Evolution

Hmm....Interesting...... I never would have guessed that evolution is such a mystery to so many people. I just can't figure out why? I've been around for a few decades longer than a lot of folks on this forum, and perhaps my memory is failing, but don't schools teach the theory of evolution in the primary grades? I know some American school districts now insist on including 'Creationism' in their teachings (the religious right insists on including this approach) but surely basic science taught at the elementary level focus' on evolution?

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Originally Posted by Scheherazade

You think they would give shiny badges as well?? "Fool for life"??

Me likes badges...

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And I like shiny things.

They do teach Evolution, but the misty over weights the clear in this theory, the mistakes are common, because some things are not intuitive enough.
Evolutionary biologists spend half of the time apologizing in front of everyone else for their theory being inconsistent with some religious dogmas, and the party goes on…

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Originally Posted by GreenDog

and the party goes on…

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A few seven & sevens later, you've got a room full of scientific revolutionaries (pun not intended) with a sprinkling of religious righteous, duking out a debate on whether or not Homo Erectus was in fact, a homosexual.

Well, not really. But the ideas surrounding Evolution I think can be expanded, built upon, molested (in a figuratively scientifc sense). That's the part I am interested in.

I was taught basic theories of Evolution in primary school. We learned about Darwinism, Evolution and (I am pretty sure) almost everyone has heard the moth in England story. The Peppered Moth.

Does anyone remember this story? There once was these white moths who used to hang out on (birch trees?) in England... They were speckled with a little black as camo when they sat on the bark. But after the Industrial Revolution, the trees turned black. Well years and years later, these moths became black with white specks. How did this happen? Well, the white colored moths were seen very easily by birds, and thus were eaten. So the few mutated moths who were darker in color, initially were not eaten. From there, those darker moths passed on their genes, and Darwin's concept of 'Natural Selection'/ 'Survival of the Fittest' ran its course.

At some point, that first white moth had to have been eaten. Setting in motion a continuum of change.

The question is,is survival of the fittest(natural selsction) proff of evolution?
Because evolution is actually a hypothesis.The ratio of black and white moths
does not explain how new life forms or how one kind of organism can change into another kind or how an organism can develop new organs( or talents,
how would your otter have eaten before he evolved enough to open the shell?)There were always light and dark peppered moths;only their ratio in the general propulation shifted. No new kind of moth ,not even a new color, developed.Further more the light and dark peppered moths can mate and produce fertile offspring. This means they are of the same kind.

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Originally Posted by ruhbr_ducky

The question is,is survival of the fittest(natural selsction) proff of evolution?

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Natural selection is the process by which evolution occurs.

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Originally Posted by ruhbr_ducky

Because evolution is actually a hypothesis.

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That is incorrect. Perhaps you are thinking of abiogenesis, which is a group of hypotheses.

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Originally Posted by ruhbr_ducky

The ratio of black and white moths
does not explain how new life forms or how one kind of organism can change into another kind or how an organism can develop new organs( or talents,
how would your otter have eaten before he evolved enough to open the shell?There were always light and dark peppered moths;only their ratio in the general propulation shifted. No new kind of moth ,not even a new color, developed.Further more the light and dark peppered moths can mate and produce fertile offspring. This means they are of the same kind.

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Straw man. The entire theory of evolution is not based on the peppered moth experiment. Also, I've never seen anybody suggest that light and dark peppered moths are different species, aside from you, just then.

well looks like were gonna have fun.....natural selection is the concept that species well suited to their enviroment are more likely to survive and reproduce than weak or unfit animals. This does not state that one species or animal can evolve into another.

The book in which the theory of natural selection was first set down is titled On the Origin of Species and does, in fact, describe how speciation occurs through natural selection.

On the Origin of Species is a poor argument, it was not a scientific treatise, but rather a series of thousands of wild sculations strung together- in Darwin's words " one long argument." Natural selection acts to preserve existing kinds, not create new kinds. P.S. Adam Sedgwick, one of Darwin's
mentors denounced Darwin's hypothesis of evolution by natural selection as
" as a dish of rank materialism cleverly cooked and served up.... to make us independent of a Creator" end quote.Also two of the world's greatest physicists ,James Clark Maxwell and Lord Kelvin, strongly opposed Darwinism and developed mathematical and scientific refutations of evolution.

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Originally Posted by ruhbr_ducky

" as a dish of rank materialism cleverly cooked and served up.... to make us independent of a Creator"

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Ad hominem, anybody? In any case, we're not talking about whether Origin of Species is correct or not (I don't need it), we're talking about the meaning of the theory of natural selection.

I'd like to see these mathematical and scientific refutations of evolution.

you will have to look those up they don't happen to be infront of me, but I'am sure if you look around you'll find em.

I just stated to you the theory of natural selection , it literally means that species well suited to their enviroment are more likely to survive and reproduce than weak or unfit animals. So what else could it mean?

It also describes how the process that you refer to results in speciation.

how can the preservation of a kind lead to "speciation".
there is no change in kind. like the moths.

For example, Darwin observed that finches on the Galapagos Islands had bills that were quite different form those of European species and were much better suited to eating the seeds and fruit found on the islands. Darwin believed that random genetic changeds had produced new bill shapes; natural selection that made these dirds more likely to survive than finches with the "standard" bill. The changes actually occured however, because the finches had possessed the genes for those bill shapes from the very begining.
Inbreeding revealed these latent characteristics, and natural selection caused them to become prodominant amoung the finches on the island.
This dosen't in the least bit show that the finches evolved.