Macroevolution occurs

This debate is largely a continuation of firemonkey and my debate:
http://www.debate.com...

Further my continuation of round 2 comments concerning the breakup of Pangaea as it pertains to marsupial mammals, as well as my robust explanation of radiometric dating holds.

--"first were did the orginal orginism come from?"

I don't know. We have some generally good ideas as to some of the steps involved. There are easily generated organic molecules, fantastic catalysts, tiny easily produced replicative molecules, strong evidence that DNA even at very short lengths is fairly crystalline (crystals have a simple replication). Outside of these good suggestions we just don't know; I don't know.

--"how do you figure in the great flood?"

I don't. The great flood is a myth. There's no evidence geologically, biologically, historically, plausibly that it occurred. There was a time when geologists actually believed it, but a preponderance of the evidence made even the most ardent of finally admit that there should be some evidence and clearly was not. For example, we have societies which show continuous existence during the time of this supposed flood. The oldest living thing on the planet is a Creosote bush in the Mojave desert 11,700 (5,700 years older than the universe) years old. Further, we have uninterrupted tree ring records from all over the world going back about 11,000 years. Further, floods leave a very distinctive mark in the rocks. Just as we can tell that some globally bad thing happened by looking at rocks 64 million years ago from anywhere on the Earth, a local flood would leave a similar mark on our geology.

-- "how do you figure that this earth of ours just came about by chance with all the thins that had to be so perfect for us to live?"

If the Earth didn't exist in such a fashion to allow life to arise it would be impossible to be here and ask that question. There are 70,000,000,000,000,000,000,0000 stars in the universe. Probably a good number of planets around those stars. The fact that life arose on a planet which life could arise on is of very little mystery. Also, to say that the planet is perfect for us is a bit like saying my hand is perfect for a glove. We evolved on this planet and so we are well adapted to the changing conditions. Further, our species is unique in that we adapt not only to our environment but have adapted our environment to us. You'll find humans in the eastern part of the US living happily even though that part of the country is pretty frozen.

--"why are we the most advanced species?"

We aren't. Evolution doesn't work that way. It isn't a race to some advantageous goal it's a bootstrapping little edges to drive a population. There are far fewer organisms existing than could exist, if you look at the breeding patterns of any organisms from bacteria, to rabbits, to insects, to humans you find that within a short number of years it should be possible to coat the planet. However, there's a struggle for resources and different members of different species fight for their own advantages. Sometimes small genetic tweaks will cause an organism to be slightly better or worse in this struggle. The worse organisms are quickly driven extinct whereas the slightly better organisms will use this edge in their struggle to survive passing on this improved genetic characteristic to more offspring and becoming a major factor in the species. This doesn't say anything about a species being the most advanced or the best. Every species is as well adapted within their struggle to survive as humans are adapted within our struggle to survive. There's nothing inherently superior about humans over rabbits, over grass, or birds. We are just as adapted towards our survival as they are towards theirs. There isn't a goal in evolution so the suggestion that we are closer to that goal than lions is a rather misguided idea. Lions are adapted to their struggle and we are adapted to ours. Generally organisms occupy different niches so it's a lot like apples and oranges... apples are adapted to their niche and oranges to theirs.

-- "why dosnt all mothers have 14 arms? (because they would notice the need for another arm and that magic process would go into effect.)

Evolution is not a magical process. It's a gradual process. If you could gradually require the addition of an arm from a fairly pointless arm stub to a fully functional arm you could evolve one. However, our general body plan is the same as all vertebrates fish had two front fins and two hind fins so now all species originally evolved from fish have this same general plan and gradual modifications (a major change is nearly impossible to occur and be helpful to an organism). Slow gradual change, tweaks which give slight edges to organism in their struggle within their species.

The scientific evidence does lead one to accept that the universe began 14 billion years ago from an original point. I highly recommend Richard Carrier's piece on why he was a Big Bang Skeptic and the scientific evidence behind it explaining why he accepts the theory now.

-- "if that tiny ball of matter was so hot wouldn't it purge it of all living organisms?"

It's worse that that, it wouldn't have been able to become matter for a while. It would have been impossible to have any complex structures at all. However, the Big Bang does not contain living organisms. Those come far later. The universe is 14 billion years old. Our planet is 4.55 billion years old, our sun is a little older than that (few hundred million years or so). However life didn't come on to the scene until about 2 billion years ago. So as far as we can tell the entire universe was lifeless for 12 billion years. Complex life has only been around for about .6 billion, and we've been around for about .001 billion years (high estimate 100,000).

--"if not why do we get sun burns?"

Sun burns are actually burns. The UV rays of the sun actually damage the our skin. Life in the struggle for survival has developed slow gradual tweaks which allow for protection from the sun to reduce the damage to our skins from over-exposure to sun light. However, where light is less abundant (such as northern Europe), lighter skin evolved as a little tweak to increase the production of Vitamin D. Vitamin D is an extremely useful molecule for our development and is produced when UV light hits our skin. So the previous adaptations of increased melanin to protect the skin from the light were not as advantageous in northern environments. So when the gene used for melanin transport in the skin would break (as tends to happen here and there) it became one of those edges in struggle for survival in the northern environment allowing people to produce more Vitamin D. Because of the reduced sun effects the necessity of protection from sun burn was lessened. However, when you move people adapted for dimmer climates (adapted towards Vitamin D production rather than UV protection) into more sun rich climates they aren't as well as adapted as their darker skins cousins resulting in sun burns.

It's similar to Kettlewell's peppered moths experiments where the lighter colored moths were better adapted to one environment (lighter color trees) and darker colored moths were better adapted to another (darker color trees). Slight adaptations to slightly different environments. If you put the lighter color moth on a darker color tree it has a noticeable disadvantage. In the moth's case it's increased predation by great tits in the case of humans it's sunburns.

obviously i cant have a standered argument with you so i am resorting to common randomness

random statements

ok one why does every major relgion besides evolution have a flood story that is the few i have heard direct acounts from are the greeks christians muslims jews and many indian relgions.

yahh there are a butt load of planets and starts but still thats hard to believe that starting with dirt you end up with humans

ok another thing normally things go from organization to chaos per second law of thermoydnamics so how do you start with dirt end up with planes the internet and humans (probably the most complex thing ever)

How do you explain frozen mamoths and dinasors

"Evolution is not a magical process. It's a gradual process. If you could gradually require the addition of an arm from a fairly pointless arm stub to a fully functional arm you could evolve one. However, our general body plan is the same as all vertebrates fish had two front fins and two hind fins so now all species originally evolved from fish have this same general plan and gradual modifications (a major change is nearly impossible to occur and be helpful to an organism). Slow gradual change, tweaks which give slight edges to organism in their struggle within their species."

ok you say that our genral body was the same but we evolved from rocks thats not genrally the same

more questions

why do we have 2 sexes (besides putting joy in the term bikini)
because if our organism was smart enough to evolve a human(which our scientist still dont completly understand) why wouldnt they make it asexual reproduction so we did not require a x and y but just an x so any 2 people could carry on with out any specifics?
why dont we evolve faster because we are smarter why arnt we all 20 ft tall super buff men with 200 iq because we would know to evolve more hight to be able to reach higher (like a giraffe) be smarter to pick locks and find food(monkeys) and be strong to be a good hunter and why havnt we developed photosenthises to keep from needing to hunt?

Just so that there's a proper catalogue of what hasn't been covered. Still outstanding outstanding (yes two outstandings is proper) information is thusly:

Why are there pouched mammals in Australia rather than the standard live-birth mammals we have today? Why are there some in South America too?

Well, the super-continent of Pangaea broke up up into Laurasia and Gondwanaland during the Triassic about 200 million years ago. With Laurasia consisting of North America, Europe and Asia. Gondwanaland consisting of South America, Africa, Australia, Antarctica, and oddly India. Well due to this geographic isolation the mammals continue to along separate courses, Gondwanaland broke freeing up Africa and India to crash back into Europe. Antarctica, Australia and South America went their separate ways during the Triassic about 135 million years ago.

This split the mammals into two groups one became the modern marsupials (pouched mammals) and another became the placental mammals (like us). So we find that Australia and South America have marsupials along with some later invaders after South America ran into North America. Though, Australia's native wildlife like Kangaroos, Wombats, etc are marsupials.

Now what about Antarctica? Should it have marsupials? Well, it does... or rather did. Most everything is extinct now, but when you look at the fossils in Antarctica has they are definitively marsupial mammals. And, often similar to those found in South America and Australia for the time.

And yes, if you look at fossils from prior to the breakup of South America and Africa you find the same organism lived across those two continents (for example Mesosarus).

Why are their specific types of mammals in different areas with regard to exactly how the planet progressed. If we found these things out of place it would be strong evidence against macroevolution, but we don't. No rabbit fossils with trilobites, apes in South America, it all fits in exactly as it should.

Mutations during reproduction do occur and sometimes lead to subtle changes. Most of the time these changes are harmless and do nothing, other times they are detrimental, sometimes they are beneficial. When the changes are harmful the organisms with these changes are less likely to breed than other members of their species and less likely to pass on these detrimental genes. When the changes are helpful they are more likely to breed. And pass on this beneficial little tweak. Not every organism which could possibly exist can possibly exist, and in this fight for life, any edge helps. Compounding this process leads to organisms of amazing complexity. Some argue little changes work, but big ones can't. 'You can go 10 feet one foot in front of the other, but never 10 miles!'

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Yes, you obviously cannot have a standard argument to reply to my posts. I covered a good section of the scientific understanding. Most creationist arguments depend heavily on the the flaws of scientific knowledge. On very specific matters, there's no "standard arguments" as all creationism is vague arguments of ignorance. You don't know what causes this! *sigh*

You settled for giving up and asking random questions last time. That's isn't a reply. Honestly, you just try to reply... fail... then ask some more random stuff. Why not admit the truth: you don't know. My answers are good, robust, well-rounded, and evidenced. That's saying a lot. Why not admit the truth: there's very good reasons to think that I'm right.

Evolution is not a religion. It doesn't make religious statements. It's the scientific understanding of why life exists as it does with the complexity that it does. Admittedly this is a question there are non-scientific explanations for but that still doesn't make it a religion.

Further, there is no general overwhelming flood story among all religions. Most civilizations settle near water, especially the farming cultures live heavily in flood plains. These places tend to flood. The myth that all cultures have this myth is itself a myth. There are some flood stories in different areas. Note, if there was a world wide flood these stories wouldn't exist.

Also, the Noah story is actually borrowed from an earlier story from the Asyrians called the Epic of Gilgamesh. And other abrahamic religions borrowed directly from the story itself.

Starting with dirt is a far cry from a good understanding of abiogenesis. The Miller-Urey experiments show that from a pretty basic atmosphere you can build up to organic molecules. However, just being hard to understand doesn't make it impossible. It's fairly easy to view from worm to man because of the sound evidence there. The ooze to worm is probably harder (and took an extra billion years). Just being "hard" doesn't make it true. I'd be lying if I said I knew every step, but seeing as your theology holds that man went directly from dirt to man. My explanation has the benefit of actually being far more reasonable.

The Second Law of Thermodynamics holds in a closed system. See that giant ball of fusion in the sky bombarding our planet with additional energy. Further, evolution works by bootstraping additional order to produce increasing order. Some have offered that evolution goes the other way against the breakdown of everything by the second law. Further, humans are no more complex than a number of mammals.

There are no frozen dinosaurs. There are a couple mammoths: they froze.

No. I our general body evolved from worms roughly. After that point with only slight tweaks we don't get a majorly different body type. We've lost our tails but that's about it. Though, here and there some humans are born with tails (with bones) and here and there some whales are born with legs. The standard body type wasn't quite established until fish. I recommend reading a fairly new book "Your Inner Fish", which gives a pretty good explanation of why our body types are established as they are. You aren't going to run into any animals with a backbone and more four legs. Occasionally you'll run into a weird animal with a few extra but those are developmental rather than genetic.

We have two genders because it's makes for a better strategy for survival. It allows for quicker adaptation to diseases on the species level. Genes are independent, and any genetically advantageous genes aren't stuck in one individual who may possess less advantageous genes. Sexual reproduction allows these little tweaks evolution produces to thrive. Two sexes makes evolution go faster.

Actually it's difficult to evolve to be 20 feet tall due to something called the squared cubed law. Further, there's not that much advantage due to height. IQ does seem to increase rather standardly, mostly due to changes in our thinking. Though, if there are any genes which result in the creation of a better brain they are rather standardly given to a larger selection of genes. What do we need to reach 20 feet up? We can pick locks and find food. We are strong and can hunt really well. Photosynthesis is pretty specific, we typically produce Vitamin D in sunlight and that's pretty useful. But, we have better ways of getting energy. Also, we take more energy than photosynthesis produces.

*sigh*

I understand the desire to answer such things. But, I'm currently not impressed.

You seem to gather more and more information from my side and still constantly fail to support your side at all. I personally know your side's "arguments" as well, and there aren't replies to them.

Creationism typically just attacks some small non-ideas and misunderstandings, which would work pretty well, but the science laces together facts and understanding to explain reality as we find it. The latter side doesn't have any comprehensive explanations of anything much less replies to specific claims of the science.

If the evidence doesn't contradict evolution, what chance do random questions long since answered have?