"No, I don't. That's the whole point..they're all dogs, there is no difference in kind. Do it for 500 or 500 million, you'll have the same result..dogs. "

This is actually somewhat true. If breeds interbreed (derp, thats why they called breeds teehee?) there is very little chance of speciation occurring. Seperate a Great Dane a Chihuahua by a huge expanse of water for long enough though and eventually they will diverge to the point where they can no longer produce fertile offspring, or in other words, become a different species.

"Every species we observe is completely fully formed, showed up suddenly in the fossil record with no ancestors. If evolution were true, we would see species in transition from one kind to another today, which we don't. We would find ancestors in the fossil record which showed the tranistions. We don't. If evolution ever happened, it is not observable today anywhere, especially the fossil record."

I'd like to see you define a "fully formed" species. Honestly, this really shows how badly you misunderstand evolution. You are a transitional species, we all are, every single living thing on this planet is in some sense transitional. This misunderstanding of evolution seems to stem from the belief that it all happens at once, suddenly one day a bird hatches out of a dinosaur egg. Honey, it don't work like that, its millions of tiny changes from one generation to the next.

"The "advantage" is only good for the circumstance, and when the circumstance is gone, the population returns to normal. For instance, when bacteria produce this mutation for resistance, it always makes them less effecient..it always at the sacrifice of something else. There was nothing added and nothing new created..things only got shuffled around. These mutations don't ever survive in the wild."

Again, this somewhat true. Adaptions for a specific thing often come at a price. Its why we still see so many simple organisms sitting around, bacteria still exists and has not evolved into more complex forms because simple works for that bacteria. If there is no strong evolutionary pressure then why evolve? However, there is PLENTY of pressure to evolve, be it exploiting a new niche, adapting better to hunt new prey or to survive in a different environment.

I really encourage you to learn more about speciation. It seems you accept that species do mutate to better survive, but you don't believe that results in them forming a whole new species. Thats quite a reasonable position to take but there is plenty of evidence explaining how speciation actually occurs. Gogo read up on it, its fascinating.

>> ^Mazex:

Imagine if everyone stopped labeling giant groups of people pointlessly.


That is what I'm trying to point out. Our "speciation" (or: group and object distinctions and uses like labels or labeling) will continue to increase as our knowledge increase. It will become harder to lump everyone together. Except that we are all human; some "grouping" is correct no matter what you think. Trying to make it a moral issue is fairly laughable. As English (plus any language) and it's "noun" section would be eternally morally corrupt with your distinction.

I know what you're saying, but it seems like it's meant to be a defense of something some of us have done wrong; but, "religious" and "atheist" are fairly benign descriptors. I think we all know what ends up being wrong and right. Lastly, it's merely a shortcut.

Ah..."Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish" -Euripides. It has been my personal experience that those who do not believe in evolution are not so much resistant to the idea as they are ignorant of it, as you said. You can explain to him that evolution is the product of math, and that's it. As one allele is favored in the environment, it increases in frequency. In fact, you could also explain that evolution may also occur through something as simple (and unarguable) as migration. If more individuals with blond hair enter a population, the population evolves because the frequency of the blond allele increases.

In regards to the age of the earth, you could discuss some geological facts that are in obvious support of an ancient earth:
1) Fossils (Previous types of organisms have existed. Extinction has occurred. We know the rate of extinction and the rate that speciation occurs - these all indicate an earth that is billions of years old)
2) Vestigial structures (Previous useful structures can lose their function through time - lots of it)
3) Modern Gemonics (The more closely related two organisms are the more similar their DNA is, the more genes they have in common and therefore the more morphologically similar they are. We know the rate of mutation, which means we know the rate of the formation of alleles in a population. For humans, the rate of mutation is about 0.0000001 mutations per base pair per generation (very slow - and this is for all mutations, not just for positive ones). The formation of new species usually takes millions of years due to this slow rate coupled with natural selection.
4) Biogeography (A single species separated by the movement of continents evolves at the same discussed rate. We know how fast continents move (theory of plate tectonics: 2 - 10 cm/year). We know many organisms were separated by continental drift (Many separate (but very similar-looking) species are found in currently separate geographical areas that were once together - primates in Africa / South America, for example or the flightless birds - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratite - for marsupials: http://biology.clc.uc.edu/Courses/bio303/contdrift.htm)

I hope this helps!

Marc

In reply to this comment by Psychologic:
Hey, you seem to know your way around science so I have a question for you (asking several people actually):

I have a friend who is fairly intelligent and open-minded, but is also a young-earth creationist. While there is quite a bit of evidence showing the planet to be much older than 7000 years, I'm trying to find something that is fairly obvious and can't be dismissed as easily as, say, radiometric dating.

Needless to say, he doesn't "believe" in evolution, but I think many of his positions are the product of misinformation. I wouldn't believe in what he thinks evolution is either, but for now I just want a clear way of showing a skeptic that the earth is much older than the christian bible seems to indicate.

Any insight?

>> ^Psychologic:

Indeed. I would much prefer more specific designations for particular ideas within evolution (micro, macro, etc). "Evolution" seems to have a different meaning for everyone so at times it's difficult to know if two sides of a conversation are discussing the same idea.


"There is nothing mysterious or purposeful about evolution...it just happens. It is an automatic consequence of cold, simple mathematics." -- Scott Freeman & Jon C. Herron, Evolutionary Analysis

Microevolution is the change in an allele's frequency over multiple generations. Macroevolution is commonly referred to as speciation, the formation of new species via microevolutionary methods along with the isolation of organisms (either geographically or otherwise) and their eventual genetic divergence due to this isolation.

>> ^bmacs27:

Now, the real problem here is that what we mean by "evolution" is a moving target. It's so broad it's meaningless. In many ways "Darwinian evolution" has been falsified hundreds of times, much like Newtonian mechanics. It was wrong in the details.

I just get worried about how far people push the assumption of natural selection (e.g. evolutionary psychology).


Evolution is a moving target in as so much as any scientific discipline is. I'm sure if we started arguing about the physiology of vision, there would come a point where theory is still changing and, if I may, evolving within the scientific community. As I'm sure you know, this is just how science works.

Darwin was wrong in the details, true. Up to his death, Darwin believed in gemmules (small particles that travel through the body and deposit their "characteristics" into the gentialia) but that does not make his ideas any less sound. Modern evolutionary theory has filled in the gaps of Darwinian evolutionary theory. The fact that we can even reference Darwin 150+ years later should be a testament to how radically brilliant his ideas were and it should not undermine them just because he lived in a time where nothing was known about genetics (save Mendel's small garden patch).

About your last point concerning natural selection, I agree in so far that natural selection is not the only cause of evolution. Since evolution is merely the change in allele frequency over time, this can also be caused by migration and genetic drift, two very powerful forces and often more powerful in shorter time spans than natural selection. Albeit these forces are not influenced by agents of selection such as the environment, competition, predation, or sexual selection, they are still effective at causing the evolution of populations.

>> ^LarsaruS:

>> ^LarsaruS:
I actually find the notion of saving our species to be a vain and misguided effort. In 100 million billion trillion years when the Universe is still here, We wont be. If we survive long enough we will evolve from Homo Sapien to something else.
Of course. So what? Humans have children, even though those children are not clones of their parents. Why should we care that somewhere far down the line our offspring will speciate into something else? They will still be Homo in some way. /rebuilder

Aye, Homo is the way of the future :-D
But in all seriousness it means that we can't save our species. That's all.


Well, that applies whether we leave the planet or not. Semantic quibbles are the least of our challenges in colonizing another world.

I recently read some interesting stuff (i.e. nerd porn) relating to this here on Pharyngula. Just a smattering (the comments section mainly) of the very real obstacles preventing us from achieving this dream not likely until the far distant future. Also some interesting speculation on the idea that genetically modifying ourselves to be able to thrive on otherwise inhospitable planets being the more important/crucial barrier than our rocket/space propulsion technology.

I'm typically an optimist on this subject (damn you Carl Sagan!) but also a realist.

>> ^LarsaruS:

I actually find the notion of saving our species to be a vain and misguided effort. In 100 million billion trillion years when the Universe is still here, We wont be. If we survive long enough we will evolve from Homo Sapien to something else.
Of course. So what? Humans have children, even though those children are not clones of their parents. Why should we care that somewhere far down the line our offspring will speciate into something else? They will still be Homo in some way. /rebuilder

Aye, Homo is the way of the future :-D
But in all seriousness it means that we can't save our species. That's all.

>> ^LarsaruS:

I actually find the notion of saving our species to be a vain and misguided effort. In 100 million billion trillion years when the Universe is still here, We wont be. If we survive long enough we will evolve from Homo Sapien to something else.


Of course. So what? Humans have children, even though those children are not clones of their parents. Why should we care that somewhere far down the line our offspring will speciate into something else? They will still be Homo in some way.

How about - Evidence, real, physical, in your face factual evidence. Evidence doesn't care what your beliefs are. It doesn't care how you feel about a subject. Evidence is evidence and evolution is a factual reality. So is geological time and speciation. You can spout on all day long about how you "believe" the sun rotates around the earth, or that there's a mystical teapot flying around Jupiter that grants wishes. You can believe anything you want. Reality doesn't care. Reality dictates Reality. Not yours or anyone's personal attempt to do so on their own.

>> ^imstellar28:
>>The problem with walking into this thread, is like the problem of walking into church after reading origin of species, it all just sounds so god damn stupid.


I missed the part in Origin of Species where it conclusively and scientifically proved there is no God.

I thought it was about a theory of how and why speciation occurs.

Between the two of us, I think clearly you're a lot closer to being a believer than a scientist:

• You have a holy text, which you think others have misinterpreted.
  
• You believe that most problems today stem from the perversion of the holy text.
  
• You believe if everyone adopted your interpretation of the text, there would be incomparable benefits to mankind.
  
• You believe that people who interpret the holy text differently, or worse disagree with parts of the holy text are heathens worthy of contempt.
  
• You believe when you tell people about your interpretation of the holy text that it is Truth, and that when others hear it, they will become immediate converts, or prove that they are incapable of understanding the Truth (and thus worthy of contempt).
  
• You respond to any evidence that the prescriptions in the holy text might not deliver on your promises by either saying "you didn't follow the text properly", or "because you followed the text properly, what you describe must be a good outcome".
  

Essentially, you follow the stereotypical model of a believer to a higher degree than any religious person I've met.

This is bullshit.

The whole point about resistant bacteria is that whatever else might be "wrong" with them, they are more fit and better adapted if there are drugs/diseases that kills their non-resistant cousins present The fact that they never get back to "normal"(whatever that means) is an EXCELLENT example of Darwinian evolution, if the resistant bacteria has to mutate and evolve to survive better, it means it changes, and thus the process of speciation actually speeds up.

The key to evolution is really islands. Islands can be physical geographic islands like Madagascar, Australia or galapagos, or it could be lakes, or it could be a different climate or conditions on the same continent ie: desert and jungle. in the case of bacteria, the islands can be simply two human bodies. if one person takes a drug that kills most of the bacteria, and he continues to take the drug, the few drug-resistant bacteria will regrow a population, if the other person doesnt take the drug, his or her body will keep the non-resistant bacteria.

The key to evolution is TIME, over time, these populations evolve separately, eventually becoming different species, like us and the chimps. We'll share most of our DNA (98.6%, actually), but we will differ enough (1.4%) to be unable to interbreed, thus classify for a distinct species.

^If we take Doc_M's position that a fertilized egg is a person, and that person is acting in a very clear and definite manner, "attempting" to grow a new human, and the mother elects to assist this process for some period of time, say 5months. If the fetus is a person, then by their joint action they have entered into an implicit social contract, it is not different from my example. If the fetus is a person it has the contractual obligation of the mother to carry it to term, just as I am required to stick around until you get down from picking apples.

I would agree, if it were possible to prove the mother and fetus voluntarily entered into a contractual agreement. However, I do not know how the fetus could possibly chose to voluntarily enter such an agreement. Moreso, even if somehow could, the mother still has to voluntarily agree.

Speciation is an abstraction based on the religious presupposition of types, it's not as clean as you seem to want it, "species" lines get crossed all the time, the mule is a textbook example.

This is actually not true, speciation is not abstract or based on religious presupposition of types. A species, by definition, is a set of animals which can produce fertile offspring. Mules are sterile, which is why horses and donkeys are considered different species.

Please explain to me why a member of another species, say little green men from mars, should be a priori denied moral relevance.

This is a more difficult question, as I assume they would be conscious beings. I was wrong to define rights in terms of species. I should have defined rights in terms of sentient beings. Given that morality requires a conscious choice, it would appear that only sentient beings have rights?

>> ^imstellar28:
You are missing a very, very subtle concept which is critical to the outcome of your example. In this situation, the two people made a social contract: that one would pick an apple while the other held a rope.

I don't discount contract, but you assume that we have already determined who/what may enter such a contract. The entire point is that we agree that such contracts exist, and that they function by moral rules about which we agree, but the who and how are in dispute.

If we take Doc_M's position that a fertilized egg is a person, and that person is acting in a very clear and definite manner, "attempting" to grow a new human, and the mother elects to assist this process for some period of time, say 5months. If the fetus is a person, then by their joint action they have entered into an implicit social contract, it is not different from my example. If the fetus is a person it has the contractual obligation of the mother to carry it to term, just as I am required to stick around until you get down from picking apples.

Species are the set of animals who can successfully reproduce--thus as hard as it might be from appearance, it would be possible to separate the two.

Speciation is an abstraction based on the religious presupposition of types, it's not as clean as you seem to want it, "species" lines get crossed all the time, the mule is a textbook example. This position also means you would side with Doc_M on personhood at conception, since that's part of the species continuum you use as criteria, making that choice has a long list of absurd consequences.

Your further assertion that morality is only within species, is an arbitrary choice just as much as any other. The fact that predator and pray, as individuals, have conflicting interests in no way forbids morality from effecting other interactions between members of disparate species. Please explain to me why a member of another species, say little green men from mars, should be a priori denied moral relevance.

I'm sure some of us have seen this before, but I thought it fitting to post, and I had to type it out, because the copy I have is an image file. But this is What Evolution Is. Feel free to copy this and use it against any misguided individuals who believe, or agree, with the wonderful video above.

VARIATION:
1) Variation exists in all populations.
2) Some of that variation is heritable.
3) Base pair sequences are encoded in a set of self-replicating molecules that form templates for making proteins.
4) Combinations of genes that did not previously exist may arise via "Crossing over" during meiosis, which alters the sequence of base pairs on a chromosome.
5) Copying errors (mutations) can also arise, because the self-replication process is of imperfect (although high) fidelity; these mutations also increase the range of combinations of alleles in a gene pool.
SELECTION:
6) Some of that heritable variation has an influence on the number of offspring able to reproduce in turn, including traits that affect mating opportunities, or survival prospects for either individuals or close relatives.
7) Characteristics tend to become more common over generations if they tend to increase the number of an organism's offspring which are able to reproduce in turn, and tend to become rarer if they tend to decrease such prospects.
"Sampling errors" can occur in populations that alter the relative frequencies of alleles in the "recipient" population.
SPECIATION:
10) Populations of a single species that live in different environments are exposed to different conditions that can "favour" different traits. These environmental differences can cause two populations to accumulate divergent suites of characteristics.
11) The combination of these effects tends to increase diversity of life forms.
SUFFICIENCY:
12) Over the time frame from the late Hadean to the present, this becomes sufficient to explain the diversity of all life observed on Earth, both in what is directly seen at present, and indirectly through geologic evidence from the fossil record.

That's what Evolution IS. If you have a problem with Evolution, you have a problem with one or more of these twelve points. Which one is it? Provide evidence that any of the points are incorrect.

Note that Evolution does NOT indicate how the first life arose; that's a question of Autocatalytic Biochemistry, and largely dependant on the definition used to distinguish "alive" from "not-alive". Also, Evolution does NOT indicate that all variations are explained this way; that there are no other mechanisms by which variation may arise, be passed, or become prevalent; or that there is no other way life diversifies. Any and all of these may be valid topics for conjecture... But without evidence, they aren't science.

Other people's opinions, presented in the form of quotes, are not evidence against the theory of Evolution. They are merely opinions, and all people have opinions which turn out to be false. So lets' stick to the facts.

Hmm... she seems to enter into advocacy at the end based on a scientific misunderstanding.

Her argument is that humans and other animals are categorically indistinct because we're separated from them only by many small gradations of speciation that occurred throughout evolutionary history.

Categories being connected does not mean that the categories cannot be distinguished using meaningful criteria.

The concept of a "molecular clock" is not a hard one to grasp, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molecular_clock
While the rate of mutation of speciated DNA varies with the method of analysis, it can be fairly calibrated with the fossil record and, more recently, retroviral DNA insertion. These concepts are the "smoking gun" of common ancestry of modern humans/neanderthals/chimps/great apes. While bones and flesh decay, making the fossil record incomplete, DNA lives on.