Greetings.
format_quote Originally Posted by
Converse02
Yeah, we didn't evolve from monkeys, we just share a common ancestor. We evolved from hominids, who evolved from tetrapods, who evolved from amphibians, who evolve from fish, etc... Science and the fossil evidence is amazing, isn't it?
I think you have touched on Common Descent, and you should read this: taken from:
http://seemyparadigm.webs.com/evolution.htm
Also, you might think I am just copy/pasting from websites, but as Gatoralways does(give links) I feel I should be atleast allowed to aswell.
"Evolution of mankind is a very specific and dominant part of common descent. Although several proposed links by the three of common descent can provide interesting debates, I feel that this one is most appropriate for two reasons. The firs reason is that it is most relevant in this context of religion. The second reason being that it is the alleged link in the chain that is most studied and documented out of all the links in common descent. Thus it provides for a much more in depth analysis. Some people are under the impression that this part of common descent is as good as proven, but that is far from true. I'll attempt to discuss some of the commonly used, flawed arguments.
Argument from comparison:
This is perhaps the most dominant argument. But it is a slippery slope. The argument holds that things who look alike, must undeniably have evolved from one another. That is off course uncertain. Similarity could just as well mean that they were created by the same creator rather then evolved out of the same specie. The similarity does not prove one viewpoint to be more likely than the other. So since multiple explanations are plausible for explaining these similarities, they cannot be used as evidence. It is often suggested, that although there are indeed several plausible explanations, that common descent is much more plausible due to Ockhams razor. I've already replied to that in my introduction page, where I discussed the weakness of Ockhams razor by example of the anthropic principle.
Also note that the comparisons are usually made in the wrong way. For example, many of the alleged intermediate species between ape and human, are argued to be human afterall. Here are some proposed missing links:
1. Genus Australopithecus
1. Australopithecus Anamensis (4.2 to 3.9 million years ago)
2. Australopithecus Afarensis (4 to 2.7 million years ago)
3. Australopithecus Africanus (3 to 2 million years ago)
4. Australopithecus Robustus (2.2 to 1.6 million years ago)
2. Genus Homo
1. Homo Habilis (2.2 to 1.6 million years ago)
2. Homo Rudolfenis (1.9 to 1.6. million years ago)
3. Homo Erectus (2 to 0.4 million years ago)
4. Homo Sapiens Archaic (400 to 200 thousand years ago)
5. Homo Sapiens neanderthalis (200 to 30 thousand years ago)
I. The Australopithecus
The false claims from Richard Leakey and Donald C Johanson that the Australopithecus walked erected has been refuted and it seems the Australopithecus is more closely related with orangutans which according to evolutionists is from a different branch then the one mankind originated from. So the entire Australopithecus genus can be refuted as intermediate link.
II. The Home Genus.
II.i. Homo Habilis 2.2 to 1.6 million years ago (proposed in the 60's as first humanoid that walked erect and used tools). New discoveries in 80's showed a different picture and Bernard Wood and C. Loring Brace said that this was in fact nothing more then An Australopithecus Habilis. So it's just another extinct African ape.
II.ii. Homo Rudolfensis 1.9 to 1.6 million years ago. It refers to a single fragmented skull found in Kenya. However most scientists have accepted it again as nothing more then Australopithecus Habilis.
II.iii. Homo Erectus 2 to 0.4 million years ago. Although this skeleton is exactly the same as some humans have, evolutionists have classified it as a transcending specie, based on the small skull contents (900-1100 cc) and because of the big eyebrows (of the skull). However, there are humans alive today with that skull contents (i.e. Pygmees), and that have such eyebrows (i.e. Australian aboriginals)! So there is no reason to assume these skeletons are a missing link, they are just humans. In fact the New Scientists of 1998 14 march even wrote an excellent article of how Homo Erectus had the technology to build and use transport ships.
II.iv. Homo Sapiens archaic 400 to 200 thousand years ago. Again there's no reason to assume they weren't human, in fact many researchers have even concluded that they are exactly the same as Australian aboriginals. They even found skeletons of them showing that this race lived up to fairly recent times in villages in Italy and Hungary. The dramatic pictures of hairy human-like apes you found in school handbooks are just indulgence of imagination, remember we've only found skeletons.
II.v Homo Sapiens Neandertalensis 200 to 30 thousand years ago. Erik Trinkus, paleontologist of university of Mexico writes: detailed study of the skeleton of the remains of the Neandertalensis with modern man show that nothing in the anatomy of the Neaderthalensis such as movement, manipulation, intellect and linguistic capabilities are inferior to that of modern man.
So as you can see, with two Genus failing as intermediate, since each consists of many links not holding up to scrutiny, we have quite a big gap in our line of descent. Now I'm not going to claim there's some sort of crazy conspiracy going on here, and that evolutionists purposely create false intermediate species. But perhaps people are just looking so hard for these missing links that they start to see things that aren't there. Also, we need to remember species have both a genotype and a phenotype. The genotype refers to the genes a specie carries, both the dormant as well as the active. The phenotype refers to the physicals characteristics a specie has. To give an example, a person can have the genotype for both blue as for brown eyes, in other words he has both the genes that causes eyes to be blue, as the gene that causes eyes to be brown. However he will only have one phenotype, he will have brown eyes since the gene for brown eyes is dominant over the gene for blue eyes. The reason I bring this up, since evolution takes place on a genetic level, it seems crucial that we'd compare genes, rather then say comparing skulls. I have already illustrated how easy a bias can influence a researcher in comparing morphology of skulls.
The stereotype reply you get to this is: well chimps do have 99% of there DNA in common with mankind right? Isn't that comparing genotype rather then phenotype? My answer is; "No, that is false information!". There is not a 99% similarity between human and Chimp DNA! In fact you will find that even two brothers will have less then 99% similarity except for of course identical twins. The 99% similarity is not with DNA, but with karyotypes! So what's the difference? DNA are long strings of Nucleic acids. However these strings are not stored in the nucleus like spaghetti's in a casserole. Instead the strings are wound up and held into position by histones to form Chromosomes. When you align all chromosomes of a specie straightened out in a row, you have what we call a karyotype. So when you compare karyotypes; what we are comparing is not really DNA. What you are comparing is the method in how DNA is packed. If chimps have similar karyotypes, that means they use histones in a similar method as we do, that does not mean we have similar DNA. In fact you could say that this comparison is just a comparison of phenotypes since the formation of histones is genetically decided. So comparing formations of histones makes just as much sense as comparing skulls rather then comparing genotypes.
In this image you see just how many steps it takes for histones to fold DNA (left) into Chromosomes (right). This should give a fair idea of how unrepresentative this comparison of karyotypes is. The end result is almost completely relying on the histones instead of the DNA.
Argument from ERV's:
ERV stands for Endogenous Retro Virus. This is a virus that has embedded itself into DNA and gets passed on generation after generation. We share some alleged ERV's with chimps. It is thus suggested as proof for our common descent, since it implies that we both must have originated from a same ancestor that was infected by that virus.
The first problem with this argument is that it's hard to tell what an ERV is when you meet one. It doesn't come with a tag attached saying: "This is an ERV". It could be that some genes which we expect to be ERV's aren't ERV's at all but something completely different. It could even be junk genes, byproduct. Or it could be something we don't yet understand the purpose off. The difficulty in recognizing an ERV, is that it's usually deformed from it's origenal virus form. That is because if a virus is embedded in it's complete form, its almost impossible to pass it down to further generations. To explain this, let my use a simplified example. Imagine a man who has a virus. This virus will not infect every last cell of his body, and even if it would, he would most likely die and that would be the end of the story. Now for this man to pass this embedded ERV down to a child, the virus needs to be embedded in a spermcell. Only then will the ERV be present in every cell of the childs DNA. Since all cells have their DNA copied from there on. If however the virus isn't deformed, the child would have a flu in every single cell of his body. His cells would constantly reproduce this virus, and spread it throughout it's body. You can imagine this fetus doesn't have a fighting chance from the start on. No, for an ERV to be passed down trough generations, it has to be rendered harmless first. So how do you recognize it as a virus after this rendition to harmless junk then?
A second problem of the argument, is the slippery slope fallacy again. What if both chimps and humans were infected by the virus, and both got ERV's in a similar fashion? After all, given their similar physiology, that seems reasonable enough right? Well the reply from evolutionists is, that the ERV is specific in a certain locus (place on the genes) and it is improbable for both chimps and humans to create an ERV at the exact same spot. However, I disagree. There is a recent discovery at the university of Pennsylvania US that shows a human DNA-associated protein that would dictate where on the DNA that AIDS is to be inserted. The protein called LEDGF would travel along with the retrovirus in it's mantel and then modulate where in the human genome the virus is inserted. So if retroviruses can be locus specific, then loci-specific ERV's is no longer a problem for this counterargument. It is then a matter of simple causality; chimps and humans have ERV at similar loci due to similar proteins. In other words similar results by similar processes.
Argument from unintelligent design:
This isn't really scientific but rather philosophical. The argument goes like this: "Creation is flawed, in the sense that it's poorly designed. There are many shortcomings and imperfections. If we would have truly been created, we would have been perfect rather then imperfect." Now since the argument is philosophical rather then scientific, my reply will also be philosophical rather then scientific. Let this not reflect as a weakness of my counter though; there are tons of things wrong with the premise. First of all, we need to look at the term perfection. Does it refer to an Utopian perfection, or rather as-good-as-it-gets kind of perfection? For those referring to an Utopian perfection, I gladly present my counter-arguments against the flawed argument from the paradox of omnipotence. The argument I use there can be extrapolated here, since the same flaw exists in the argument here. For the other interpretation of imperfection, we have to note that judgment of perfection and imperfection is very subjective. For example, would perfection include immortality? what if it is our purpose to stay here only temporarily in the first place, wouldn't a mortal design then be more appropriate over an immortal one? Who's to say that we aren't perfect, in the sense that this is as good as it can be? The only way to make this argument work, is to hypothesize an alternative design, and then illustrate the advantage such an alternative design would have over the current design. A completely different design from scratch is of course way to hard for our limited minds, let alone that we could do a meaningful comparison of such a design and the current. Therefor most proponents of this argument have restricted themselves to slight variation on the current design.
An example I have encountered in the past, is regarding the position of the vas deferens. The vas deferens is the duct that carries sperm to the ejaculatory duct. The problem with it is that it lies all the way around the ureter, which makes surgery at the prostate challenging. This positing isn't random though, it's because during development, the testicles drop down, thus pulling the duct around the ureter. Now to this argument I reply, bringing an alternative design is not as simple as making a drawing of how it should end up. If any proponents of unintelligent design feel that this alternative design is possible they should do a better job at defending their viewpoint and prove us that this alternative is possible in the first place. In other words, show us how your design is workable, from genotype to phenotype, not only in phenotype. From early development trough puberty and adulthood. When this is done, and we have a full script, only then we can begin discussing which of the two designs is best and keep all circumstances under consideration. Now even if the alternative design turns out to be workable I suspect that the difficulties and complexity that it brings with them will outweigh the surgeon's convenience. Especially when you take in consideration the small percentage of people, from the dawn of mankind up until now, who ever have surgery done at the prostate.
A second example I have encountered in the past is the blind spot of the eye. Here even more then in the case of the vas deferens, I question the possibility of a design without it. The blind spot is very intrinsic to the mechanism of the eye, and is an effect created by a very vital part of the eye. Designing an eye without a blind spot is thus very challenging. Furthermore, the blind spot of each eye is compensated by the second eye. So the "flaw" in design isn't really problematic if you look at the totality: a set of eyes. To avoid confusion; also note that there is a difference between the optical blind spot -a gap in the vision of the eye created by a spot where there are no visual receptors due to the positioning of the nerves- and the blind spot of a vehicle -a space around the vehicle that is from the driver's position despite the use of mirrors- in case you were wondering.
Argument from useless design:
This is a bit similar to the argument of unintelligent design, but more simplistic. It argues that species have body parts that have no use, which is a waste. Vestigial organs they call them. Of course adding a useless part in a design isn't the same as dumb design, but it wouldn't be considered as smart either. However I argue that there are no useless body parts, and that every part of our body has a function. Several parts have been suggested by proponents. Although I grant that some of those suggested parts are not vital for survival, that doesn't mean they are completely useless. People can even live after limbs have been amputated, but that doesn't mean a limb is vestigial. So just because one can survive without the organ doesn't make it vestigial. The most common example is the coccyx (tail bone). The story goes this is a remnant of our tail-carrying brothers, which is now utterly useless. But that's far from the truth. No less than nine muscles are attached to that bone. Without the bone a lot of our current movements would no longer be possible. And we do use this bone on a regular basis. It is used for defecation and keeps organs in place"
Like he said at the end of that "As always, if you feel I missed anything important here, or you have an argument which you think cut's the mustard, feel free to bring it up at my forum"
His forum is here:
http://seemyparadigm.webs.com/feedback.htm
Peace