Another Question about Evolution?

Question

Someone confronted me with the question if we evolved then who evolved first the male or female and how this worked why do we have male and female? Can someone please explain. I really wanna show this ex-youth pastor of mine that with some study I can prove to him that evolution is a fact. It may be a theory but a theory explaining a fact. thanks and peace.

Answer 1

As explained by previous posters, evolution occurs over the spectrum of a population, not one or two individuals. This happens as a population becomes isolated, either because of a geographical seperation, or because of certain habits which interferes with their ability to interbreed. An example of the latter would be two similar subspecies of chameleons, one of which is active during the day in low-lying vegetation, and the other active at night in the high branches of trees. Although they may inhabit the same geographical location, they are effectively unable to interbreed due to their different habits.

This is well understood within academia, but obviously the ex-youth pastor never got the memo. What he has done is set up a straw-man (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man "A straw man argument is a logical fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position. To "set up a straw man" or "set up a straw-man argument" is to create a position that is easy to refute, then attribute that position to the opponent. A straw-man argument can be a successful rhetorical technique (that is, it may succeed in persuading people) but it is in fact misleading, because the opponent's actual argument has not been refuted."). This is a common tactic for Young Earth Creationists (YEC's), and it is unfortunately often enough to convince the scientifically illiterate.

You are very correct that evolution is a theory explaining a fact, but you will never be able to prove it to him. YEC's are so threatened by the perceived, but false, attack on their religion that they cannot see any "facts" other than their own flawed, literal interpretation of the bible.

If you visit http://talkorigins.org/indexcc/list.html, you will find each and every creationist argument put forth so far, and you will see the refutation of each claim. You can also brouse http://talkorigins.org/origins/postmonth/ to see miscellaneous posts of more specific arguments. I also suggest that you visit http://wiki.cotch.net/index.php/List_of_creationist_arguments. This link covers many of the same arguments posted in the first TalkOrigins link, but also cites the specific fallacies that the creationist argument falls into, which isn't helpful towards convincing them of how wrong and intellectually dishonest they are, but it creates an entertaining view of them stammering over their own pitfalls.

In the meantime, here is a basic overview of the evidence for evolution. When your YEC friend counters that the evidence is not convincing to him, let him know that there is NO evidence for any other theory, including his. After the list of evidence for evolution, you will find a series of predictions made for Young Earth Creationism and biblical inerrency (Remember that being errent doesn't mean untrue) and how the observations contradict
the predictions.

The progressive nature of animals, plants, and fungi within the fossil record. These fossils were clearly not all deposited and fossilized at the same time, since they are all in different strata, and isotopic dating indeed confirms that those buried deeper are older. Below is a list of progressively more complex life forms and the aproximate age of the fossils as they appeared.
Microbial (procaryotic cells) 3,500 MYA
Complex (eucaryotic cells) 2,000 MYA
First multicellular animals 670 MYA
Shell-bearing animals 540 MYA
Vertebrates (simple fishes) 490 MYA
Amphibians 350 MYA
Reptiles 310 MYA
Mammals 200 MYA
Nonhuman primates 60 MYA
Earliest apes 25 MYA
Australopithecine ancestors of humans 4 MYA
Modern humans 0 .15 (150,000 years) MYA
One can criticize the accuracy of the isotopic dating method until Christ returns, but when properly done, isotopic dating methods are highly accurate, and other independent methods collaborate the findings.

Structural homologies. Why do humans have tailbones? Why do boas and pythons have vestigial limbs? Why do whales have pelvises? The mammalian ear and jaw are instances in which paleontology and comparative anatomy combine to show common ancestry through transitional stages. The lower jaws of mammals contain only one bone, whereas those of reptiles have several. The other bones in the reptile jaw are homologous with bones now found in the mammalian ear. Paleontologists have discovered intermediate forms of mammal-like reptiles (Therapsida) with a double jaw joint--one composed of the bones that persist in mammalian jaws, the other consisting of bones that eventually became the hammer and anvil of the mammalian ear. Any scientific theory that wishes to explain how life formed on the planet must explain why different species share similar structures, as well as homologous metabolic processes, such as the clotting cascade in blood. Even the most advanced fishes do not have blood that clots, but in the more advanced fishes, parts of the cascade are present. In the simple fishes, less of the parts are present. Yet the fossils of the first simple fishes are found in much deeper geological strata than the advanced ones, meaning they are much older and came about first. Evolution explains all of this nicely; common descent.

The distribution of species. On the Galapogos Islands, there are many species of animals and plants that are similar to those found on the mainland of South America, but are radically different in many ways. Specifically, the 14 different species of finches found there, the Marine Iguana, and the Galapogos Land Iguana. What is the explaination as to why these animals appear on the islands and nowhere else? Simple. Before the island split off from the mainland, a common ancestor to both the Galapogos Iguana and the mainland Green Iguana populated that area. Later, the island split away from the continent, and the animals that remained on it were still comfortable. Due to the prologed geolgraphical isolation and the unique requirements to survive on that island, natural selection picked those animals that were different form the rest. They survived to pass on their genes, and they established a population.

Similarities During Development
Embryology, the study of biological development from the time of conception, is another source of independent evidence for common descent. Barnacles, for instance, are sedentary crustaceans with little apparent similarity to such other
crustaceans as lobsters, shrimps, or copepods. Yet barnacles pass through a free-swimming larval stage in which they look like other crustacean larvae. The similarity of larval stages supports the conclusion that all crustaceans have homologous parts and a common ancestry.
Similarly, a wide variety of organisms from fruit flies to worms to mice to humans have very similar sequences of genes that are active early in development. These genes influence body segmentation or orientation in all these diverse groups. The presence of such similar genes doing similar things across such a wide range of organisms is best explained by their having been present in a very early common ancestor of all of these groups.
The unifying principle of common descent that emerges from all the foregoing lines of evidence is being reinforced by the discoveries of modern biochemistry and molecular biology.
The code used to translate nucleotide sequences into amino acid sequences is essentially the same in all organisms. Moreover, proteins in all organisms are invariably composed of the same set of 20 amino acids. This unity of composition and function is a powerful argument in favor of the common descent of the most diverse organisms.

Transitional fossils. Despite creationist claims that there are no transitional fossils, they do indeed exist, and there are many of them, across a wide range of species. Humans, horses, whales, and birds, just to name a few. There are transitional fossils showing the evolution of fish to amphibian, amphibian to reptile, reptile to bird, and reptile to mammal. There are even transitional species that are still alive today. The lungfish, for example.

Genetic variation.
Evolution would require genetic variation to happen, and a considerable amount of genetic diversity exists even among members of the same species, identical twins notwithstanding.

Microevolution.
Creationists once claimed that after God created everything, animals stopped changing. This has been so thoroughly debunked that even the most hardcore creationists accept that microevolutionary changes occur. The problem for creationists is that microevolution happens within a time fram that is even less then the blink of an eye in a gelogical scale. It is not unreasonable to infer that over hundreds of millions of years, conditions could lead to a population of animals evolving into something very different from the parent generation. Creationists are always asking evolutionists to show them an example of this, but they demand an example within a time scale that simply isn't reasonable. Not that creationists have ever been reasonable about debating these things. Microevolution is the same process as macroevolution, but over a much shorter time scale.

DNA analysis:
DNA analysis shows that genetic similarities between living things of all species of plant an animal show a close correlation with their closeness within the phylogenic tree. Shared DNA is very strong evidence of familial relationship. Of course, creationists dismiss this evidence as nothing more than God having used a similar design, and similar creatures will therefore have similar DNA. This is a weak, and sad effort to dismiss DNA evidence for evolution. Further, it doesn't explain why we share "junk DNA" with other animals. If a woman came to you with a baby that was a dead ringer for a guy when he was the same age, and a DNA test proved that he was the father, wouldn't it be a little laughable to you if that guy said that the baby had similar DNA because they looked alike? Likewise, if the DNA test showed that he wasn't the father of a baby that looked nothing at all like him, then said that it was his kid, but the DNA was different because the baby didn't look like him?

Disingenious? Of course. In fact, it is downright dishonest. DNA correlates with the degree of the relationship.
Period.

Just one of any of these evidences I've cited could not be considered evidence, much less proof. But the totality of it all, when brought together, requires an explanation, and common descent explains it best, which is why 99% of the 400,000 scientists in all related fields accept evoltuion as the best theory.

But if that isn't enough, literal creationism makes its own predictions...
1) No fossil record would exist prior to the week of creation, which would be approximately 6,000 to 40,000 years ago, depending on which biblical chronographist you choose to side with. Despite creationist claims to the contrary, isotopic dating methods ARE reliable, when properly done, and ALL evidence points to a fossil record which reaches back much further than even the largest estimate of YEC's.
2) According to the literal interpretation of Genesis, all animals and plants were created within a literal six earth-day period. There should be no fossils found during this creation week at all.
3) At this point, death had not yet entered the world (supposedly). All the world's animals and plants are now in place, and live forever (Because Adam and Eve had not yet sinned). If that is the case then we should only expect trace fossils like burrows, coprolites, shed trilobite or crab exoskeletons, animal tracks such as cattle, deer, human, dinosaurs etc. All baramins (= Biblical "kinds") should be present in this period. We should find no indications of death. We could also expect to find traces of human habitation. However this period is also very short, Genesis 5:3 gives an upper limit of 130 years. No major catastrophes are recorded in the Bible so fossils from this period are unlikely. No extinctions are possible without death, except perhaps in plant species. This would mean that no animal index fossils would be possible, although there may be plant index fossils. The big problem with this creationist prediction is that index fossils are found, even before the Cambrian period and the extinction event that preceded it.
4) If (physical) death was present before the Fall, then the expected fossils would also include dead bodies and be indistinguishable from the Post-Fall period. Extinctions would be possible for all species as would animal index fossils.
5) After the "fall," all agree that death is now possible. In addition to the trace fossils expected in the Pre-Fall period we would expect to find fossils of all living things present at the time: humans, sheep [Gen 4:2], cattle [Gen 2:20], birds [Gen 2:20], fish [Gen 1:28], fruit trees [Gen 1:29], seed bearing plants [Gen 1:29], Nephilim [Gen 6:4] etc. We should also find signs of more extensive human habitation such as cities [Gen 4:17].
Extinctions would be possible for all species and higher classifications, whether baramin or genus etc. We could also see speciation, but only within the baramins. This would allow the possibility of index fossils for this part of the YEC geological column. No new baramins should appear.
At the end of the period we might possibly find animal tracks outside their normal geographical ranges as the animals moved towards the Ark. Armadillo tracks in Mesopotamia for example.
6) The fossil record within this strata would be expected to contain all animals, past and present, represented, all at the same time, within the same strata. Instead, what we do see are certain species represented in certain strata, but not in others above or below it, and the fossils in successive strata show a definite progression. For example, there were multicellular organisms long before there were flowering land plants, fish before amphibians, amphibians before reptiles, reptiles before mammals and birds. We also see a gradual diversification within these classes as the fossil record progresses from further in the past to closer to the present. This is a big problem for creationism, since all of these classes should be represented in the same strata.
7) In the initial part of the Flood we would expect large numbers of fossils and a large number of species to go extinct. However no baramin of land animals or birds would go extinct [Gen 7:3]. Extinction is possible for fish or plant baramins. Each land animal baramin would be reduced to a single species. Bird baramins may have more than one species as there were evidently both ravens and doves on the ark; I am not sure if these two are in the same baramin or in different baramins.
The stratigraphic ordering of fossils would also be affected by the Flood. We would expect birds, pterosaurs and bats to be able to fly above the Flood and to survive for longer than land animals. The land animals would be hydrologically sorted with sauropods on the bottom, elephants above them, then medium sized dinosaurs and mammals mixed up followed by smaller and smaller mammals. Animals like seals, Ambulocetus and otters that could swim well would be expected to appear out of strict hydrological order as they would be likely to survive longer in the floodwaters due to their better swimming ability. For this reason we would expect whale fossils to be placed generally high within the Flood layers despite their size. By the end of the Flood period we would expect few fossils since anything left alive by then would either be going to survive the Flood, such as plants or fish, or be on the Ark.
Index fossils should be able to be used to tell the time within the Flood year on a hydrological basis. If a Flood-period rock layer has fossil elephants then it is probably earlier than a Flood period rock layer containing fossil Archaeopteryx. But we do not see this.
8) In the immediate Post-Flood period we would expect a very small number of fossils. Where a species survived outside the Ark, such as plants or fish, we would expect a reduced population spread all over the world. Thus a sparse fossil record with a reasonably wide geographical distribution. For species on the Ark we would expect them to effectively disappear from the fossil record for some time, as there would be only two individuals of one species to represent each baramin. This would probably include a great reduction in trace fossils, such as tracks and coprolites. However if any such trace fossils were found they could well be in unusual locations, for instance Kangaroo tracks found on the Asian mainland between Ararat and Australia. For extinct baramins we could possibly find one or two dead individuals, T. rex for example. Once the animals are off the Ark it is possible for a whole baramin to go extinct again. No new baramins should appear. Again, this is not what we see.
Once the animals had travelled from Ararat to their normal geographical areas we would expect to see a single species within each baramin reappear after a gap in the fossil record. We should then see that single species speciating at a rate fast enough to generate all the known Post-Flood species within that baramin.
Further, one would predict that it would take a great deal of time for regional species, like Australian kangaroos and koalas, to make their way to a suitable environment. The bible doesn't offer a miraculous transplantation, so we can safely assume that these animals got there on their own, reproducing, dying, and leaving both trace and index fossils of the kangaroo, for example, starting at Mt Ararat and gradually branching out. This would take some time, so these fossils would be expected to be found near the landing location of the ark close to the end of the flood, but not in the same strata great distances from this location. After a period of time, we should see their fossils in later strata further from Mt Ararat, but none further on, and so forth until the kangaroos completed their journey. What we actually see in the fossil record is completely different. We also see multiple extinction events were entire classes of animals get wiped out with no survivors. Other classes that do survive, then diversify and propogate new, similar yet different species. Multiple creation events by God might serve as an Ad Hoc Hypothesis to explain this, but that is unsupported by scripture.
9) The bulk of all fossils would be found in the flood strata. Nevermind that there is no geological evidence for a global, year-long flood, but what we see is fossils spread out over great periods of geological time.

For more details and predictions, visit http://talkorigins.org/origins/postmonth/jun02.html.

Last, I can most assuredly garrantee you that anyone who says evolution is untrue is NOT any kind of a scientist.

Answer 2

Well, if by "we" you mean humans, then the division between males and females evolved *long* before humans got here. A new species doesn't start with a single animal, or even a single couple. A new species always, always, always starts when one species splits into two (because two subpopulations of that species got isolated from each other).

If by "we" you mean those organisms that have dedicated males and females, neither one came "first." Reproductive systems come in many, many different variations, and can be seen all over the place in life ... from purely asexual organisms, to ones that go through both asexual and sexual stages, to "hermaphrodite" species that use sexual reproduction (exchange of genetic material) but not dedicated males and females (i.e all individuals have both male and female parts). So the development of males and females is just a further step in that direction, where instead of all individuals having both parts, some individuals specialize in one role, and the others in the other role.

I wouldn't hold my breath trying to "prove" to him that evolution is a fact.

There is an old adage:

"You cannot talk somebody out of a belief that they were never talked into in the first place."

In other words, if someone is a Creationist, it is not because they arrived at this position through logical persuasion ... so there is no way to talk somebody OUT of Creationism through logical persuasion ... logic is not high on their list of paths to Truth.

Instead, I highly recommend just reading as much as you can so that your OWN knowledge is secure. If you have to be asking people on YA about how to persuade somebody else, then your own knowledge is not secure enough.

As much as I disagree with Creationists like Victor i. he does have a point ... you should NOT accept evolution as dogma. There are very very strong reasons that almost all scientists accept evolution as the best scientific theory for our origins that there is ... you should know what those reasons are.

Answer 3

Your pastor friend is not able to think in terms of evolutionary time.

First - As the person above said, populations evolve, not individuals.

Second - The definition of evolution is a change in gene frequency in a population. Beneficial mutations occur in one individual and then spread through the population over many generations through sexual reproduction. Though it takes a while for natural selection to fix the gene in the population, this is many times faster than the time it takes for enough mutations to accumulate to make a new species. For humans, the ancestral population (males and females) gradually became more humanlike over thousands of generations (you wouldn't have suddenly seen a human individual in a population of australopithecines). It was (and still is) the same for all species (you wouldn't ask whether a chicken or a chicken egg came first either).

Answer 4

That one's kind of a tough nut to crack. I don't know that I can answer that one in particular, but you can try this argument if you'd like:

So the argument goes that life is far too complex to have developed from a single cell, even if said evolution occured over untold millions of years.

Yet what exactly is it that occurs in a human mother's womb in the nine months from conception to birth? Even the most ardent creationist can't argue that we sprung into our mother's womb fully formed--we had to come from somewhere. Dare I point out that the egg from which we developed was once a single cell?

Further, there is a point in the early gestation of a human fetus when the fetus develops gills. Yes, gills. As in fish? This begs the question: for what purpose does a fetus need gills, and why do the gills disappear? Possible (probable) answer: the gills are a vestigial genetic trace of our distant past, for all life on earth began in the oceans.

Third: Later on in the gestation of the fetus, it develops a rather lengthy tail, known more commonly as the vestigial tale (there's that word again!) which, like the gills, eventually recedes to become the end of the spine: the tail bone. I'd argue that this is another genetic artifact that our body eventually "realizes" we no longer need.

So then nine months later, here we come, having evolved from a single cell into a fully formed body with head (sans gills), torso (sans tail), four limbs, and hands with opposable thumbs. Tell me this isn't the history of life on earth writ in nine months.

Answer 5

I can tell you that male came before female, but then that is a creationist perspective.
As a scientist, I can safely say that there is no logical prove for the theory of evolution. I say this as the supposing laws that govern the theoretical phenomena of evolution defy the natural laws as we know them.
A theory explaining a fact??? interesting
Do not "kick against the pricks" give the pastor an ear

Answer 6

God made male and female so that we are dependent on another. As a believer myself, I do think some sort of evolution occurred BUT not what most people would think.

Not too long ago, they discovered some dinosaur bones and they were able to determine that the creature was a female. How? They said that the hip bones were wider than usual just like the ladies of today have wider hips than us guys...but wait....

If this creature is million of years old and if evolution did occur, to me it would make more sense if the scientist would say that they couldnt determine which sex the dinosaur is because this specie has NOT evolved that far yet.

Lastly, evolution or not, please ask yourself if whatever decision you make, will that decision make you closer to God. If it doesnt, then think again.

Answer 7

His conception is seriously flawed, as populations evolve, not individual men and women. We are all variant as a species/population, so the pastor's concept of which came first, male or female, is incoherent. Google " ring species " and they show in sharp relief that all organisms are variants; not essential types.

Answer 8

Scientists never claim absolute knowledge of nature or the behavior of the subject of the field of study. Certain scientific "facts" are linguistic (such as the fact that humans are mammals), but these are true only by definition, and they reflect only truths relative to agreed convention. These deductive classificational facts may be absolute, but they only say something about human language and expression, but not about the external world. This part of science is like mathematics.

Answer 9

Secretsauce is correct.
You won't be able to convince him of anything, so don't get your hopes up.

Male and female evolved long before humans came on the scene, long before dinosaurs came in the picture.

For more on evolution, read up on the www.talkorigins.org website.

Answer 10

Females, or rather a female, appears to have evolved first. Here's how we believe it happened.

The current evidence seems to indicate that around 40,000 years ago, a woman was born in eastern Africa who was a spontaneous mutation with several key adaptations (mainly along the lines of intelligence, communication and tool usage) which gave her, and more importantly her offspring, serious survival advantages compared to the other humans alive at the time. Her offspring grew, reproduced, and were more successful than those who did not have this mutation. Their offspring in turn continued to become more successful, eventually becoming the dominant genotype among humans.

And we know this because all humans have two kinds of DNA: nuclear DNA, which contains the genetic material from both parents (23 chromosomes from each); and mitochondrial DNA, which is identical to the mother's DNA. (Mitochondria are parts inside our body's cells; they are sometimes called the "engines" of the cell, as they generate energy from nutrients.)

It turns out that mitochondrial DNA drifts -- that is, changes its exact sequence -- at a predictable rate, and that this rate allows scientists to determine how long ago it was that two related individuals shared a common female ancestor. And as it turns out, when anthropologists ran this DNA-drift analysis on people from widely divergent parts of the world (Siberia, south Africa, western Europe, India, etc. etc. etc.), the lines all converged at a single point about 40,000 years ago.

So the cellular evidence is fairly convincing for a single common female ancestor of all modern humans, who lived about 40,000 years ago. Was she a different "species" from her parents? At times like this it's important to remember that the concept of species (and of taxonomy in general) is a human construct -- it's something we invented to make sense of all the grand diversity of life on Earth.

(And this explanation highlights one serious problem with getting people to understand evolution. Instead of a simple Sunday-school story that children can comprehend, evolutionary science relies on a chain of complex, specialized scientific discoveries which must be seen in context for the whole picture to make sense. For this story to make sense to your ex-youth pastor, he'll have to at least be willing to accept, if not fully comprehend, DNA, mitochondria, DNA drift, and the mechanism of spontaneous mutation as the driving engine of evolution.)

As for your apologetic comment that evolution "may be a theory," don't fall into their trap. Science uses a very different level of rigor in naming things as "theory" than some guy sitting at a bar expounding on his theory of why women have it in for him. :-) The scientific measure of a theory is that it explains all examples of a particular type of observable phenomena, within a specific area of scientific study, and more important, that it explains phenomena we have NOT yet seen or explained. That's the purpose of conducting experiments and research -- to set up, under known conditions, the circumstances during which a theory can be proven or disproven, by an impartial observer following the same methodology. In the lay community, "theory" has a much looser and less definite meaning, but in the scientific world, a theory is only given that name after a great deal of intense research, testing and verification by a broad spectrum of scientists.

Or if that's too much thinking for him, you can simply remind him that in scientific terms, gravity is also only a theory, as is the refraction of light.

I've included a link in the Sources field to a Web site with a great deal of accessible, well-written information on evolution, and on science in general. I recommend browsing it for topics of interest, it's an enjoyable and well-written site.

Answer 11

Its very apparent (and please pay attention).., that you believe in Evolution without foundation. The subject of male and female would be part of the vital evolution dogma.

You assume its true because some white suits with degrees said its true. I'm not mocking you - really i am not..., but the Evolution theory is not Superior to Creation theory. The evolution concept is built 80 percent on "interpretation" of scientific findings and even of that, 60% is pure "conjecture". They build elaborate stories about for example - say the Hobbits. They dreamed up a whole scenario of how they lived and interacted based on some bones and a few fragments.., to fit around their discovery theories when in reality - any number of hypothetical would apply just as well.