The Talk.Origins Archive Post of the Month: May 2003 (talkorigins.org) This is an 18 year old post from the Talk-Origins forum where I used to frequent back in the Windows 98 days. It's an elegant and powerful rebuttal to an evolution denier. Won Post of the Month, May 2003. I'm going to copy the entire post, as snippets won't do. It's short. Read it all, and comment if you want. by Aron-Ra "eusebius" wrote in message news:32326N200@web2news.com... > Not by > any means denying the usefulness of taxonomic classification, but never > in the history of humankind as we know it, has it ever been reported > that one kind of animal became another. Not true. Look at the origin of the Pekinese, or any number of other dogs where one kind was deliberately bred from another. The same applies to Herefords, Maize and a host of other examples where one "kind" beget another through either artificial or natural selective processes. > A giraffe has never given birth > to a horse, as far as we know it. An ape has never given birth to a man. > I will give a million bucks to anyone who can observe an ape giving > birth to a human. Even your mother, if such were true. Apes beget apes, and Man is an ape, which means that a man's mother is also an ape. Apes have given birth to man just as birds beget ducks cetaceans beget dolphins and canids beget dogs. http://phylogeny.arizona.edu/life.html You are a metabolic organism. As such, you are basically a collection of replicative proteins that function according to metabolic chemical reactions and processes. A virus is similar, in that it too is a replicative protein complete with mutable DNA and RNA, just as you have. But viruses lack metabolism, and so may not be considered to be alive in the same manner that you definitely are. You are a eukaryote. All remaining organic life is distinguished by structural differences at the cellular level between different groups of prokaryotes (which are essentially bacteria) and the eukaryotes (us). Unlike bacterial or viral cells, our cells have a nucleus. Hence, all non-viral / bacterial lifeforms are as we are; eukaryotes. You are an animal. Now I've heard a few creationists argue that there are plants and there are animals and then there are human beings. And that none of them are actually related to one another other than through a common creator. They adamantly argue that we are not animals, as if there is some insult in that association. But you are one of only about a half-dozen kingdoms of eukaryotic life forms. Unlike those of most other biological kingdoms, you are incapable of manufacturing your own food and must compensate for that by ingesting other organisms. In other words, your most basic structure requires that you cause death to other living things. Otherwise, you wouldn't have a means of digestion. This, along with some very specific anatomical differences in the chemical composition of our metazoic cells, are the factors that define and distinguish an animal like yourself from all other kingdoms of life. Given the alternative choice between plants, molds, or fungus, animalia should seem reasonable even to the most adamant fundamentalist. You are a chordate. You have a spinal chord and every other minute physical distinction of that classification. You also have a skull, which classifies you as a craniate. Note: Not all chordates have skulls, or even bones of any kind. Once one of the chordates has enough calcium deposited around the brain to count as a skull, all of its descendants will share that. This is why absolutely all animals with skulls have spinal chords. And that is yet another commonality that implies common ancestry as opposed to common design. You are a vertebrate. Like all mammals, birds, dinosaurs, reptiles, amphibians, and most fish, you have a spine. Not everything with a spinal cord has a spine to put it in, but everything with a spine has a spinal cord in it, implying common descent. Every animal that has a jaw and teeth (Gnathostomata) also has a backbone. And of course, you have both as well, again implying common descent. You are a tetrapod. You have only four limbs. So you are like all other terrestrial vertebrates including frogs. Even snakes and whales are tetrapods in that both still retain vestigial or fetal evidence of all four limbs. This is yet another consistent commonality implying a genetic relationship. There certainly is no creationist explanation for it. You are synapsid. Unlike turtles (which are anapsid) and "true" reptiles, dinosaurs and birds (which are all diapsid), your skull has only one temporal fenestra, a commonality between all of the vast collection of "mammal-like reptiles", which are now all extinct without any Biblical recognition or scriptural explanation either for their departure or their presence in the first place. You are a mammal. You are homeothermic (warm-blooded), follicle-bearing and have lactal nipples. And of course, not all synapsids are or were mammals, but all mammals are synapsid, implying common descent. You are eutherian. Or more specifically, you are a placental mammal, like most other lactal animals from shrews to whales. All eutherians are mammals, but not all mammals are eutherian. There are six major divisions in mammalia, only three of which still exist; those that hatch out of eggs like reptiles (monotremes), marsupials, that are born in the fetal stage and complete their development inside the mother's pouch, and those that developed in a shell-like placenta and were born in the infant stage, as you were. Your own fetal development seems to reveal a similar track of development from a single cell to a tadpole-looking creature, then growing limbs and digits out of your finlike appendages, and finally outgrowing your own tail. Some would consider this an indication of ancestry. Especially since fetal snakes, for example, actually have legs, feet, and cute little toes, which are reabsorbed into the body before hatching, implying common descent. You are a primate. You have five fully-developed fingers and five fully-developed toes. Your toes are still prehensile and your hands can grasp with dexterity. You have only two lactal nipples and they are on your chest as opposed to your abdomen. These are pointless in males, which also have a pendulous penis and a well-developed ceacum or appendix, unlike all other mammals. Although your fangs are reduced in size, you do still have them along with some varied dentition indicative of primates exclusively. Your fur is thin and relatively sparse over most of your body. And your claws have been reduced to flat chitinous fingernails. Your fingers themselves have distinctive print patterns. You are also susceptible to AIDS and are mortally allergic to the toxin of the male funnel web spider of Australia (which is deadly to all primates, but only dangerous to primates, which is why you'd better beware of these spiders). And unlike all but one unrelated animal in all the world, your body cannot produce vitamin-C naturally and must have it supplemented in your diet, just as all other primates do. Nearly every one of these individual traits are unique only to primates exclusively. There is almost no other organism on Earth that matches any one of these descriptions separately, but absolutely all of the lemurs, tarsiers, monkeys, apes, you, and I match all of them at once perfectly, implying common descent. You are an ape. Your tail is merely a stub of bones that don't even protrude outside the skin. Your dentition includes not only vestigial canines, but incisors, cuspids, bicuspids, and distinctive molars that come to five points interrupted by a "Y" shaped crevasse. This in addition to all of your other traits, like the dramatically increased range of motion in your shoulder, as well as a profound increase in cranial capacity and disposition toward a bipedal gait, indicates that you are not merely a vertebrate cranial chordate and a tetrapoidal placental mammalian primate, but you are more specifically an ape, and so was your mother before you. Genetic similarity confirms morphological similarity rather conclusively, just as Charles Darwin himself predicted more than 140 years ago. While he knew nothing of DNA of course, he postulated that inheritable units of information must be contributed by either parent. He rather accurately predicted the discovery of DNA by illustrating the need for it. Our 98.4% to 99.4% identical genetic similarity explains why you have such social, behavioral, sexual, developmental, intellectual, and physical resemblance to a bonobo chimpanzee. Similarities that are not shared with any other organism on the planet. Hence you are both different species of the same literal family. In every respect, you are nearly identical. You, sir, are an ape. And as I have witnessed the birth of both of my children, I have now met the criteria for your reward. Please make my $1,000,000.00 payable to L. Aron Nelson. Thank you.
Just like the mypillow guy they never pay up. Evolution is an extremely difficult concept to understand because people have no ability to really comprehend the vast amount of time involved. When you consider that all of human civilization in the last 10000 years starting in Mesopotamia till now still only accounts for less than 5% of the time homo sapiens have been around and compare that to the 2 million years homo erectus were before that and another 2-3 million years of early hominid before that the scale is uncomprehending for most. When people think of history at best they grasp the last 2000 years or so.
Very true. Grasping 2000 years is difficult enough. Evolution isn't really that hard to grasp, which is why I like this post from Aron-Ra. It educates on the subject of common ancestry, which is irrefutable from a creationist standpoint.
Really, I think the problem is people need to accept that evolution is an extremely slow process of minuscule change over 100,000 of thousands of years. Even for those that believe it isn't gradual and hypothesize that evolution happens with great spurts forward are still talking about 100s if not 1000s of generations. Because the human mind cannot fathom that scale of time realistically it takes almost a leap of faith when just looking at transitional fossil records. That is why you get the "how can a chimpanzee give birth to a human" argument. Ignoring that they do not understand the common ancestor part they think evolution says chimps can give birth to humans randomly.
Technically speaking, our ancestors Advanced australopithecus split from apes a long time ago, we share a common ancestor with primates, but we have yet to find the link. Too say Homo Sapiens are apes kinda muddies the water a bit. We are definitely in the same family tree, but just on a different branch.
We've progressed a bit since Kitzmiller v Dover. Thankfully, those types of arguments aren't being made much anymore. Yes, diversity among mammals is a very recent stage in evolution. Many older lifeforms stopped evolving hundreds of millions of years ago; the horseshoe crab has remained unchanged for 445 million years. The number of generations is in the millions. Natural selection explains this, and our knowledge of DNA supports the theory. A witness for Kitzmiller proved human chromosome 2 to be a fusion of ancient chromosomes, the fusion of which separated us from the other great apes, which have 48 chromosomes to our 46. Here's a graphical representation.
Its pretty clear that adaptation + immense time turns simple life into more complex life. That being said, there's no reason why evolution and creation must be mutually exclusive. For starters, abiogenesis is not a part of the theory of evolution. Something sparked life from mere chemicals, and chances are it wasn't chance.
You don’t think abiogenesis has more too do with our little blue marble forming in the right part of the cosmos than by design?
Chances are it wasn't chance. C'mon, man. There is no evidence whatsoever for supernatural abiogenesis. There is no evidence for the supernatural. Intelligent design was repackaged creationism, which is why it lost in court. Abiogenesis and evolution are two separate theories. Our lack of knowledge at this point is not evidence for creationism, especially biblical creationism.
Life began on Earth instead of, say, Mercury, because earth is better suited to it. That in no way is an indicator that life began by chance.
'Supernatural' is just a term to describe forces beyond the limit of scientific understanding. Unless you're asserting that we understand everything (which surely you're not), then by definition the 'supernatural' does exist. We just don't know what it is yet ...because its beyond scientific understanding. Most of the things we scientifically understand used to be 'supernatural.'
Sure, but knowledge is "that which we know," not "that which we do not know." Epistemology is an entire different subject, unrelated to evolution and abiogenesis.
Abiogenesis falls into the category of 'that which we do not know.' It requires no more or less faith than 'god did it.'
I guess this is why I fall more in the agnostic side of this issue, instead of the snarky atheist. It would be unfair too totally discounted what you’re saying, even though I tend towards the most plausible explanation.
That's incorrect. That we haven't yet formed a testable theory does not mean we haven't gained knowledge. Abiogenesis has been studied seriously for a hundred years. This is irrelevant and off-topic. The argument is evolution vs creationism, not abiogenesis.
Because the formation of galaxies, solar systems and planets is random. We can predict much with modern physics, but we can't go back to the big bang and see the universe as anything other than random.
But abiogenesis is relevant to the discussion of evolution when evolution is being presented as opposed to creationism (as it is presented in OP). Creationism provides a possible explanation for how life began. Evolution does not. Abiogenesis is the only alternative explanation to creationism for how life began, so if evolution is being presented as an opposition to creationism, it is necessarily being presented with abiogenesis. ...unless you would like to provide a third possibility for how life began? Gained knowledge does not equate to understanding. For example, there is much knowledge within the Bible. That doesn't mean there is also understanding within the Bible. Just ask the countless experts with contradictory interpretations of it.
