Resolved Question: Creationists: how can you claim that evolution does not occur?
Some arguments that I've heard are that transitional fossils do not exist. Have you even bothered looking? There are tons of transitional fossils. One example, which I'm sure you will hate, is the progression of fossil hominids. There is a clear transition from ape features to "human" features (even though we are still technically apes, just specialized in a unique way.) There is a pretty clear line of transitional fossils in many other organisms. Another good example is that of the horse. I mean, have you even bothered to google the phrase "transitional fossil"? There are too many ... View All
Some arguments that I've heard are that transitional fossils do not exist. Have you even bothered looking? There are tons of transitional fossils. One example, which I'm sure you will hate, is the progression of fossil hominids. There is a clear transition from ape features to "human" features (even though we are still technically apes, just specialized in a unique way.) There is a pretty clear line of transitional fossils in many other organisms. Another good example is that of the horse. I mean, have you even bothered to google the phrase "transitional fossil"? There are too many examples to list!
Another argument that I've heard is that microevolution, or the variation within species occurs, but transition from one species to another does not occur. One piece of "evidence" that creationists claim to have for this is that speciation has never been observed. Now, even if this were true, as you folk like to argue with your god, the the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence; however, in our case, there *IS* evidence. There have been observed instances of speciation, in fact, we have reproduced speciation in laboratory settings.
One method of speciation is sympatric speciation and this occurs through immediate reproductive isolation. One easy way for this to occur is by polyploidy: an increase in the number of chromosomes in the genome, most likely by nondisjunction during meiosis (autopolyploidy) or hybridization of two unlike genomes (allopolyploidy) followed by an autopolyploid event. Both result in the individual having a different number of chromosomes, and almost always results in reproductive isolation of the new species and its parent species. Hybridization of similar plants is an easy way to achieve this.
Take, for example, species of the genus Brassica (rapeseed). Two species, B. nigra and B. oleracea were hybridized. The gametes of B. napa (N=10;2N=20) and B. oleracea (N=9;2N=18) produced a zygote (N=19) in which autopolyploidy was chemically induced, producing a polyploid (2N=38). This polyploid is reproductively isolated from both B. napa and B. oleracea and has different characteristics than both. Over time, it would be subjected to microevolution and look even more different.
This is just one example, there are MANY examples of OBSERVED speciation. I've heard creationists use the argument "have you ever seen [x] give birth to anything but [x]?" as if that were any kind of proof. Just because you haven't seen it doesn't mean it doesn't happen, and in fact other people have observed, documented and reproduced this.
You seem to think just because you haven't seen any evidence that this evidence doesn't exist. I've heard creationists say that if evolution were ever proven, then it would be all over the news. Well, you don't see articles exclaiming "gravity works" or "magnetism proven not magical in origin". The fact of the matter is that evolution has been around for a long time and the proof supporting it has as well. Maybe it made headlines a century ago, but now it would be old hat for the mainstream media to run an article saying "massive amounts of empirical evidence suggest that evolution does occur".
I think you haven't looked for it, don't know where to look or what to look for. To find the evidence you claim doesn't exist, you must look for it, unless someone like me is nice enough to show some of it to you.
Sources:
Rost, Barbour, Stocking, and Murphy. (2006). Plant biology (2nd ed.). Belmont, CA: Thomson books.
Song, K., Lu, P., Tang, K., Osborn, T.C. (1995). Rapid Genome Change in Synthetic Polyploids of Brassica and its Implications for Polyploid Evolution. Evolution 92, 7719-7723.
Soltis, D.E. and Soltis, P.S. (1999). Polyploidy: Recurrent Formation and Genome Evolution. Trends in Evolution and Ecology 14, 348-352.
Whole Armor of God: Please substantiate your claims with sources. Who discredited which fossils and how?
Macro evolution certainly does occur, and if you actually read my post you'd see one example (of many, too many to treat within a single Y!A question) which has been observed.
Matthew: there is an incredible wealth of proof. If you don't see it, you haven't looked for it. I have provided one example of many. The journal, evolution, that one of my source articles came from is one of our most respected peer-reviewed journals and every issue is full of proof.
Pastor Art: I *have* substantiated my claims. I have given two peer reviewed scientific articles providing evidence in favor of evolution by the mechanism I discuss. There are several mechanisms and innumerable sources, so it would be impossible for me to list them here. The entire corpus of many scientific journals embody this evidence.
And how about your own claims? Who are these experts who agree that there are no transitional fossils. I know a faculty of biologists and anthropologists at a respected research university who would disagree with you. They publish like warhorses and I believe they are considered experts.
TK421: I am on discussing one of many mechanisms of speciation. Polyploidy is a mechanism of speciation in plants, not usually in animals. This is because hybrids, like the mule in your example, are infertile without having an allopolyploid event. This is unlikely in animals with their low number of gametes, but plants may reproduce asexually or sexually by a number of different means, including selfing. Selfing plants which are genetically predisposed to meiotic nondisjunction can reproduce very easily this way. Some plants are also nearly fully dependent on asexual reproduction, and wouldn't even have to worry about this problem.
Yeah, it's true that animals will likely not undergo speciation this way. They are much more subject to allopatric speciation. Close All
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