Why do people claim evolution is a fact, when the 'evidence' is a joke?

Question

David Pilbeam, a Harvard University paleoanthropologist, says:

''If you brought in a smart scientist from another discipline and showed him the meagre evidence we've got he'd surely say, "forget it; there isn't enough to go on."181

Why are there not bones of all the middle stage animals? A horse did not give birth to a giraffe, where are the bones of the animals in between?

Why are there no half evolved animals in the world?

How did the eye evolve? A creature without eyes could not have given birth to an animal with eyes, yet the eye is useless unless complete.

How did the first life form start?

Get an education? I have a law degree thank you very much

Answer 1

Sigh...

You make me truly truly sad. Seriously, it just ruins my day to know that my fellow man can be this dense.

Answer 2

You need to give your logic some thought.

If you had two animals and said one evolved from the other so there must be a middle stage, and then found a third animal which appeared to be a transition between the two, what stops you from saying there must be a middle stage between the third animal and the one before it or the third animal and the one after it? My point is, there isn't an infinite number of transitions and sometimes things may have just jumped.

Also, the Earth is a big place and bone doesn't preserve well. Most things that die in the wild will not be preserved. The bone will decay, not fossilize. If the bone does fossilize, it may still be destroyed in a geologically active area. If the fossil does survive and exist today, look how big the Earth is. To find any one particular fossil is akin to finding a splinter of a needle in a giant field of hay...and who knows if the splinter even exists.

What would you considered a half evolved animal? To define such a thing we need to know the beginning and then the end result. Sometimes we observe a species split, as is occuring right now in the Galapagos. A bird previously known as Darwin's Finch has started to emerge with a notably smaller beak than the species previously had, which allows it access to smaller and more abundant food sources. The larger beaked bird and smaller beaked bird may now be classified as different species. One may die out or they both may continue their seperate ways on the evolutionary tree.

The eye is a complex structure. A sperm doesn't have an eye. An egg doesn't have an eye, and an embyro doesn't have a fully formed eye, even newborn human babies don't have fully formed eyes, but they get there.

Everything we need to survive in this world develops in the womb or shortly thereafter. Humans have complex eyes that can see color, detail, light, dark, and distinguish shapes and texture. Frogs have simple eyes that can really only detect movement and light and dark. Worms don't have eyes, but they have light sensitive cells in their skin that just detects whether light is present or not.

Plants don't have eyes but they are most certainly light sensitive, so basically all life forms which make use of or have to avoid sunlight have some way to detect it or they die. But no, we do not come out into the world and are expected to function half done. We are either done enough for the time, or we die.

Answer 3

Why are there not bones of all the middle stage animals?
Why are there no half evolved animals in the world?

These are basically the same question: "Why are there no transitional fossils?" The problem with that question is that it ignores that fact that ALL fossils, ALL species are transitional. All life forms in the world are still changing...gradually but inevitably. There ARE fossils that are examples of species between giraffe and their horse-like ancestors. Creationists just close their eyes really hard.

http://talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/section1.html#pred4

"How did the eye evolve? A creature without eyes could not have given birth to an animal with eyes, yet the eye is useless unless complete."

The irreducible complexity claim. This has long been debunked, yet Creationists still cling to it. See here (though I'm sure you probably won't bother): http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB301.html

"How did the first life form start?"

An irrelevant question to evolution. The ToE says nothing whatsoever about how life came about. Only what it did to change.

Answer 4

1. you did not provide a context for that quote. That quote is used a lot, but you have no idea if he means evolution as a whole, natural selection, or another theory as to what the mechanism for evolution is.

2. There are plenty of transitional fossils

3. There are half evolved animals in the world. They just discovered a dolphin that had extra flippers (it wasn't a new species, just the first one of this species they've seen with extra flippers). furthermore, those extra flippers had similar bone structures to legs.

4. the eve evolved over time to get where it is today (see link)

5. evolution doesn't have anything to do with how like starts. That is called abiogenesis.

You actually were able to ask many questions which are in this forum a lot. Check out the link for some of the basic evidence for evolution.

Answer 5

The David Pilbeam quote was regarding Austalopithescenes in 1977. You are taking it completely out of context.

There are plenty of transitional fossils.

There is nothing "half evolved". Everything is in its present state. Making up meaningless pseudoscientific jargon is worthless. If you want a creature that is in a form that is between two creatures, try the "legless lizards". They look like snakes, but have leg bones that are completely internal. They are not snake and some can shed their tails like other lizards.

The eye formed in steps: a photsensitive patch; a pit providing some directionality; a slit or round iris that works as a pinhole lens in bright light and finally a protectice transparent membrane forming the globe.

It took a hundred million years for the first life to form, and since there wasn't as much as cells, there are no fossils.

If you took the time to look, all your suppositions have been shot down on Y!A before.

Answer 6

Because it is a fact. I have the proof. The business about missing intermediate forms is one of the more common (and more ignorant) attacks on evoluition. In the first place, ancient life forms were not much concerned with dying in places where their remains would be preserved and it would be convenient for paleontologists to find them; nevertheless, new remains are found all the time. But the more important reason is that the genetic information is carried in digital, not analog, form. Thus, there is a minimum change caused by a one-bit change in the genetic code. But there is NO maximum: a one-bit change can activate all or part of an intron, or de-activate all or part of an exon, to make an overall change that is arbitrarily large. We do not yet know how the first life form began, but work on that subject is continuing and progress is being made. As I said at the beginning, evolution is now a PROVEN FACT; get used to it.

Answer 7

> David Pilbeam, a Harvard University paleoanthropologist, says:
You took his statement out of context.

> forget it; there isn't enough to go on
There's plenty to go on.

> Why are there not bones of all the middle stage animals
Go find the bones of a gray wolf. It's a middle stage leading to the mini-dachshund.

> Why are there no half evolved animals in the world?
All animals are half-evolved. We're a great example. Consider: wisdom teeth. Bunions. Inflamed appendix. Nearsightedness. Back problems. Problems in childbirth (the baby's head is way too big for where it has to go; ask your mother). There's plenty of room for improvement.

> How did the eye evolve?
Light sensitive spot.
Light sensitive cell.
Group of light sensitive cells.
Group of light sensitive cells with a transparent protective covering.
Group of light sensitive cells with a transparent protective covering that has bent to focus light on the cells.
...you get the idea.

> How did the first life form start?
Self-replicating bit of RNA became encapsulated in a semi-permeable naturally occurring lipid micelle. Maybe.

Answer 8

Why do you ask lame questions?

Evolution does not address how life formed on earth. It addresses why life is so diverse on earth. And, for the record, it has indeed been proven. Look up what a scientific THEORY is and you might get a better understanding....

Is the eye useless unless complete? Hhhmmmm....ever ask a person who is borderline blind if they would rather just be completely blind?? Is not the ability to recognize shapes or light better than being unable to see any light or shape at all? How about wings....chickens cant fly but possess them. Why? well, if you throw a chicken off a ten story building, it wont die - so its "useless wings" seem to have some use...if I threw you off the same building, would you safely land at the bottom with your Bible in hand???

Next time you try asking a question, you might want to seriously consider every option... You come off as uneducated when you post drivel like this. If interested, you are welcome to write me and I will spend 45 minutes writing to you to explain how the eye evolved. There isnt enough space here....

Answer 9

Must I even explain? David was using this example as a metaphor and as a typical christian you've either negated the entire text, or shun the remainder....Or, surprisingly enough you got this from christian leadership.....which would be oh so shocking. David was explaining how much MORE there is to learn about evolution.....plain and simple, end of story. As a scientist myself I take much chagrin to analogies taken out of context regarding science. What you as a christian don't realize is something EXTREMELY important, that the christian leadership does this on purpose to make you believe that there is a war between science and christianity.....there isn't and never has been on the side of science.....Scientists are simply deriving theories from that which lay in front of them, nothing else....No scientists come forward saying "see, we told you so, there is no god!!" that would be ludicrous, BUT, you will hear on a constant basis christian/catholic leadership come forward and state that science is attempting to disprove a god. Nonsense. I am an atheist true, however I have plenty of peers that believe in a god, and good for them, let them believe what they will, I couldn't care less. Insofar as "middle stage animals" you must understand that it isn't cut and dry with evolution....there are tiny, microscopic mutations, but the establishment expects there to be glaring, gigantic examples which is just ridiculous... everything happens on the smallest stage first, and then goes from there. The pity is the church has downplayed science for over 1000 years because of it's own knowledge that what they teach is complete and utter bologna to control the masses and keep them living in fear. Study other religions....GO, STUDY other religions, the philosophy and then science and THEN get back to me......If you still believe unequivocally in some sort of god then more power to you. Email me if you wish....be well, Jack

Answer 10

Evolution happens. I believe in divine evolution, that an alteration of a cell was sparked by a divine intervention. Evolution is a proven law, Theory in biology means law, the first life forms on the planet survived by anaerobic respiration because there was very little plant life creating oxygen to sustain animal life. As more plants EVOLVED and produced more oxygen more animal life appeared. So in the book of Genesis what came before the animals and Adam and Eve? Plants. God has a reason for every step of our evolution including the evolution of our thinking.

Answer 11

Evolution is a sequence of development, much as when a simian child becomes an angel, which is also a type of adult. The sequence of development instates that "every new species emulates the previous one at that time." It just means that an organism of any species can act like another that is not related. For example, the housecat (Felis domesticus) took up after the weasel in behavior while the elphant took up after the mammoth. If it is true that one species came from another, the previous species will still exist. In other words, if we came from "monkeys," we will still be monkeys instead of humans, for after all, no two species are alike, even if the simian is the same as the human. The reason for evolution si to prove the uniqueness of all organisms, especially so as to tell who is monkeying around. Wanna banana?