[Alate_One]

It's fairly obvious that there's a lot of misunderstandings about biological evolution on this forum. I'm making this post to try and clear some of that up.

Evolution is quite predictable and unavoidable in living organisms given what we know about them.

1. Organisms reproduce by copying their genetic information into the next generation

2. The copying of such information is imperfect giving rise to variation

3. Variations that allow the organisms that have them to survive and produce more offspring than other variations will become more common in the population over time.

Evolution is viewed as a tree formed by descent with modification. When populations split from one another, these are the branch points of the tree.

Here are a few, relatively short videos that explain some of these concepts.

Natural Selection

Discovering the great tree of life

(covers phylogeny and speciation)

Note that the theory of evolution does NOT:

Disprove the existence of God
Require or include abiogenesis
Have anything to do with the big bang

Evolution is supported by a wide variety of evidence:


Instead the evidence is this:

Fossil Record that shows organisms appearing and disappearing in a particular order. There are times *before* multicellular life, *before* vertebrates. You can only explain this through progressive creation, evolution or asserting that God created the fossil record as false evidence to test our faith.


Here's an assemblage of aquatic creatures from one of the earliest time periods in the history of life. What is missing when compared to a modern ocean?

Biogeography If all species were created from scratch a few thousand years ago, why are there so many unique forms found on isolated islands? Why would God bother to create them and then somehow get them back to those isolated places after the flood? (I say this because the fossils of these organisms are only found in the same isolated places.)

DNA All organisms are unified in using DNA in almost the exact same way. This is why we can take a piece of DNA from a human, put it into a bacterium and the bacterium can synthesize an identical protein to that from the human.

Nested Hierarchy of Traits Organisms fall into a nested hierarchy of relatedness that doesn't always follow general "similarity". This grouping produces a tree pattern, exactly what evolution predicts.


The tree above can be shown through both DNA and fossil evidence (the unique ankles of hoofed mammals).



FYI - I am an evolutionary creationist (aka theistic evolutionist)

If you are interested in learning about evolutionary creationism, I'd suggest visiting Biologos, they have scientific as well as theological information.

One of the better though very long evolution documentaries can be found here

New Paper from Sept 19th, 2012:
How Organisms Evolve New Functions: Evolution Is as Complicated as 1-2-3

[Memento Mori]

Is the Theory of Evolution falsifiable and in what ways?

[OMEGA]

1. Organisms reproduce by copying their genetic information into the next generation

So, what does an Octopus have in relation to a Cow ?

and what does a Platypus have in relation to an Ostrich ?

Tell us o great Guru if you can ?

[Alate_One]

Originally Posted by Memento Mori

Is the Theory of Evolution falsifiable and in what ways?

We have to remember that falsifiable means some kind of data COULD falsify the theory. Obviously if the theory is actually true, one cannot *actually* falsify the theory.

1. Finding fossil organisms in layers BEFORE they could have possibly evolved. e.g. whale bones in Cambrian or Carboniferous layers. Finding creatures alive after they were thought to be extinct doesn't count since just surviving for longer than expected doesn't contradict evolution.

2. The pattern of traits across living organisms. Traits are not distributed randomly as we see in human-designed devices like cars. Whales breathe air, despite living their entire lives in water. If they instead had gills that were virtually identical to those of fish, that would be in direct contradiction to evolution. The same would be true of finding insect-like compound eyes in vertebrates or feathers on a mammal.

3. Biogeography. Evolution would predict that different locations would harbor very different species from others. Evolution would predict many unique species evolving on isolated islands, which is exactly what we see. If we instead saw nearly identical species even on remote islands that would tend to point us towards intervention by an intelligent force.

4. Genetics was probably the biggest challenge to evolution since Darwin knew nothing of how heredity actually works. Genetics showed that traits do not get diluted generation to generation, which would have been a huge problem for evolution. Instead scientists began to use mathematical formulas to predict evolutionary outcomes across generations.

5. DNA data. The advent of molecular data could have been a huge problem for evolution but instead it confirmed the theory again. Supporting evidence from molecular data:

--- All organisms share the same genetic chemical and use it in almost exactly the same way, confirming that all living things are related and united in a tree of life, as Darwin proposed.

--- Genetic data shows a nested hierarchy that is predicted by evolution. Had all organisms had unique DNA sequences or all had virtually identical sequences for common genes, evolution as a theory would have been in big trouble. Instead we see a pattern of creatures that are more closely related have more similarities

Molecular Genetics and evolution

The most specific example that has become famous recently is that of human chromosome number 2.

Chromosome 2

[Hedshaker]

Originally Posted by Memento Mori

Is the Theory of Evolution falsifiable and in what ways?

If we did not share the same endogenous retroviruses with our chimp cousins then common descent would be falsified.

That we do backs up Darwin's predictions perfectly, bearing in mind, the science of RNA/DNA were not available in Darwin's day.

This is a good one

Hope that helps.

[Alate_One]

Originally Posted by OMEGA

1. Organisms reproduce by copying their genetic information into the next generation

So, what does an Octopus have in relation to a Cow ?

and what does a Platypus have in relation to an Ostrich ?

Tell us o great Guru if you can ?

All of those you listed are bilaterally symmetrical, in the clade bilateria. They are all more similar to one another than any are to a jellyfish or a sponge.

A platypus and and ostrich are both vertebrates and tetrapods, that is vertebrates with 4 limbs and are more similar to one another than a cow is to an octopus.


Shown below is the animal family tree.


Here are chordates (which include vertebrates) specifically:

[Daedalean's_Sun]

Originally Posted by OMEGA

1. Organisms reproduce by copying their genetic information into the next generation

So, what does an Octopus have in relation to a Cow ?

and what does a Platypus have in relation to an Ostrich ?

Tell us o great Guru if you can ?

1. Both Octopus and Cow, are animals belonging to the same taxonomic kingdom. They are both complex multi-cellular organisms. They both reproduce sexually. Their similarities are quite few, so evolution would predict that they are very very distantly related, and we would by comparison find fewer genetic similarity than that between a cow and a horse for example.

2. Both Platypus and ostrich are animals. They are both complex multi-cellular organisms. They both reproduce sexually. They are both chordates, having a spine, and they each have a skeletal structure, and a nervous system. They both have complex eyes. They both have claws or talons. They both have beaks and tongues. And they are both egg-laying animals.

[Alate_One]

Originally Posted by Daedalean's_Sun

2. Both Platypus and ostrich are animals. They are both complex multi-cellular organisms. They both reproduce sexually. They are both chordates, having a spine, and they each have a skeletal structure, and a nervous system. They both have complex eyes. They both have claws or talons. They both have beaks and tongues. And they are both egg-laying animals.

But the platypus "beak" is quite different from the ostrich beak as are the eggs of the two creatures. The platypus beak is soft and fleshy and actually is electroreceptive (it can sense electrical fields). A platypus is actually a mammal because it produces milk. It, along with its close relative the Echidna, produce milk without nipples.

Echidna reproduction

[Daedalean's_Sun]

Originally Posted by Alate_One

But the platypus "beak" is quite different from the ostrich beak as are the eggs of the two creatures. The platypus beak is soft and fleshy and actually is electroreceptive (it can sense electrical fields). A platypus is actually a mammal because it produces milk. It, along with its close relative the Echidna, produce milk without nipples.

You haven't told me anything I didn't already know.

[Paulos]

Here's Carl Sagan explaining natural selection:

'

[Alate_One]

Originally Posted by Daedalean's_Sun

You haven't told me anything I didn't already know.

The way you said it, you implied the platypus is a bird of a sort.

[Daedalean's_Sun]

Originally Posted by Alate_One

The way you said it, you implied the platypus is a bird of a sort.

Well the question I was responding to asked for similarities between the Platypus and the Ostrich, so naturally I'm going to list the more bird-like qualities. The platypus is quite an unusual animal, many people don't know this but they have a venomous spur on their hind feet.

[Stripe]

Originally Posted by Alate_One

1. Organisms reproduce by copying their genetic information into the next generation

2. The copying of such information is imperfect giving rise to variation

3. Variations that allow the organisms that have them to survive and produce more offspring than other variations will become more common in the population over time.

Ah - the recipe for defect, disease and death.

[Alate_One]

Originally Posted by Stripe

Ah - the recipe for defect, disease and death.

Tell that to the animal and plant breeders that selected the food you eat.

Without evolution, we wouldn't be able to support our population.

Does this increase in size of corn cobs over time look like disease and death?


corn evolution

[Stripe]

Originally Posted by Alate_One

Tell that to the animal and plant breeders that selected the food you eat.

Ah .. the addition of intelligence, guidance and direction to the theory begins.

That didn't take long.

And, by the way, try regenerating the crops that produced the hybrids using only those plants that were hybridised. Betcha can't.