Does science itself refute evolution?

[Gerr]

Evolution claim: Life can come from no life.

Scientific fact: There is NO scientific experiment or evidence that life has ever come from non-life.

Evolution claim: One kind can produce another kind, i.e. one species can give rise to a totally different species.

Scientific genetic fact: Only kind produces the same kind.

[Neil D]

Ok, I want to see the refution of the article from this link-

http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/search/topicbrowse2.php?topic_id=46

the second entry is called-

15 evolutionary gems

Go to that article, and present evidence that seriously dents the validity of the article....if 15 is daunting, I will accept 5 refutions of your choice....

[Gerr]

Gems from the fossil record

1 Land-living ancestors of whales

2 From water to land

3 The origin of feathers

4 The evolutionary history of teeth

5 The origin of the vertebrate skeleton

Gems from habitats

6 Natural selection in speciation

7 Natural selection in lizards

8 A case of co-evolution

9 Differential dispersal in wild birds

10 Selective survival in wild guppies

11 Evolutionary history matters

Gems from molecular processes

12 Darwin’s Galapagos finches

13 Microevolution meets macroevolution

14 Toxin resistance in snakes and clams

15 Variation versus stability

Which of the above is the RESULT of hard data from experimental evidence?

[Neil D]

Obviously, there is some evidence that substantiates their assumptions....I don't limit my request for evidence...you, Gerry, want it to be something that is directly observable....You wont take observation from others...?

[Bravus]

1. This is not a claim of evolutionary theory, it is a claim of abiogenesis theory, which is in its infancy. Scientists are very modest about any claims in this area. We know life is here. We don't know how it got here. There are tentative thoughts in the direction of naturalistic explanations, but *even if we found a fully workable mechanism*, we wouldn't know that it was the mechanism by which life actually arose. There is simply no evidence left behind - no fossils - of the first single-celled living things.

Debunking a claim that is not a claim of evolutionary theory does not debunk evolutionary theory.

2. Most creationists now accept that organisms adapt to their environments in small ways, even including new species. For example, new species of finches. They tend to argue 'but they are still finches' or 'but they are still birds'. What is needed is some plausible mechanism that stops small changes from accumulating over time into big changes: whales into land-living mammals for example.

Evolutionary theory does not predict that we would see changes on that level within human lifespans. More, it predicts that we would definitely *not* see such changes within human lifespans.

Debunking a claim that is not a claim of evolutionary theory does not debunk evolutionary theory.

And no plausible mechanism that stops small changes adding up to big changes has ever been advanced.

[Neil D]

Evolution claim: Life can come from no life.

Scientific fact: There is NO scientific experiment or evidence that life has ever come from non-life.

[Gerr]

Evolution is defined as: "In the broadest sense, evolution is merely change, and so is all-pervasive; galaxies, languages, and political systems all evolve. Biological evolution ... is change in the properties of populations of organisms that transcend the lifetime of a single individual. The ontogeny of an individual is not considered evolution; individual organisms do not evolve. The changes in populations that are considered evolutionary are those that are inheritable via the genetic material from one generation to the next. Biological evolution may be slight or substantial; it embraces everything from slight changes in the proportion of different alleles within a population (such as those determining blood types) to the successive alterations that led from the earliest protoorganism to snails, bees, giraffes, and dandelions."

- Douglas J. Futuyma in Evolutionary Biology, Sinauer Associates 1986

While it may be true that according to the above definition it is not concerned with ontogeny, I see a lot of double talk here. How then does the atheist evolutionist Richard Dawkins account for the origin of life except through abiogenesis? Is this not an ipso facto admission that inherent in the evolutionary position is the theory of abiogenesis?

Adding millions of human life spans, it seems to me is a red herring. How many generations of Drosophila in hundreds of labs throughout the world have gone through and produced anything more than a fly? The earliest trilobite or a horse or any animal in the fossil record are recognizable as such. At least that is what I am reading.So while time does bring in change, what hard scientific evidence is there to back up the evolutionary tree? True science is supposed to be reproducible. If such data is available, I would be very eager and happy to examine it.

[Gerr]

I had one person show that after 10 generations, one kind of fruit fly, evolved into another established family of fruit fly....Of course, I argued that it was the same species of fruit fly, just like the bible said and not a new species of animal....Nevertheless, after 10 generations, the fruit fly went from one family to another family of fruit fly...evidence of evolution for one group, adaption for the creationist....

Nevertheless,, evidence of evolving....according to one group of scientists'..

While change over time is undeniable, I would like to see evidence that the change has produced something totally different.

[Bravus]

Quote:

If such data is available, I would be very eager and happy to examine it.

There is a vast amount of such information available, from Wikipedia on up. If you spend a few hours reading, *not* on creationist web sites, you will know enough to challenge the claims you've made. TalkOrigins.org is a good site with clear, careful summaries of evidence.

[Gregory Matthews]

Let me be clear: I am a creationist. Do not construe my comment here otherwise.

Gerry said:

Quote:

Evolution claim: One kind can produce another kind, i.e. one species can give rise to a totally different species.

Scientific genetic fact: Only kind produces the same kind.

1) The Biblical "kind" can not be equated with species.

2) Species regularly over time spring into existence and they regularly go out of existence.

3) The word "species" is defined by taxonomy, which is a human system for placing what we see today into groups. It is not related to any Biblical word.

[Gerr]

Let me be clear: I am a creationist. Do not construe my comment here otherwise.

1) The Biblical "kind" can not be equated with species.

2) Species regularly over time spring into existence and they regularly go out of existence.

3) The word "species" is defined by taxonomy, which is a human system for placing what we see today into groups. It is not related to any Biblical word.

Agreed. There would not have been enough room in the ark to accommodate every known species. But my point was that scientific experimentation has established that a horse always produces a horse. The horses of today in Iceland may look somewhat different than the horses that were brought in a few hundred years ago, but they are still horses.

[Igakusei]

You haven't responded to either of Bravus' points.

Evolution predicts that species will virtually always give birth to others of the same species. This does not preclude evolution, because species can both change over time and divide, all without a single mother ever giving birth to a child of a different species. Just like there is no magical point in time where a child suddenly becomes an adult, there is no magical point in time where one kind suddenly gives birth to another.

http://livinglifewithoutanet.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/macroevolution.jpg

Both of your points are arguments against positions evolution does not take. This has been pointed out, but you haven't addressed it.

[Bravus]

As part of another discussion I read the Wikipedia 'Abiogenesis' page the other day. It's long but fascinating. Recommended.