The answer is much simpler. The Theory of Evolution explains those data. No other theory does. Someone wants to propose another theory to explain those data, I'd be all ears, but my ears are closed the "theories" that are nothing more than criticisms of other theories.
Rob Hamilton "So easy it seemed once found, which yet unfound most would have thought impossible" John Milton ________________________________________ Robert G. Hamilton Department of Biological Sciences Mississippi College P.O. Box 4045 200 South Capitol Street Clinton, MS 39058 Phone: (601) 925-3872 FAX (601) 925-3978 >>> Russell Burke <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 8/27/2007 8:09 AM >>> Carissa: you've got quite a collection of concerns about evolution here, and you're asking a lot of readers to go thru them all and teach you a basic course in evolution. too bad you didn't have one already, then it would be possible to start this discussion at some point later than where it was in Darwin's time--we're on to more advanced issues now. that's right, almost every one of your concerns here was familiar to Darwin and he quite nicely rebutted them in his time. sure, he didn't ask about molecular evolution, but replace the molecular terms in your email with parts of the vertebrate eye and he answered it 150 years ago. ID arguments are so old hat by now that they're pretty boring. sorry if that's offensive, I don't mean to be. except maybe the origin of life question, which is quite separate from evolution--evolution being change over generations, evolution doesn't specifically address origin of life. that's a different issue that's often conflated with evolution. you asked why the scientific community is so convinced of evolution? I'd say three main reasons. 1. there is a gigantic amount of morphological, behavioral, molecular, and fossil evidence to support it. pick up any basic text book in evolution and you'll see what I mean. 2. it has another characteristic that scientists like: using the theory of evolution, we can and do generate testable hypotheses, and by testing them, we practice science. in fact, many thousands of tests of evolution have been performed, and evolution is holding up quite well. 3. it is the only game in town. no other theory of "how the biological world got to be this way" has evidence supporting it and generates testable hypotheses. if you or someone else comes up with an alternative, you can replace the theory of evolution with your own ideas when you produce substantial amounts of data and successfully use it to generate and test meaningful hypotheses. especially given your background and institutional placement, its surprising that you haven't made better use of the tremendous resources at your disposal to educate yourself on the evidence for evolution, and at least bring your education up to current issues. I'll bet the people in your lab would be glad to hear your thoughts, and if not, you are surrounded by resources that can answer your question: "why is the scientific community so convinced of evolution?" RBurke >>> Carissa Shipman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 08/26/07 10:08 PM >>> I am a biology student at Temple University and I have conducted an NSF funded systematics project for the order Hymenoptera at the American Museum of Natural History. My question is why is the scientific community so convinced of evolution? There are very few publications concerning evolution at the molecular or biochemical level. Most scientists are baffled at how such molecular systems such as blood clotting actual evolved in a step by step manner. It looks to me like many of the molecular inter workings all needed to be there simultaneously for the end product to function properly. The biosynthesis of AMP is just as baffling. How could that have happened in a step by step fashion? You can speculate, but no evolutionist has the answer. So if you can not explain how the most nitty gritty machines of life "molecules" learned to function in the intricate ways that they do why are you so certain that everything evolved? Science is looking at the details. All science textbooks I have read have relayed very little evidence of evolution at the molecular level. They just say it happened. Since Darwinian evolution has published very few papers concerning molecular evolution it should perish. Systematics addresses genetic similarities between species, but it does not address exactly how those genetic differences and similarities came to be. There maybe fossils and genes, but you need more than this. I am not convinced of evolution, but still choose to educate myself in what it teaches and believes. How do scientists explain how even the slightest mutation in the human genome is highly detrimental most of the time? If even the slightest change occurs in our genome it is oftentimes fatal. Believing that this mechanism lead to all the species we see today takes a great deal of faith.For instance if even one step of the blood clotting process were disturbed the effects would be disastrous. Also, why does evolution leave out mathematical statistics of how each mutation arose. TPA a component of blood clotting has 4 domains. If we attempted to shuffle the genes for these four domains the odds of getting all four domains together is 30,000 to the fourth power, and that is just for TPA! Calculating mutation rates and the odds of getting certain genes to match up perfectly for the ultimate function shows us that it takes more faith to believe that we evolved from primordial slime. The earth has had thousands of lightning bolts hit it every year and we have not seen life spawn from molecules. If evolution happened we would see it reoccuring time and time again from the bottom. Why have we not seen it, because conditions have not been perfect? I do not deny adaptation within species, but this is far different than the assumptions of macro evolution. If an evolutionist can challenge my arguments I would gladly like to hear your rebuttal. Publications for molecular evolution use many words such as "unleashed". How was it unleashed, what were the step by step mechanisms that you can say for certain occurred, leaving macro leapages out of the picture? You see fossils, but you have no detailed explanations as to how one may have turned into the other at the molecular level. If you can not explain it at the molecular level you have nothing to base your assumptions on. Also all the breeds of dogs are very different from one another and some of their skeletal structures look unrelated. The different types of dogs that you see arrived through intelligent interaction, not evolutionary processes. Change occurs in nature to a limited extent. That is all. Sincerely, Carissa Shipman
