Talk:Evolution/Archive3

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This is an archive page, last updated 16 March 2015. Please do not make edits to this page.
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[edit] WTF?

You can't compare evolution to creationism. There are facts for evolution. We know for example that the ancestors of birds are dinosaurs. Nothing proves creationism. 91.115.62.5 (talk) 13:36, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

It's worse than that. Evolutionary biology offers accounts about what happens and how so that features of the world of life turn out the way things are. For example, how it is that mammals are all air-breathing four-limbed vertebrates. Why humans, being mammals, have typical structure to the eyes of vertebrates, rather than of insects, or of octopuses. Creationism shows no prospect of ever addressing such issues. Creationists have no interest in offering an "alternative" account for such "complex specified" structures in the world of life. (Something which couldn't have happened by chance.) TomS TDotO (talk) 08:59, 16 August 2014 (UTC)
Not by chance? I was taught that the reason we even have life here is because we got lucky with the chance of the primordial soup arranging itself. And then we got really lucky that all the environmental factors somehow came together to evolve eucaryotes and eventually human beings. As in, genetic changes pretty much just happen by chance and are seemingly random, and then it is up to the survival of the fittest which one ends up persisting. (Unless you are going to argue a complete chain of deterministic events all the way from primordial soup to now, in which case I'm not going toargue with you.)
Indeed, I would think that the creationists are more likely to hold the view that everything didn't happen by chance, but God designed it. Nullahnung (talk) 11:46, 16 August 2014 (UTC)
It isn't a matter of chance that mammals are air-breathing four-limbed vertebrates. Whenever we come across a mammal, we can feel confident that, upon investigation, we will find that it is air-breathing (even if it is fully adapted to water), it is four-limbed (in some cases, like whales, some of the limbs are vestigial), and have a bony skeleton. Creationists have never attempted to say why God created things that way - it's just a matter of an "act of God". Why are no five-limbed mammals? TomS TDotO (talk) 20:40, 16 August 2014 (UTC)
Ah, but is a tail not counted as a limb, as it can be extremely useful for things that limbs are used for, like keeping balance or grabbing tree branches? And are monkeys with such tails not mammals? Consider yourself slightly corrected, good sir! (<--sidetrack)
And yes, it is still always a matter of chance. Just because we can work with probabilities and good predictions based upon such probabilities doesn't mean the random element doesn't come into play. Kinda like quantum physics (not really, but you get my point). Nullahnung (talk) 21:21, 16 August 2014 (UTC)
And the question posed by Lincoln: if we call a tail a leg, how many legs does a dog have?
My point was that we have a good account for how it happens that mammals are tetrapods. And "an omnipotent creator made things that way or "intelligent designers were responsible" does not tell us why, in so many ways, every mammal that we have examined is a tetrapod. And we can predict that every mammal that will be discovered, extant or extinct, will be a tetrapod. Evolution accounts for such observations and such predictions, and it is not just a matter of the luck of the draw. Creation/design has no way for accounting for that: Calculate, as the creationists like to do, the probability that every species of mammal has so many features in common - it is a regularity, and the only regularity that any one has thought of to produce that (and so many other facts of life) is common descent with modification. Unless someone has any prospect of ever discovering why God or intelligent designers are constrained to do things that way.
It is not a matter of chance that the next mammalian fossil that is dug up will fit the pattern. TomS TDotO (talk) 23:22, 16 August 2014 (UTC)
Ok, sure. Nullahnung (talk) 00:00, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

[edit] Suggestion

Include a link to 'devolution' until 'about next Monday' (or whenever Salmond and Westminster have stopped arguing over who which side won). 82.44.143.26 (talk) 15:45, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

[edit] Mivart

'What use is half a wing?' - still no satisfactory answer... — Unsigned, by: 78.146.32.24 / talk / contribs

Yawn. Doxys Midnight Runner (talk) 18:23, 29 October 2014 (UTC)
They're called "drumettes" and they're delicious with barbeque sauce. Ikanreed (talk) 18:25, 29 October 2014 (UTC)
Until we crack the code on penguin or emu speech... we'll never know.--Inquisitor (talk) 18:27, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

[edit] The Pagan Roots of Evolution

[edit] Why Evolution is False

[edit] Demonstrating Evolution

[edit] Is the evolution page not allowed to evolve?

[edit] Origins of the scientific theory

[edit] Religious Beliefs and Evolution

[edit] Evolution page not allowed to evolve. How ironic.

[edit] Simple question

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