

[Heehoos]

Have you ever thought that science has gained so much complex information over the years that, now, the average human with average intelligence just will NOT be able to grasp it and will therefore reject it -- such as those who can't or won't learn about evolution?

Again, I'm trying to ask honest questions. Can you answer them?

By the way, advancing technology has nothing to do with intelligence. It could actually work in reverse. As we rely more and more on technology to do our thinking for us, we rely on our own minds less and less. As technology advances, we exercise our brains less (as a culture, not speaking to some individuals).

[Lullaby Chainer]

This could easily be explained by better diets. As our weaponry and farming technology has improved, so have our diets. More protein, more regular vegetables, and they are more readily available.

Also, it depends on where you go. For example, people in southern Italy are generally shorter than in Northern Italy. Again, it could be their regular diets.

You're going to have to cite that one.

[Heehoos]

You're going to have to cite that one.

Yeah, okay. Here's something from Scientific American.com

Here's the link

From Michael J. Dougherty, assistant director and senior staff biologist at Biological Sciences Curriculum Study in Colorado Springs, Col.

If evolution doesn't explain height increases, what does? Most geneticists believe that the improvement in childhood nutrition has been the most important factor in allowing humans to increase so dramatically in stature. The evidence for this argument is threefold:

First, the observed increase in height has not been continuous since the dawn of man; it began sometime around the middle of the nineteenth century. In fact, examinations of skeletons show no significant differences in height from the stone age through the early 1800s. Also, during World Wars I and II, when hunger was a frequent companion of the German civilian population, the heights of the children actually declined. They only recovered during the post-war years.

Such data are consistent with recent research indicating that slow growth induced by temporary malnourishment can usually be reversed. Chronic underfeeding during childhood, however, permanently affects stature and other traits, including intelligence.

Second, the trend toward increasing height has largely leveled off, suggesting that there is an upper limit to height beyond which our genes are not equipped to take us, regardless of environmental improvements. Interestingly, the age of menarche, which is also influenced by nutrition, has shown a corresponding decrease over this same time period. Some scientists believe that the increase in teenage and out-of-wedlock pregnancies in the developed world may be an unanticipated consequence of improved nutrition.

Third, conditions of poor nutrition are well correlated to smaller stature. For example, the heights of all classes of people, from factory workers to the rich, increased as food quality, production and distribution became more reliable, although class differences still remain. Even more dramatic, the heights of vagrant London boys declined from 1780 to1800 and then rose three inches in just 30 years--an increase that paralleled improving conditions for the poor. Even today, height is used in some countries as an indicator of socioeconomic division, and differences can reveal discrimination within social, ethnic, economic, occupational and geographic groups.

For those hoping that humans might someday shoot basketballs through 15-foot high hoops, the fact that the increase in human height is leveling off no doubt will be disappointing. For those who understand, however, that our genes are merely a blueprint that specifies what is possible given an optimal environment, a limit on height is just one of many limitations in life, and certainly not the most constraining.

As for the Italian thing, that was just me observing it when I was there.

[Jack]

one day by a freak chance of nature a fish pokes its head above water and is able to breathe

A more likely scenario would be that as ponds dry out during the Summer months, a few fish will manage to live longer than the others. After many successive generations those fish may be able to extract more and more oxygen from the air and be able to spend more time out of water. Eventually that trait would become common as being able to breathe air is advantageous when the water dries up.
Evolution doesn't result from an isolated incident or usually in a very short period of time, except among species with extremely short lifespans.

[Heehoos]

I would imagine that would have to take a very, very, very long time. Though there are fish now who do that, if all fish were regular fish that we know now (let's say, for example, trout), would a trout be able to survive without water? How is there a "first fish" to do that? How is that even remotely possible?

We might say that there were many species in the ocean or rivers that slowly evolved to be able to do that. But what pushes them there? Why would some survive and be able to breathe and some not? It's not just something that a fish can eventually "do" unless it is biologically able to do it. And then once one of them is able to do it, it has to find another one that can do it and breed to retain it. Otherwise the trait is lost.

We just really don't have any evidence, other than the fact that species exist now, that it happened like that.

[Cephus]

The deal is this. Evolution requires that adaptations and specializations of living organisms are the products of natural selection, a process whereby the genetic variations -- such as size, shape, and coloration -- that give individuals the best chance to survive and reproduce are passed on to subsequent generations.

But none of those changes happen in a single generation, they happen over long periods of time, a gene here, a gene there, and those which survive best in their particular biological niche pass on their genes to the next generation. If those genes offer neither a positive or negative effect, they may sit unused in the gene pool for millions of years because they have no effect on the survivability of the individual.

Anyway, I'm asking a question. Want to throw back another insult, or would you like to try to answer it?

Google and the library are your friend. You're asking questions that really aren't possible to answer in a few lines on a debate forum. I'm sure you're capable of doing your own research if you're curious. It's not our job to educate you.

[Jagged]

I mean, we HAVE found skeletons of Neanderthals, what do you think they are? Just some other creature created by God that went extinct wayy early? I think this might be the best real example of evolution that we actually know a reasonably accurate history of.

These two organisms prove that evolution is about change and that natural selection is a tendency, not a rule.

Not really. Youre still narrowmindedly thinking that "now is perfect." There was another post in here that stated that while he believed evolution, we have gotten to be "perfect" and we are now what God intended us to be. Evolution is still happening, as natural selection is. A species going extinct because of a bad trait could be called an example, but im not sure what the Birds have to do with is, as the leg breaking thing is pure speculation. Anyways, if the leg thing was a problem, birds supposively would die and NS would take place. Im not sure how your examples prove anything.

[Heehoos]

But none of those changes happen in a single generation, they happen over long periods of time, a gene here, a gene there, and those which survive best in their particular biological niche pass on their genes to the next generation. If those genes offer neither a positive or negative effect, they may sit unused in the gene pool for millions of years because they have no effect on the survivability of the individual.

But if they were dormant genes, why would they have changed in the first place? Do our genes just change randomly? Genes are a matter of addiction, subtraction and ratios. There is no proof that genes randomly attract new attributes. They are added or subtracted by the parent organisms.

Google and the library are your friend. You're asking questions that really aren't possible to answer in a few lines on a debate forum. I'm sure you're capable of doing your own research if you're curious. It's not our job to educate you.

I am educated. I'm on a debate forum where people have said repeatedly that Creationists are idiots for believing what they do. I've been asked repeatedly to prove the existance of God. It's your turn.