Ivellious wrote:That one's easy. Did you know that billions of years ago the Earth wasn't quite the same as it is now? All multi-cellular organisms on Earth today would have died on that Earth. Single celled organisms dominated the Earth because conditions such as atmospheric conditions, climate, availability of liquid water, etc. would not have sustained anything else. It's also important to note that they did change and become more varied over time, they just didn't form plants and animals.
Well just what early earth conditions might have resembled is still a source of speculation; we just don't know what the conditions were like back then.
To be more precise -- for the first billion years (25%) the earth was lifeless; for 2.9 billion years (62%) we had single-celled organisms, then for 625myr (13%) there were multicellular organisms; human evolution only required 0.002%
This coincides well with the Earth's climate, atmosphere and other conditions becoming just right for larger, more complex life to thrive. There are hypotheses, such as the beginning of the global arms race creating pressures for new organisms to quickly develop.
What exactly are these "just right" conditions that provided such a significant boost to evolution?
Remember this still doesn't explain the explosion of life that occured -- around
40 new phyla just appeared on the scene with no precursors to speak of????
That's not how evolution works. There is no "global arms race", there is no goal, there is only random change with positive effects being selected for. "Arms race" is a misnomer. There is no "racing", no "rush" in neo-Darwinian evolution, it just is.
The eye, while certainly complex, has early stages as simple light detectors and each stage following that could have easily been selected for (most notably due to an arms race). Like all things, the eye did not just appear out of thin air fully evolved. Is there a perfect explanation?
And this is exactly the problem; you're making the exact same mistake people like Dawkins would have us buy into -- that evolution is an uncomplicated event; simply building on the foundations of existing structures.
But explanation like these begs the question..
Explain how those "simple light detectors" formed. Your starting point is anything but... it too requires a series of additional steps including 11-cis-retinal and rhodospin to function.
A major fault is to view the eye as one large functional complex; when in fact it incorporates a number of seperate systems:
"The function of the retina alone is the perception of light.
The function of the lens is to gather light and focus it.
If a lens is used with a retina, the working retina is improved, but both the retina and lens can work by themselves.
The muscles that focus the lens or turn the eye function a a contraction apparatus, which can be applied to many different systems. The perception of light by the main retina is not dependent on them.
Tear ducts and eyelids are also complex systems; but separable from the function of the retina."
Michael Behe - Darwin's Black Box
You have several individual complex systems incorporated into one larger system. If we are to attribute this to small step-by-step incremental events, it must be explained, not assumed. Which would require the explanation of co-opting several systems into the one, which of course raises the question of protein-to-protein binding sites.
As Behe further comments regarding the evolution of the eye from a "light-sensitive spot" and "little cup:
"This can be compared to answering the question "How is a stereo system made?" with the words "By plugging a set of speakers into an amplifier, and adding a CD player, radio receiver, and tape deck."
Either Darwinian theory can account for the assembly of the speakers and amplifier, or it can't.
Of course not, but unless you forget about all the geological and ecological factors involved, it isn't as ridiculous as you make it out to be.
Geological and ecological factors don't explain the formation of complex protein structures.
It might explain how it provided a more favourable environment for the mechanism to function but pointing to the environment as the key factor is ludicrous IMO.
It also doesn't explain why after the Cambrian explsion there was a decrease in phyla, as opposed to an increase as one might expect! -- if the environmental conditions had become so much more favourable why was there not a continued flourishing of new life, instead we see the
opposite -- a continual reduction in phyla!!
By this logic, apes existing even though we evolved from them contradicts evolution. Just because something evolved from something else does not mean that the entire previous species dies out in the process...In fact, of course birds would have had to exist alongside dinosaurs! I mean, they couldn't have evolved from a dead species.
Are you really telling me that you would have no problem accepting a substantial selection of modern birds living alongside dinosaurs during the Cretaceous Era. That would be no big shock to you, and fits in perfectly with your idea of neo-Darwinism?
We're not talking about intermediates here. They are the very same birds we see alive flying around
today!
Groups like Parrots, Owls, Penguins, Sand Pipers, Loons, Ducks, Flamingo's, Cormorants, Albatross.
From what I understood no one in the Darwin camp expected anything close to it, intermediate species, yes of course; but seperate groups of diverse birds species... no, nothing close to it.
Your idea of evolution is skewed in that sense. Evolution does not require that a species die out in order to evolve into another species...Also, what do you mean by there being all types of plants and animals existing in the Mesozoic period? Why would it be so hard to believe things other than dinosaurs existed back then?
No I think it is your understanding of the nature of evolution that is skewed. It's a gradual process, not one where you'd expect to find numerous fully formed bird species in the same fossil record as their supposed ancestors.
Firstly,
flowering plants were not supposed to exist during that period, also called the "Age of Cycads", dominated by non-flowering plants and trees. Yet there have been fossils finds of all the major plant divisions that we find alive today -- no change, once again stasis.
Secondly, because it was called the "Age of Dinosaurs", modern birds should not have co-existed alongside dinosaurs, this has been the standard evolutionary position for ages now.
When you say this you are just wrong. The anti-evolution camp states this over and over without end, refusing to accept any evidence to the contrary. I'll admit, we obviously do not have every single intermediate that could have ever existed. But we do have numerous examples of evolution, with intermediates. See: The evolution between horse and whale.
What are these "numerous examples of evolution" you refer to, please provide examples.
What about the horse and whale? Two very different creatures.
Equivocating "not having every example covered" to "having zero evidence" is a farce.
Well I never suggested you need to have every intermediate... I would settle for 5 intermediates out of the billions upon billions of animals / organisms that have existed throughout the entire history of the earth.
How does creationism or ID explain random, short lived existence of intermediates between whales and horses in the middle east?
What short lived intermediates are these?
