[axefrog]

Take a moment and watch this. Disbelief in evolution usually only happens when one doesn't really understand the field and would prefer to try and explain everything with religion, in which case you may as well try and explain thunder as the sound the gods' bellies make when rumbling. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIEoO5KdPvg

[auganov]

I just watched it. I'm pretty ignorant in terms of biology and never really gave it much thought. The video you posted presents a good case that all living beings are related in some way and only hints at evolution by briefly talking about different fossils at different times suggesting some transitions over time.

So as a person that has no opinion I'd rather have the actual transitions explained and proved in depth.

[lotsofmangos]

One way of thinking about it is mathematical, and is the nearest you will get to a positive proof.

If you have systems which can propagate copies of themselves imperfectly and that have a varying environment to contend with that has effects on their ability to propagate, then the subsequent copies of those systems will undergo an evolution of forms with a selection bias.

Mathematically you can demonstrate this pretty conclusively.

Then all you really need to do is demonstrate that there are systems in the physical world that meet the set of criteria required for evolution to occur and you can then be pretty sure that evolution is occurring.

[unemouette]

"Evolution is a fairytale for grown-ups. It is useless" Pierre P. Grasse, leading french biologist

"Scientists who go about teaching that evolution is a fact of life are great con men, and the story they are telling may be the greatest hoax ever. In explaining evolution we do not have one iota of fact." T.N. Tahmisian, physiologist for the Atomic Energy Commission

"Evolution is baseless and quite incredible." Ambrose Flemming, president, British Association for Advancement of Science

I can found hundreds other quotes like these made by famous scientists.

Beneficial mutations do not exist, therefore, evolution of the living is unproved. There is no species that could stand as an intermediate between man and anything else. There is in nature zero intermediate state between bird's feathers and anything else. Evolutionnists have no clue how to explain the origin of the cetacean.

Evolution is a complete hoax, it has not been thrown to the trash can just because of the alternative theory that is left if evolution disappears. And you know what it is.

[rpcope1]

> Beneficial mutations do not exist, therefore, evolution of the living is unproved. There is no species that could stand as an intermediate between man and anything else. There is in nature zero intermediate state between bird's feathers and anything else. Evolutionnists have no clue how to explain the origin of the cetacean.

If you're going to go on the offensive trying to tell me what many years of science seems to be honing in on (a reasonably understood theory of evolution as a means of understanding life and biodiversity on the Earth), you should really cite some peer reviewed papers or books, or some sort of sources, rather than pulling quotes out of thin air.

As a side note, I think if you look at the work of many mathematical biologists, like Stuart Kauffman, I think the conclusion that's slowly being drawn is that evolution and the genesis of life are potentially more inevitable than not for sufficiently complex chemical systems. Once you get at the mathematical root of evolution, I remember being sort of amazed that Darwin's theory of evolution in a very basic raw form sort of falls out, much like atomic orbitals when applying Schrodinger's equation to the atom. Interested readers are referred to one of Kauffman's excellent books for those not very well versed in the intersection of statistical mechanics and genetics, such as: http://www.amazon.com/At-Home-Universe-Self-Organization-Com...

[lotsofmangos]

it has not been thrown to the trash can just because of the alternative theory that is left if evolution disappears. And you know what it is.

Well, given you are invoking the support of Pierre P. Grasse, I guess you mean the evolution of forms through heritability of acquired characteristics.

[dalke]

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/ce/3/part11.html gives more context, describing Grasse as one of the last Lamarckists. Quoting from that link:

> Grasse also stated in the most unequivocal terms: "Zoologists and botanists are nearly unanimous in considering evolution as a fact and not a hypothesis. I agree with this position and base it primarily on documents provided by paleontology, i.e., the history of the living world

> The authors of The Revised Quote Book lifted Grasse's phrase, "the myth of evolution," out of context, trying to deceive others into believing that Grasse was doubtful of evolution even though he stated he "agreed" with the "nearly unanimous" scientific consensus that "evolution" was an historical scientific "fact." Grasse simply disagreed with explanations of exactly "how" evolution occurred. He felt the "how" part was not a "simple, understood, and explained phenomenon."

And as for Ambrose Flemming, that's reaching back to the 1930s. Fleming helped establish the Evolution Protest Movement and was an active creationist.

[robotkilla]

I would also like to point out that several old scientists not believing in evolution has no bearing on the trueness of evolution.

[collyw]

Ok, a little self experiment for the unbelievers.

Take your food out of the fridge. Heat it up, it will kill of any bacteria.

Now instead of eating it, put it back in the fridge.

Repeat for a week. You won't get ill, because the bacteria won't evolve to a heat resistant strain. Right....?

[meric]

Whether one believes biological evolution or not, one can always download a program for testing generic programming algorithms and see programs evolve with one's own eyes. Evolution definitely is intelligence borne of pure randomness. You could make some code evolve to list out values for parabolas, for example. Check this video out, someone used evolution to produce an AI playing tetris: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nklY5lFZAY

[threeseed]

I actually read about cetaceans a while ago.

It is thought to be a relative of the hippopotamus: http://www.innovations-report.com//html/reports/life-science...

Given how difficult it is for fossils to be preserved it should be expected that we aren't going to find them for 40-50 million year old ancestors that could definitely prove the origin of modern day animals.

[robotkilla]

Pierre P. Grasse did believe in evolution, just not the real kind http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre-Paul_Grass%C3%A9#Neo-Lam...

that's according to wikipedia... i suppose satan could have edited it to trick us all though.

[lotsofmangos]

i suppose satan could have edited it

Is that another pseudonym of Grant Shapps?

[regularfry]

It's not the same case, but the evolution of the eye is relatively well understood and explained: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_the_eye

[88e282102ae2e5b]

What do you mean by explained and proved in depth?

[auganov]

Well, I guess the point is I don't know! :-D I'm only thinking and commenting from the standpoint of efficiently explaining evolution, because parent's video disappointed me. Maybe "in depth" is indeed not an option in a short video.

I like @lotsofmangos 's explanation, it strongly shows that we're bound to have some evolution. But ideally we'd also want a simple conjecture that would predict what kind of evolution at what velocity within what range we're bound to have. And then present how what we know about the past fits into that.

[88e282102ae2e5b]

To answer that question you'd basically need a model of the galaxy at the atomic level. The fitness of genes is not determined by the genes themselves, but by the environment where the organism lives. But "environment" means everything: all the other organisms it comes into contact with (of the same species and every other species), the food that's available, whether organisms it could mate with are awake at the same time, the climate, forest fires, climate change, gamma ray bursts, and so on.

It's an enormous question and an inherently chaotic process. I'm not sure how you could model all that accurately. Also, there's more than one solution to a given selective pressure, and at the end of the day, DNA mutations are truly random.

Let's consider a simple system: a cave full of insects and some crabs that can eat them. Initially the crabs don't live in the cave, but given that there are no other animals there, when they do randomly come upon the cave it's an all-you-can-eat buffet. The cave is pitch black, which isn't a problem for the crabs, but their eyes are useless and actually a liability, since they can be pierced more easily than skin, they can get infected, and they take protein and nutrients that, if not used, could allow the crab to live on less food, or be more vivacious and able to produce more offspring.

So there's a selective pressure on the crabs to get rid of the eyes. But this can be achieved in many ways: the genes that cause the eyelids to separate during development could be damaged, causing a layer of skin to permanently seal the eyes. Other genes being mutated may cause the eyes to never form in the first place. Another may prevent blood vessels from growing where the eyes need them to thrive, resulting in weird, misshapen but much smaller eyes.

So what solution will occur? It turns out: it's mostly random. If one adaptation can occur with only a single mutation, it's obviously more likely to occur before another that takes ten mutations becomes prevalent. But even in this tiny, simple system it's still difficult to make a prediction as to the specific timing and mechanism that would result.

[lotsofmangos]

But ideally we'd also want a simple conjecture that would predict what kind of evolution at what velocity within what range we're bound to have.

To drill down to trying to even roughly predict rates and kinds of evolution, you are no longer at a simple conjecture as you have to include all the detail of the interplay of biochemical reactions, which is insanely complicated.