Evolution is the observable and active process of change in gene frequency within a population over time.
Theory of evolution is attempting to explain how this works via random mutation, selection, genetic flow and drift.
Think of it as the same thing as gravity and theory of gravity. We observe stuff falling down all the time. It's observable fact. The theory of gravity is the explanation of why things fall down. They, like evolution, are two separate things.
When someone says "I don't believe in evolution" it's the same thing as saying "I don't believe in gravity".
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04-22-2011, 02:55 PM #1
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The difference between "Evolution" and "Theory of Evolution"
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'What is a human being, then?'
'A seed'
'A... seed?'
'An acorn that is unafraid to destroy itself in growing into a tree.'
-David Zindell, _A Requiem for Homo Sapiens_
My training log:
http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=114471221
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04-22-2011, 02:57 PM #2
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04-22-2011, 03:24 PM #3
Yup. That life evolves is an observed, empirical fact. The theory of natural selection only attempts to explain why certain traits persist, and why others fall by the wayside. The theory of genetics attempts to explain the means by which traits are transfered from parent to child. The theory of genetic selection attempts to synthesize the two previous theories.
Boomer Sooner, Go Astros, Texans, Rockets and Flyers!
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04-22-2011, 03:27 PM #4
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04-22-2011, 04:22 PM #5
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04-22-2011, 04:27 PM #6
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04-22-2011, 04:31 PM #7
And of course, this demanding evidence does not apply to religion - indeed, religionists have no choice but to argue that their claims be exempt from this sort of scrutiny, and that the 'feelings' of the believers be substituted for anything resembling evidence of antiquity.
But furthermore, the evidence for evolution going back hundreds, thousands, and millions of years exists in the fossil record.ignore list: MuscleXtreme
”The Iron never lies to you. You can walk outside and listen to all kinds of talk, get told that you’re a god or a total bastard. The Iron will always kick you the real deal. The Iron is the great reference point, the all-knowing perspective giver. Always there like a beacon in the pitch black.”
–Henry Rollins
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04-22-2011, 04:33 PM #8
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04-22-2011, 04:35 PM #9
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04-22-2011, 07:00 PM #10"I think people with you views should not allowed to express them. " --amtharin
"If fascism comes it will probably be wrapped up in the American flag and heralded as a plea for liberty and preservation of the constitution."
"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves and wiser people so full of doubts."
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04-22-2011, 07:06 PM #11
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04-22-2011, 07:07 PM #12
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04-22-2011, 07:08 PM #13
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04-22-2011, 07:12 PM #14
The evidence for evolution is plentiful; you just refuse to accept it. Not our fault.
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Lenski_affair
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04-22-2011, 07:25 PM #15
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04-22-2011, 07:40 PM #16
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04-22-2011, 08:08 PM #17
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04-22-2011, 08:22 PM #18
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No. They took a different species of bacteria, and created a different species of bacteria. Dogs are the same species. You are confusing breed of dog with species. Bacteria are a domain, of which there are three. We belong in the Eukaryota domain (the other one being Archaea).
In other words, it'd be like arguing that you took a dog and turned it into a jelly fish isn't a big deal. (Dogs and Jellyfish both belong to the Eukaryota domain)
Let me rephrase what you are saying so that perhaps you can understand better:
On the contrary, gravity occurs over thousands of years; and there are no record tape going back 1 million or even 50,000 years. So unless you know someone who is very, very old, a theory is the best we will ever have.Last edited by neekz0r; 04-22-2011 at 08:29 PM.
--
'What is a human being, then?'
'A seed'
'A... seed?'
'An acorn that is unafraid to destroy itself in growing into a tree.'
-David Zindell, _A Requiem for Homo Sapiens_
My training log:
http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=114471221
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04-22-2011, 08:47 PM #19
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04-22-2011, 08:51 PM #20
you're such an arrogant dumbass.
Evolution is only a theory. It is not a fact.
Source:
State of Oklahoma. 2003. House Bill HB1504: Schools; requiring all textbooks to have an evolution disclaimer; codification; effective date; emergency. http://www2.lsb.state.ok.us/2003-04hb/hb1504_int.rtf
Response:
1. The word theory, in the context of science, does not imply uncertainty. It means "a coherent group of general propositions used as principles of explanation for a class of phenomena" (Barnhart 1948). In the case of the theory of evolution, the following are some of the phenomena involved. All are facts:
* Life appeared on earth more than two billion years ago;
* Life forms have changed and diversified over life's history;
* Species are related via common descent from one or a few common ancestors;
* Natural selection is a significant factor affecting how species change.
Many other facts are explained by the theory of evolution as well.
2. The theory of evolution has proved itself in practice. It has useful applications in epidemiology, pest control, drug discovery, and other areas (Bull and Wichman 2001; Eisen and Wu 2002; Searls 2003).
3. Besides the theory, there is the fact of evolution, the observation that life has changed greatly over time. The fact of evolution was recognized even before Darwin's theory. The theory of evolution explains the fact.
4. If "only a theory" were a real objection, creationists would also be issuing disclaimers complaining about the theory of gravity, atomic theory, the germ theory of disease, and the theory of limits (on which calculus is based). The theory of evolution is no less valid than any of these. Even the theory of gravity still receives serious challenges (Milgrom 2002). Yet the phenomenon of gravity, like evolution, is still a fact.
5. Creationism is neither theory nor fact; it is, at best, only an opinion. Since it explains nothing, it is scientifically useless.Evolution has not been, and cannot be, proved. We cannot even see evolution (beyond trivially small change), much less test it experimentally.
Source:
Morris, Henry M. 1985. Scientific Creationism. Green Forest, AR: Master Books, pp. 4-6.
Response:
1. Nothing in the real world can be proved with absolute certainty. However, high degrees of certainty can be reached. In the case of evolution, we have huge amounts of data from diverse fields. Extensive evidence exists in all of the following different forms (Theobald 2004). Each new piece of evidence tests the rest.
* All life shows a fundamental unity in the mechanisms of replication, heritability, catalysis, and metabolism.
* Common descent predicts a nested hierarchy pattern, or groups within groups. We see just such an arrangement in a unique, consistent, well-defined hierarchy, the so-called tree of life.
* Different lines of evidence give the same arrangement of the tree of life. We get essentially the same results whether we look at morphological, biochemical, or genetic traits.
* Fossil animals fit in the same tree of life. We find several cases of transitional forms in the fossil record.
* The fossils appear in a chronological order, showing change consistent with common descent over hundreds of millions of years and inconsistent with sudden creation.
* Many organisms show rudimentary, vestigial characters, such as sightless eyes or wings useless for flight.
* Atavisms sometimes occur. An atavism is the reappearance of a character present in a distant ancestor but lost in the organism's immediate ancestors. We only see atavisms consistent with organisms' evolutionary histories.
* Ontogeny (embryology and developmental biology) gives information about the historical pathway of an organism's evolution. For example, as embryos whales and many snakes develop hind limbs that are reabsorbed before birth.
* The distribution of species is consistent with their evolutionary history. For example, marsupials are mostly limited to Australia, and the exceptions are explained by continental drift. Remote islands often have species groups that are highly diverse in habits and general appearance but closely related genetically. Squirrel diversity coincides with tectonic and sea level changes (Mercer and Roth 2003). Such consistency still holds when the distribution of fossil species is included.
* Evolution predicts that new structures are adapted from other structures that already exist, and thus similarity in structures should reflect evolutionary history rather than function. We see this frequently. For example, human hands, bat wings, horse legs, whale flippers, and mole forelimbs all have similar bone structure despite their different functions.
* The same principle applies on a molecular level. Humans share a large percentage of their genes, probably more than 70 percent, with a fruit fly or a nematode worm.
* When two organisms evolve the same function independently, different structures are often recruited. For example, wings of birds, bats, pterosaurs, and insects all have different structures. Gliding has been implemented in many additional ways. Again, this applies on a molecular level, too.
* The constraints of evolutionary history sometimes lead to suboptimal structures and functions. For example, the human throat and respiratory system make it impossible to breathe and swallow at the same time and make us susceptible to choking.
* Suboptimality appears also on the molecular level. For example, much DNA is nonfunctional.
* Some nonfunctional DNA, such as certain transposons, pseudogenes, and endogenous viruses, show a pattern of inheritance indicating common ancestry.
* Speciation has been observed.
* The day-to-day aspects of evolution -- heritable genetic change, morphological variation and change, functional change, and natural selection -- are seen to occur at rates consistent with common descent.
Furthermore, the different lines of evidence are consistent; they all point to the same big picture. For example, evidence from gene duplications in the yeast genome shows that its ability to ferment glucose evolved about eighty million years ago. Fossil evidence shows that fermentable fruits became prominent about the same time. Genetic evidence for major change around that time also is found in fruiting plants and fruit flies (Benner et al. 2002).
The evidence is extensive and consistent, and it points unambiguously to evolution, including common descent, change over time, and adaptation influenced by natural selection. It would be preposterous to refer to these as anything other than facts.
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04-22-2011, 08:55 PM #21
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04-22-2011, 09:24 PM #22
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04-22-2011, 09:32 PM #23
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04-22-2011, 10:03 PM #24
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04-22-2011, 10:07 PM #25
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evolution is not observable that's why it needs a theory...
When someone says "I don't believe in evolution" it's the same thing as saying "I don't believe in gravity".
Our evidence from genetics and molecular biology is essentially our equivalent of the tape recorder....the evidence from dna is overwhelming.
like others have said, tell yourself 'but gravity is only a theory!!!!!!' and leave a building by the 50th floor window.
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04-22-2011, 10:13 PM #26
Wrong.
Claim CB901:
No case of macroevolution has ever been documented.
Source:
Morris, Henry M., 2000 (Jan.). Strong Delusion. Back to Genesis 133: a.
Brown, Walt, 1995. In the Beginning: Compelling evidence for creation and the Flood. Phoenix, AZ: Center for Scientific Creation, p. 6.
Response:
1. We would not expect to observe large changes directly. Evolution consists mainly of the accumulation of small changes over large periods of time. If we saw something like a fish turning into a frog in just a couple generations, we would have good evidence against evolution.
2. The evidence for evolution does not depend, even a little, on observing macroevolution directly. There is a very great deal of other evidence (Theobald 2004; see also evolution proof).
3. As biologists use the term, macroevolution means evolution at or above the species level. Speciation has been observed and documented.
4. Microevolution has been observed and is taken for granted even by creationists. And because there is no known barrier to large change and because we can expect small changes to accumulate into large changes, microevolution implies macroevolution. Small changes to developmental genes or their regulation can cause relatively large changes in the adult organism (Shapiro et al. 2004).
5. There are many transitional forms that show that macroevolution has occurred.No new species have been observed.
Source:
Morris, Henry M., 1986. The vanishing case for evolution. Impact 156 (Jun.). http://www.icr.org/index.php?module=...on=view&ID=260
Response:
1. New species have arisen in historical times. For example:
* A new species of mosquito, isolated in London's Underground, has speciated from Culex pipiens (Byrne and Nichols 1999; Nuttall 1998).
* Helacyton gartleri is the HeLa cell culture, which evolved from a human cervical carcinoma in 1951. The culture grows indefinitely and has become widespread (Van Valen and Maiorana 1991).
A similar event appears to have happened with dogs relatively recently. Sticker's sarcoma, or canine transmissible venereal tumor, is caused by an organism genetically independent from its hosts but derived from a wolf or dog tumor (Zimmer 2006; Murgia et al. 2006).
* Several new species of plants have arisen via polyploidy (when the chromosome count multiplies by two or more) (de Wet 1971). One example is Primula kewensis (Newton and Pellew 1929).
2. Incipient speciation, where two subspecies interbreed rarely or with only little success, is common. Here are just a few examples:
* Rhagoletis pomonella, the apple maggot fly, is undergoing sympatric speciation. Its native host in North America is Hawthorn (Crataegus spp.), but in the mid-1800s, a new population formed on introduced domestic apples (Malus pumila). The two races are kept partially isolated by natural selection (Filchak et al. 2000).
* The mosquito Anopheles gambiae shows incipient speciation between its populations in northwestern and southeastern Africa (Fanello et al. 2003; Lehmann et al. 2003).
* Silverside fish show incipient speciation between marine and estuarine populations (Beheregaray and Sunnucks 2001).
3. Ring species show the process of speciation in action. In ring species, the species is distributed more or less in a line, such as around the base of a mountain range. Each population is able to breed with its neighboring population, but the populations at the two ends are not able to interbreed. (In a true ring species, those two end populations are adjacent to each other, completing the ring.) Examples of ring species are
* the salamander Ensatina, with seven different subspecies on the west coast of the United States. They form a ring around California's central valley. At the south end, adjacent subspecies klauberi and eschscholtzi do not interbreed (Brown n.d.; Wake 1997).
* greenish warblers (Phylloscopus trochiloides), around the Himalayas. Their behavioral and genetic characteristics change gradually, starting from central Siberia, extending around the Himalayas, and back again, so two forms of the songbird coexist but do not interbreed in that part of their range (Irwin et al. 2001; Whitehouse 2001; Irwin et al. 2005).
* the deer mouse (Peromyces maniculatus), with over fifty subspecies in North America.
* many species of birds, including Parus major and P. minor, Halcyon chloris, Zosterops, Lalage, Pernis, the Larus argentatus group, and Phylloscopus trochiloides (Mayr 1942, 182-183).
* the American bee Hoplitis (Alcidamea) producta (Mayr 1963, 510).
* the subterranean mole rat, Spalax ehrenbergi (Nevo 1999).
4. Evidence of speciation occurs in the form of organisms that exist only in environments that did not exist a few hundreds or thousands of years ago. For example:
* In several Canadian lakes, which originated in the last 10,000 years following the last ice age, stickleback fish have diversified into separate species for shallow and deep water (Schilthuizen 2001, 146-151).
* Cichlids in Lake Malawi and Lake Victoria have diversified into hundreds of species. Parts of Lake Malawi which originated in the nineteenth century have species indigenous to those parts (Schilthuizen 2001, 166-176).
* A Mimulus species adapted for soils high in copper exists only on the tailings of a copper mine that did not exist before 1859 (Macnair 1989).
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04-22-2011, 10:16 PM #27
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04-22-2011, 10:43 PM #28
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04-22-2011, 10:47 PM #29
I love science and I am a Christian. I have no issues with evolution, I do(flame if you like) however don't believe we evolved from a cell to something then to an ape and then to humans.
Evolution as a whole is hard to deny and I am not sure why people do try and deny it. Either way it doesn't shake my faith.
Off topic, who here holds degrees in science? Seems to be quite a few really intelligent people here and some who just seem to follow those few guys.
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04-22-2011, 10:49 PM #30
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