Ok.....now I have to ask this.?

Question

Ok, so I got some interesting answers on the last question I asked which has thus made me want to ask this of you. Would you please state just one thing, one scientific fact, that you believe proves evolution. Aside from what I've read and researched, I'd like to know what scientific fact that you believe supports evolution.

Genetic mutations? Tell me of one genetic mutation that was beneficial and not harmful.

I'm not asking for the whole book, just one scientific fact that you believe supports evolution.

The Last Ent.... you're just great. :-) Positively awesome.

Ent you are more then welcome to, this is exactly what I wanted. Please continue.

Eldad, I read all that and I think you kinda missed the point Ent made. Evolution demands that one species becomes another. Not just another variation within the species. But a wholly different species. Like a cat turning into a bird. One species turning into a completely different species.

Novangel.... you didn't provide any fact to counteract what Ent said about your proof. All you did was try to insult her. This question was for facts, not insults.

Eldad, thanks for the email, I think you provided some interesting facts about genetic variations within species. However you did not provide anything that says one species can BECOME a completely different species. This has NEVER been observed. Show me evidence where a dog gave birth to a bird, or a reptile giving birth to a cat. Then you'll have something.

Novangel. I read your article and I could love it if you would site exactly where it states that one species became another. We get that genetic VARIATIONS can happen within a species. Got it. Just like I said to Eldad, provide me evidence where one species has BECOME another.

Ok, well no one has added anything new so I am going to go ahead and close this by picking the answer I'm sure everyone knew I would. While I really only think that one person made a good attempt to support their fact, the basis of evolution still comes down to one simple statement. That one species can become another. Lots of genetic variation evidence was provided but none supporting this theory. No one has given evidence of one species becoming another. And so, my statement remains that you cannot prove evolution as fact, so it remains a theory.

Answer 1

oOOoOooO I can't wait for this ......

EDIT:
Resurrectionist: yes, mutations occur. But no single mutation has ever been responsible for the creation of NEW genetic material, which is a required fact for Evolution to be true. Mutations only CHANGE existing material.
EDIT TO RESURRECTIONIST: Yes wonderful, and I have light skin and somebody else has dark skin. Does that mean that one of us is more "evolved" than the other? Of course not! We are still the same species. Evolution DEMANDS that one species BECOMES another species. Where is the proof of that?

What else ya got?

DAN X: yes, once again, mutations occur. That proves that an organism can CHANGE it's DNA structure, but NOT add to it. The flu virus is still that, a virus. It didn't become an ambeba or a bird or a dog. And it never will. Try again.

Smile: Yes, our DNA is similar to other animals, but the similarities have actually been quite blown up. There are millions upon millions of genetic differences between us and other primates.

What else ya got?

Eldad - Once again, a fusion of chromosomes does not allow for the addition of new genetic material. It's only a change in existing data. What about the Human Genome Project, that proves we have more flaws in our DNA now then we did from human DNA sampled 200 years ago? That proves that mutations are Harmful, not beneficial.
EDIT EDIT: Nope. A fusion or "crossover" of genetic material has NEVER resulted in NEW information, only a change in the existing code. How exactly did I change the subject?

Anybody else?

Novangel- Absolutely incorrect. Take the "horse evolution" chart that we were all force-feed in high school. The first animal listed on it wasn't even classified as a horse originally, it was called a hare. The number of vertebrae in the "horses" vary from 4 to 6 to 5 and back down again. The fossils were found in vastly differing areas of the world and just assumed to be a "link" to one another.

LASTLY: Bella_Donna: Sorry to jump in there, Evolution is a topic I enjoy debating, been doing it on my blog for weeks now. Thanks for your support! :)

Journey- Way to insult, thank you. Now do you actually have a piece of evidence to put forth, or are you sticking with 'it happens every day."

Answer 2

This is too great Bella!!!!!! You know..I find it completely ironic that when you asked:

Why do you think Christians can't provide evidence supporting Creation, and contradicting evolution?

You got 30 some answers....but then you take it a step farther and you get a whoppin 16???? People have NO problem giving their opinion, but when it comes to Facts they freak out!!

The Last Ent: You Rock! God Bless to all and keep it going, I am highly entertained!!

Answer 3

It depends on what you accept as fact. Causality is not observable...though if you arrange things in sequence, you can infer some sort of causal link between them. (one frame in a movie does not 'cause' the next, though it does provide a context for the following frames)

...also, you must define 'evolution' as well..otherwise any explanation given may be said to refute something other than whatever you're talking about.

Some might say 'well this here is evolution' and someone else might say 'no, that's not evolution, it's just a change'. You need to have an agreed upon definition.

-Rob

Answer 4

The vast phylogentic tree was created using anatomic comparisons between living species, and linked using fossil records. When genetic mapping and sequencing became available, genetic homology and comparison of inserted elements became possible. The two agree to an incredibly high degree.

To The Last Ent Wife --
That chart in the high school text books was not perfect, but it was sound. Your use of small technical errors id so typical of the creationist mindset. It the i's aren't dotted and the t's aren't crossed, then God exists. Well, I hate to burst your bubble, but your regurgitated "facts" don't pass muster. Your effort to prove God by means of deceit, is typical of the Creationist "morality". Novel, beneficial, information gaining mutations have been documented.
http://mbe.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/15/8/931

I'm sorry Bella Donna-- I assumed because you were on Y!A, that you could read. I only posted one article, from a peer reviewed journal, as evidence. Thank you for your marvelous demonstration that the only way to prove Creationism is to lie.

Answer 5

My dear, Bella,

The fact is that there are no certain "facts" that prove evolution and that is surely because it didn't happen. But animals of a species do cause changes that can be seen. Dogs and cats are a perfect example. Different breeds of dogs can be breed as well as cats. Horses and donkeys can make a mule. So are these "new" dogs a different species?
Of course not. They are cross-breeds. So a million years from now, in the future, will people find these cross-breeds, fossilized and call them a new species? Or will they say they are proof of evolution?
Probably.

Answer 6

Well you may think The Last Ent is great...but she couldn't be more wrong.

I suggest to you that you do some actual reading of scientific materials. Read Dawkins for starters. I'm not asking you to believe...just to do your own reasearch and get informed about what evolution really states.

Evolution happens daily....

PS - why could God not be the cause of evolution? Why is it so threatening?

Answer 7

A single fact can't prove the entire process of evolution.

Answer 8

Planet of the Apes.

Monkeys talking and acting just like men (well, at least like the evolutionists). And I saw it with my own eyes! Every last one of them the missing link! The very best evidence for evolution ever!

Answer 9

Genetic mutations happen. The rest is logic.

Edit: Ok... There are humans whom, due to a genetic mutation, are not effected by the aids virus. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&res=9C00E3DF153CF934A1575AC0A960958260
Any other bright ideas? You want me to get more examples? I can.

Answer 10

How about the telomere at the fusion point of chromosome #2, showing where the two chromosomes from our ancestor fused, which is why we have only 23 chromosome pairs and not 24?

Last ent wife- way to change the subject.

Fine: here you go.

Claim CB102:
Mutations are random noise; they do not add information. Evolution cannot cause an increase in information.
Source:
AIG, n.d. Creation Education Center. http://www.answersingenesis.org/cec/docs/CvE_report.asp
Response:

1. It is hard to understand how anyone could make this claim, since anything mutations can do, mutations can undo. Some mutations add information to a genome; some subtract it. Creationists get by with this claim only by leaving the term "information" undefined, impossibly vague, or constantly shifting. By any reasonable definition, increases in information have been observed to evolve. We have observed the evolution of

* increased genetic variety in a population (Lenski 1995; Lenski et al. 1991)
* increased genetic material (Alves et al. 2001; Brown et al. 1998; Hughes and Friedman 2003; Lynch and Conery 2000; Ohta 2003)
* novel genetic material (Knox et al. 1996; Park et al. 1996)
* novel genetically-regulated abilities (Prijambada et al. 1995)

If these do not qualify as information, then nothing about information is relevant to evolution in the first place.

2. A mechanism that is likely to be particularly common for adding information is gene duplication, in which a long stretch of DNA is copied, followed by point mutations that change one or both of the copies. Genetic sequencing has revealed several instances in which this is likely the origin of some proteins. For example:
* Two enzymes in the histidine biosynthesis pathway that are barrel-shaped, structural and sequence evidence suggests, were formed via gene duplication and fusion of two half-barrel ancestors (Lang et al. 2000).
* RNASE1, a gene for a pancreatic enzyme, was duplicated, and in langur monkeys one of the copies mutated into RNASE1B, which works better in the more acidic small intestine of the langur. (Zhang et al. 2002)
* Yeast was put in a medium with very little sugar. After 450 generations, hexose transport genes had duplicated several times, and some of the duplicated versions had mutated further. (Brown et al. 1998)
The biological literature is full of additional examples. A PubMed search (at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi) on "gene duplication" gives more than 3000 references.

3. According to Shannon-Weaver information theory, random noise maximizes information. This is not just playing word games. The random variation that mutations add to populations is the variation on which selection acts. Mutation alone will not cause adaptive evolution, but by eliminating nonadaptive variation, natural selection communicates information about the environment to the organism so that the organism becomes better adapted to it. Natural selection is the process by which information about the environment is transferred to an organism's genome and thus to the organism (Adami et al. 2000).

4. The process of mutation and selection is observed to increase information and complexity in simulations (Adami et al. 2000; Schneider 2000).

Links:
Max, Edward E., 1999. The evolution of improved fitness by random mutation plus selection. http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/fitness

Musgrave, Ian, 2001. The Period gene of Drosophila. http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/postmonth/apr01.html
References:

1. Adami et al., 2000. (see below)
2. Alves, M. J., M. M. Coelho and M. J. Collares-Pereira, 2001. Evolution in action through hybridisation and polyploidy in an Iberian freshwater fish: a genetic review. Genetica 111(1-3): 375-385.
3. Brown, C. J., K. M. Todd and R. F. Rosenzweig, 1998. Multiple duplications of yeast hexose transport genes in response to selection in a glucose-limited environment. Molecular Biology and Evolution 15(8): 931-942. http://mbe.oupjournals.org/cgi/reprint/15/8/931.pdf
4. Hughes, A. L. and R. Friedman, 2003. Parallel evolution by gene duplication in the genomes of two unicellular fungi. Genome Research 13(5): 794-799.
5. Knox, J. R., P. C. Moews and J.-M. Frere, 1996. Molecular evolution of bacterial beta-lactam resistance. Chemistry and Biology 3: 937-947.
6. Lang, D. et al., 2000. Structural evidence for evolution of the beta/alpha barrel scaffold by gene duplication and fusion. Science 289: 1546-1550. See also Miles, E. W. and D. R. Davies, 2000. On the ancestry of barrels. Science 289: 1490.
7. Lenski, R. E., 1995. Evolution in experimental populations of bacteria. In: Population Genetics of Bacteria, Society for General Microbiology, Symposium 52, S. Baumberg et al., eds., Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, pp. 193-215.
8. Lenski, R. E., M. R. Rose, S. C. Simpson and S. C. Tadler, 1991. Long-term experimental evolution in Escherichia coli. I. Adaptation and divergence during 2,000 generations. American Naturalist 138: 1315-1341.
9. Lynch, M. and J. S. Conery, 2000. The evolutionary fate and consequences of duplicate genes. Science 290: 1151-1155. See also Pennisi, E., 2000. Twinned genes live life in the fast lane. Science 290: 1065-1066.
10. Ohta, T., 2003. Evolution by gene duplication revisited: differentiation of regulatory elements versus proteins. Genetica 118(2-3): 209-216.
11. Park, I.-S., C.-H. Lin and C. T. Walsh, 1996. Gain of D-alanyl-D-lactate or D-lactyl-D-alanine synthetase activities in three active-site mutants of the Escherichia coli D-alanyl-D-alanine ligase B. Biochemistry 35: 10464-10471.
12. Prijambada, I. D., S. Negoro, T. Yomo and I. Urabe, 1995. Emergence of nylon oligomer degradation enzymes in Pseudomonas aeruginosa PAO through experimental evolution. Applied and Environmental Microbiology 61(5): 2020-2022.
13. Schneider, T. D., 2000. Evolution of biological information. Nucleic Acids Research 28(14): 2794-2799. http://www-lecb.ncifcrf.gov/~toms/paper/ev/
14. Zhang, J., Y.-P. Zhang and H. F. Rosenberg, 2002. Adaptive evolution of a duplicated pancreatic ribonuclease gene in a leaf-eating monkey. Nature Genetics 30: 411-415. See also: Univ. of Michigan, 2002, How gene duplication helps in adapting to changing environments. http://www.umich.edu/~newsinfo/Releases/2002/Feb02/r022802b.html

Further Reading:
Adami, C., C. Ofria and T. C. Collier, 2000. Evolution of biological complexity. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science USA 97(9): 4463-4468. http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/97/9/4463 (technical)

Hillis, D. M., J. J. Bull, M. E. White, M. R. Badgett, and I. J. Molineux. 1992. Experimental phylogenetics: generation of a known phylogeny. Science 255: 589-92. (technical)