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Thanks to everyone who responded, and especially the link to

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.htm l

Which I will have to spend more time with.

Biologists define evolution as a change in the gene pool of a population over time.

OK, but I'm not interested in that definition.

The origin of new species by evolution has also been observed, both in the laboratory and in the wild...

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.htm l

Which is fascinating reading, and I'll have to go over it again. But I was hoping for something more. I'll have to take another look at the fruitfly data.

Even without these direct observations, it would be wrong to say that evolution hasn't been observed. Evidence isn't limited to seeing something happen before your eyes.

I disagree. Evidence isn't limited to seeing something happen before your eyes - but observation is.

What hasn't been observed is one animal abruptly changing into a radically different one, such as a frog changing into a cow.

Hell, eggs change into tadpoles change into frogs. That's pretty radical in itself.

That answer, while appearing to be honest, reinforces the idea that "I can't possibly follow what these 'experts' are talking about." But I'd like to point out that for the curious, Creationism versus Evolution is really not an unattainable subject to delve into, and it can provide a good starting point for learning about Science.

A good starting point is http://www.talkorigins.org./ Creationism is divided into 2 camps: Old-earth Creationism and Young-earth Creationism. For Old-earth Creationism, Hugh Ross' book "The Genesis Question" resorts to simply throwing out verses in Genesis (he does so rather quietly -- the verses are Gen. 1:29-30) in order to make the Bible compatible with Science.

To give Young-earth some serious consideration, try reading Dr. Russell Humphrey's wildly entertaining book "Starlight and Time", which tries to reconcile an old universe with a thousands of years old earth, by resorting to geocentrism.

Some how even people one would expect to keep a clear view on things seem to fall for the creationists trap....

To quote a good site on the subject:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-misconceptions .html

"Evolution has never been observed."

Biologists define evolution as a change in the gene pool of a population over time. One example is insects developing a resistance to pesticides over the period of a few years. Even most Creationists recognize that evolution at this level is a fact. What they don't appreciate is that this rate of evolution is all that is required to produce the diversity of all living things from a common ancestor.

The origin of new species by evolution has also been observed, both in the laboratory and in the wild. See, for example, (Weinberg, J.R., V.R. Starczak, and D. Jorg, 1992, "Evidence for rapid speciation following a founder event in the laboratory." Evolution 46: 1214-1220). The "Observed Instances of Speciation" FAQ in the talk.origins archives gives several additional examples.

Even without these direct observations, it would be wrong to say that evolution hasn't been observed. Evidence isn't limited to seeing something happen before your eyes. Evolution makes predictions about what we would expect to see in the fossil record, comparative anatomy, genetic sequences, geographical distribution of species, etc., and these predictions have been verified many times over. The number of observations supporting evolution is overwhelming.

What hasn't been observed is one animal abruptly changing into a radically different one, such as a frog changing into a cow. This is not a problem for evolution because evolution doesn't propose occurrences even remotely like that. In fact, if we ever observed a frog turn into a cow, it would be very strong evidence against evolution.

One needs to examine not how many scientists and professors believe something, but what their conviction is based upon ... evidence, not personal authority, is what objective conclusions should be based on.

Yes, this has been observed, multiple times, at least as far back as 1905.

Please provide some of that evidence of miracles based on the Bible. Something that hasn't already been discredited for a change, please. I won't even bother with the "missing link" and "monkeys to humans" strawmen arguments. Show where the Talk.Origins Index to Creationist Claims is factually incorrect. You might learn something about evolution beyond the strawman you seem to think evolution is.

Please provide some of that evidence of miracles based on the Bible. Something that hasn't already been discredited for a change, please. I won't even bother with the "missing link" and "monkeys to humans" strawmen arguments. Show where the Talk.Origins Index to Creationist Claims is factually incorrect. You might learn something about evolution beyond the strawman you seem to think evolution is.

Oh, please. Poke around the archives at talkorigins.org and learn a bit about the actual evidence.

There is now a microorganism that digests nylon. There was never any nylon or anything even remotely like it in the natural environment until man invented it. This is not a case of a species getting stronger, its not like there was an organism that had a slight ability to eat a non existent fiber and it got better. There was no species that could eat nylon before nylon was invented, and now there is.

That is only one example. Speciation has been observed in the laboratory with fruit flies. All you have managed to demonstrate here is your complete ignorance of the subject at hand. Unfortunately, yours is such a common type of ignorance that a whole FAQ has been devoted to debunking it.

Humans didn't evolve from apes. Apes and humans evolved from a common ancestor, which has since died out. Maybe if you understand evolution a bit better it might make more sense. Here's a good place to start: http://www.talkorigins.org/

It's sad that this got voted "Insightful" on Slashdot... Please read the Wikipedia article on evolution and the talk.origins FAQ, they will answer your questions.

If you really want your questions answered, please read the folowing:
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB925.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB805.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB300.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB110.html

Hope that helps. There's tons of other useful information on that site. But really, nothing substitutes for simply enrolling in a biology class at the local community college.

If you really want your questions answered, please read the folowing:
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB925.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB805.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB300.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB110.html

Hope that helps. There's tons of other useful information on that site. But really, nothing substitutes for simply enrolling in a biology class at the local community college.

If you really want your questions answered, please read the folowing:
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB925.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB805.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB300.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB110.html

Hope that helps. There's tons of other useful information on that site. But really, nothing substitutes for simply enrolling in a biology class at the local community college.

If you really want your questions answered, please read the folowing:
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB925.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB805.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB300.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB110.html

Hope that helps. There's tons of other useful information on that site. But really, nothing substitutes for simply enrolling in a biology class at the local community college.

> Please show evidence of one species evolving into a new distinct species.

Been there, done that:

http://talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/section5.html# speciations

I'm not naive enough to think you actually want to see the evidence, but here it is anyways: Evidence for speciation.

Uh... don't facts have to be supported by evidence? If evolution is "fact" then where is the evidence?

Uh...did you sleep through biology? Ok, maybe you went to school in Kansas, or were homeschooled by parents determined to keep you ignorant, sorry about that.

May I recommend the talk.origins archive to catch you up on the science you unfortunately missed out on? Happy reading!

Could you please cite some of this "overwhelming evidence" instead of just pretending it is so obvious that you don't need too?

Oh, why not.

29+ Evidences for Macroevolution.

Most people base their belief in the cult of evolutionism from what they read in high school and from other various "proofs" like this story, which is pretty far-fetched.

Of course. Most people on both sides base their beliefs on what they are taught as children. So? That many people misunderstand the evidence does not mean there is no good evidence to be found.

As for this far-fetched proof: this story was not offered as a proof, and is far-fetched, and is not accepted by most evolutionists. Attacking it (or even refuting it) in no way affects the long-standing evidence for evolution. This was merely one possible suggestion of selection pressures on humanity's ancestors, and not a particularly good one.

For example, millions of tiny chance mutations occurred that suddenly transformed into improved vision and larger brains because snakes were attacking primates.

Your understanding of natural selection is not even remotely accurate. If you're going to criticize something so aggressively, you should make sure your critiques reflect the real state of the field. These do not. The myth that there is no way to build effective vision incrementally has been debunked: we basically know how it was done, and each step was comparatively small. And the snake issue is just one person, and it's insulting to attack an entire field based on one person's suggestion, regardless of it's quality. I could suggest that fear of clowns contributed to human evolution, but that wouldn't invalidate evolution, it just means I'm a wacko.

Do you want me to just assume that this miracle happened, with no proof besides some "scientist" said that it did?

I don't know what the scare quotes are for, but do you want me to accept creationism with no proof besides some "book" said that it did? In the case of evolution, no, you're perfectly welcome to view the evidence, read the papers and so on to see why the scientists said that. Your failure to investigate further does not mean that scientists have no reasons for their opinions.

That sounds more like blind faith than any religion I have ever heard of.

I agree. Fortunately, your caricature in no way resembles the actual state of evolutionary science, so that's not really relevant to this debate.

> Likewise, it's thought that life itself somehow or other "popped out of" non-living chemicals, despite the fact that nobody has ever been able to replicate this "accident of nature".

. . . *yet*.

Bear in mind that, according to most evolution scientists, life on Earth had its origins in the "primordial soup" of the ancient oceans, which would constitute the Biggest Friggin' Petri Dish Ever. That's a hell of a sandbox to play around in, and as long as you aren't in a hurry (let's say a few million years, give or take a millennium) you could come up with any number of viable, self-replicating molecules.

Note my specific wording above: "life on Earth *had its origins in* the 'primordial soup'" in the form of "self-replicating molecules" -- which does NOT imply that complete single-cell organisms or even entire DNA strands just "popped out of" nothing by pure chance. No one in the evolutionary science field has stated otherwise, and evolution does not require the abrupt appearance of The First Amoeba/DNA as the definitive event that kicked off the whole process!

In all likelihood, life as we know it was preceeded by a much more primitive "proto-life" which had some *but not all* of the defining characteristics of life. By logical extension (reduction?) the very first proto-life form would have been nothing more than a simple replicator:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-misconceptions .html

> Nor is abiogenesis (the origin of the first life) due purely to chance. Atoms and molecules arrange themselves not purely randomly, but according to their chemical properties. In the case of carbon atoms especially, this means complex molecules are sure to form spontaneously, and these complex molecules can influence each other to create even more complex molecules. Once a molecule forms that is approximately self-replicating, natural selection will guide the formation of ever more efficient replicators. The first self-replicating object didn't need to be as complex as a modern cell or even a strand of DNA. Some self-replicating molecules are not really all that complex (as organic molecules go).
>
> Some people still argue that it is wildly improbable for a given self-replicating molecule to form at a given point (although they usually don't state the "givens," but leave them implicit in their calculations). This is true, but there were oceans of molecules working on the problem, and no one knows how many possible self-replicating molecules could have served as the first one. A calculation of the odds of abiogenesis is worthless unless it recognizes the immense range of starting materials that the first replicator might have formed from, the probably innumerable different forms that the first replicator might have taken, and the fact that much of the construction of the replicating molecule would have been non-random to start with.

Real scientists are quite likely to intentionally avoid saying things that would "give aid and comfort to the enemy", and given the way "official christians" have been behaving recently, they are very likely to be seen as "the enemy".

... And Ironicly Darwin, himself, professed Christianity later in his life. This statement is three times wrong. First, it has nothing to do with the explanatory power of any Theory of Evolution. Second, it is a lie. It's probably some vague misstatement of the "Lady Hope" story, which has been debunked almost since it began. (For more details, you can check the talk.origins archive story. http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/hope.html). I'll leave the third out, lest I be cursed with more spelling problems than usual.

There currently are efforts underway to clone the wooly mammoth, which you can read about in the National Geographic

You can read about neanderthals from a number of different sites, wikipedia has a pretty decent page, as does talkorigins on hominid evolution in general. Reconstructing the neanderthal genome will be of great interest to science and medicine. Based on the morphology of the fossil remains and their location chronologically, evolution makes some very specific predictions about what that reconstructed genome should look like. It should be highly similar to modern H. sapiens sapiens, much more so than the couple of percent difference between our genome and chimps. If it isn't, then the theory of evolution has a very bad problem. There will not be any spin about it one way or another from the scientific community--just facts and reasonable interpretation. The neanderthal genome, if reconstructed, will also be informative on some issues such as whether or not they interbreed with H. sapiens sapiens, time of divergence with the same, and may also provide highly detailed information about their ability to speak and possibly higher brain function, which will likely be of medical interest.

No, what'll be more "histericcal" is how leading Intelligent Design pushers/Creationists will spin yet another blow to their superstition.

Something tells me that this summer isn't quite the time to be visiting Maryland.

they found an old duck

No, they found a new form that has some traits that ducks have. If it walks like a duck but doesn't quack like a duck, then it could be a predecessor to a duck.

can somebody please help me out figure out why the story title says "Scientists Find Missing Link in Bird Evolution". Thanks.

Because they found a signifigant transitional form. Not only is it not a duck, it fails to have many of the current defining traits of birds. It has a mix of traits - some primitive traits of proto-birds and some traits of modern birds. If we had a perfect record of every animal that ever lived, you could put together a perfect string with each modern trait appearing one at a time, and each primitive trait dissapearing one at a time. Of course we don't have a perfect record of every animal that ever lived. We only get a rare random sampling. Given say 100 primitive features of proto-birds and 100 defining features of modern birds, we will find fossils for ...say... 10 transitional forms. That means that you'd see around 10 old traits dissappear and around 10 modern traits newly evolved at each step. But again, as this is a random sampling sometimes you'll have two samples close togther followed by a double size gap. You might have a step where 20 modern traits appear all at once. Well, when you have a larger than average gap and you discover a new fossil right in the middle... that gets billed as a "missing link". Instead of a big gap with 20 new traits appearing all at once, you now have two average gaps with only 10 new traits evolving in each half. And when you find the two "missing links" for those two gaps, you then see evolution in action with only five newly evolved traits at each snapshot step.

The linked article was not the techincal scientific paper, it was layman news coverage. So it did not go into the excruciating detail of the hundred-odd anatomical traits in the sequence from dinosaur to modern bird. Just to note one example of what I mean, all reptiles and dinosaurs and primative proto-birds have their spine attached to their skull from the rear. All modern birds have a reversed attachment, with their spine attaching to the skull from below. There is one particular point in the fossil sequence where you see individual evolutionarly step of reversing the way the spine attaches to the skull. When you examine a hundred-odd little traits like that, the fossils line up in a beautiful string of transitional forms, seeing just a few traits changing at each step. Each fossil being a reasonably small step transitional between the older fossil before it and the newer fossil after it.

I am not aware of any link to a detailed listing and analysis of the traits of this new specimen, but anyone who is interested or has questions about this "transitional" stuff should look at this excellent and detailed coverage of archaeopteryx, explaining how and why it is a transitional between reptiles and birds, and that archaeopteryx is far more reptile than bird.

-

The article throws out a date of 110 million years. It should be noted that carbon-14 has a half-life of 5730 years and should be fully decayed in ancient fossils. However small quantities of C-14 that has not fully decayed are still found in ancient fossils.

Where is it stated that Carbon-14 dating was used to derive the age of the fossil? The article makes no mention of it; presumably a different dating technique was used that does not have the same limitations as Carbon-14 dating. It would appear that your commentary is a non-sequitur.

Often evolutionists choose the dating technique that fits the picture they have in their minds. For example, 200 year old lava flows have been dated to be 3 billion years old by the potassium-argon dating method.

This is another example of creationists distorting facts

http://www.talkorigins.org/
http://www.ebonmusings.org/evolution/index.html

Heck, if you want to debate on a forum, feel free to drop by iidb.org . They've got plenty of folks who will debate you till the cows come home.

As if your arguments weren't absurd enough we can still see your ingrained dishonesty from the mined quotes you chose to tack on.

Regarding Dr Collin Patterson, let's see what Talk Origins says about him. Ooops, you totally misrepresented what he said. There's a surprise.

And now Stephen Jay Gould. Oh yes you quote mined him too. There's another surprise.

Intellectual dishonesty seems to be a hallmark of the ID movement.

As if your arguments weren't absurd enough we can still see your ingrained dishonesty from the mined quotes you chose to tack on.

Regarding Dr Collin Patterson, let's see what Talk Origins says about him. Ooops, you totally misrepresented what he said. There's a surprise.

And now Stephen Jay Gould. Oh yes you quote mined him too. There's another surprise.

Intellectual dishonesty seems to be a hallmark of the ID movement.

Oooh! You've come up with a new one, boy you sure showed me. Not.

There's even been discoveries that humans actually co-existed with dinosaurs.

I'm sorry, one of the links is wrong.

The slashdot.org link should be http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB110.html

Once again, all credit (and many thanks)to: http://www.talkorigins.org/

I'm sorry, one of the links is wrong.

The slashdot.org link should be http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB110.html

Once again, all credit (and many thanks)to: http://www.talkorigins.org/

Reshuffling requires random acts... when's the last time you conciously reshuffled your genes? Reshuffling is not evolution. Evolution ultimately teaches creation of new information, something never demonstrated by evolutionists. Besides, most reshuffling results in loss of information. For each step in the process, and whenever an evolutionist finds more detail about how something works in nature, that person should be required to calculate the probability of that particular detail evolving, and combining that with the probablility of everything else evolving, to put everything in perspective. ...Not that that would help. Your beginning premise is flawed anyhow.

From: http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB102.html

Claim CB102: Mutations are random noise; they do not add information. Evolution cannot cause an increase in information.

Source:
AIG, n.d. Creation Education Center. http://www.answersingenesis.org/cec/docs/CvE_repor t.asp

Response:

1. It is hard to understand how anyone could make this claim, since anything mutations can do, mutations can undo. Some mutations add information to a genome; some subtract it. Creationists get by with this claim only by leaving the term "information" undefined, impossibly vague, or constantly shifting. By any reasonable definition, increases in information have been observed to evolve. We have observed the evolution of
   • increased genetic variety in a population (Lenski 1995; Lenski et al. 1991)
   • increased genetic material (Alves et al. 2001; Brown et al. 1998; Hughes and Friedman 2003; Lynch and Conery 2000; Ohta 2003)
   • novel genetic material (Knox et al. 1996; Park et al. 1996)
   • novel genetically-regulated abilities (Prijambada et al. 1995)

   If these do not qualify as information, then nothing about information is relevant to evolution in the first place.

2. A mechanism that is likely to be particularly common for adding information is gene duplication, in which a long stretch of DNA is copied, followed by point mutations that change one or both of the copies. Genetic sequencing has revealed several instances in which this is likely the origin of some proteins. For example:
   • Two enzymes in the histidine biosynthesis pathway that are barrel-shaped, structural and sequence evidence suggests, were formed via gene duplication and fusion of two half-barrel ancestors (Lang et al. 2000).
   • RNASE1, a gene for a pancreatic enzyme, was duplicated, and in langur monkeys one of the copies mutated into RNASE1B, which works better in the more acidic small intestine of the langur. (Zhang et al. 2002)
   • Yeast was put in a medium with very little sugar. After 450 generations, hexose transport genes had duplicated several times, and some of the duplicated versions had mutated further. (Brown et al. 1998)

   The biological literature is full of additional examples. A PubMed search (at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi) on "gene duplication" gives more than 3000 references.

3. According to Shannon-Weaver information theory, random noise maximizes information. This is not just playing word games. The random variation that mutations add to populations is the variation on which selection acts. Mutation alone will not cause adaptive evolution, but by eliminating nonadaptive variation, natural selection communicates info

You conviently ignored explaining angular unconformities. I like angular uncomformities as a demonstration of old earth as you can walk right up to them and see them with your own eyes and there is little room for "interperation".

A flood very well explains marine deposits thousands of feet above sea level.

I can see that you are not up on the creationist literature. Creationist employ a mechanism called hydrological sorting to explain the sorting that is seen in the fossil record. For example why are no large modern mammal fossils found with dinosaur fossils. You are proposing the opposite of hyrdrological sorting where things are all mixed up and marine fossils are sitting on top of mountains. If that was the case then why not a single instance of a primate fossil in the same bed with a dinosaur? Also keep in mind many of these high elevation beds have signs of Bioturbation. These indications are present over many feet indicating that these organism where not buried and deposited but living in an slowly accumalating depositional zone.

You also ignored the fact that the Grand Canyon is layered with rock of different origins - limestone, sandstone, shale, igneous. How are these layed down by a single super flood. Some of these a layers are cross bedded sandstone, some are wind blown, some have raindrop marks, some have animal tracks and some have fossils.

More example of old earth? Magnetic reversals demonstrated on the spreading seafloor. Documenting long periods of time catching the reversal of the earths magnetic dipole as molten rock is layed down on the seafloor. Or how about ice core samples documenting seasonal transitions tens to several hundred thousands of years. Or large and thick geological deposits that consist primarily of tiny organism fossils such as diotomaceous chert, chalk and many limestones. Or layering of basalt with deposition in between. For example in which one of the these layers represents the global flood.

There sure is some willful denial going on here. I recommend you do some study and scratch in the earth yourself instead of just believing what supports your preconcieved notions and suppositions.

You are not worth debating this because you ignore the hard parts and spout off on tangents. For example you say For anyone to claim that such an event that from a physics standpoint probably cannot be measured or fathomed Are you saying that the flood existed outside of physics? Believe me if you look at the events that occur out in the cosmos such as supernova, solar flares, black holes, star collisions, planet collisions, a flood on a small planet is a tiny event by comparison.

It is you that shrinks God down to puny human size by having to believe in a creation story that a child can see as a fairy story a metaphor at best. Present day young earthers are akin to flat earthers or those who had to believe in geocentric earth. The concept of the earth rotating around the sun was at one time heresy. Good day.

The fossil "Nebraska Man" is found. Scientifically built up from a single tooth, 44 years later it was found that the tooth belonged to a pig.

You are obviously misinformed regarding the history of the Nebraska Man find. It was located in 1922, but even the man who found it and originally believed it to be a hominid tooth expressed doubts by 1925, and it was well-known to be a pig's tooth in 1928. That is not a 44-year time span, as you claim. That you are so misinformed on the subject suggests that you have not done any serious research in the study of human origins and the related hominid fossil finds.

News flash 1912: Missing Link Found

The fossil "Piltdown Man" is found. Remains claimed to be 500,000 years old. Cited for decades as proof of evolution. Over 500 doctoral dissertations were written. In 1956 the hoax was revealed. Scientifically built up from a jawbone, it was found that the jawbone belonged to a modem ape.

This again demonstrates a lack of research. It is true that Piltdown Man was a hoax, and it did take some time to expose it, but that is because very few scientists were allowed to examine the find until the mid 1950s. Moreover, it appears as though you are drawing research from known creationist falsehoods. I have attempted to locate even a fraction of the "over 500 doctoral dissertations" written on Piltdown man, yet not one creationist who has made the claim has been able to reference a single one. In fact, I have discovered that there were very likely no dissertations written on the subject at all (please feel free to correct me if you have a reference to an actual doctoral dissertation).

News flash ~1900: Missing Link Found

The fossil "Neanderthal Man" is found. Over 40 years later it was discovered that the skeleton was from an old man that suffered from severe arthritis.

This is completely false. No mainstream researcher has drawn such a conclusion.

"Lucy" turned out to be a chimpanzee

This claim is also false. It appears that you are obtaining information from either Kent Hovind or Jack Chick. Neither are a reliable source of information on the subject of evolution.

"New Guinea Man" turned out to be from 1970

New Guinea Man is approximately 5000 years old, and was never believed to be anything other than a modern human. It has never been presented as a transitional form.

"Peking Man" claimed to be 500,00 years old and all evidence disappeared

It appears obvious now that you have taken your information from Jack Chick's "Big Daddy" tract. You should be aware that Big Daddy is filled with factual errors and blatant misrepresentations, and constructing an argument based upon the information found in that tract will not yeild a convincing case. Information based upon Peking Man that is not a complete fabrication can be found here.

The fossil "Nebraska Man" is found. Scientifically built up from a single tooth, 44 years later it was found that the tooth belonged to a pig.

You are obviously misinformed regarding the history of the Nebraska Man find. It was located in 1922, but even the man who found it and originally believed it to be a hominid tooth expressed doubts by 1925, and it was well-known to be a pig's tooth in 1928. That is not a 44-year time span, as you claim. That you are so misinformed on the subject suggests that you have not done any serious research in the study of human origins and the related hominid fossil finds.

News flash 1912: Missing Link Found

The fossil "Piltdown Man" is found. Remains claimed to be 500,000 years old. Cited for decades as proof of evolution. Over 500 doctoral dissertations were written. In 1956 the hoax was revealed. Scientifically built up from a jawbone, it was found that the jawbone belonged to a modem ape.

This again demonstrates a lack of research. It is true that Piltdown Man was a hoax, and it did take some time to expose it, but that is because very few scientists were allowed to examine the find until the mid 1950s. Moreover, it appears as though you are drawing research from known creationist falsehoods. I have attempted to locate even a fraction of the "over 500 doctoral dissertations" written on Piltdown man, yet not one creationist who has made the claim has been able to reference a single one. In fact, I have discovered that there were very likely no dissertations written on the subject at all (please feel free to correct me if you have a reference to an actual doctoral dissertation).

News flash ~1900: Missing Link Found

The fossil "Neanderthal Man" is found. Over 40 years later it was discovered that the skeleton was from an old man that suffered from severe arthritis.

This is completely false. No mainstream researcher has drawn such a conclusion.

"Lucy" turned out to be a chimpanzee

This claim is also false. It appears that you are obtaining information from either Kent Hovind or Jack Chick. Neither are a reliable source of information on the subject of evolution.

"New Guinea Man" turned out to be from 1970

New Guinea Man is approximately 5000 years old, and was never believed to be anything other than a modern human. It has never been presented as a transitional form.

"Peking Man" claimed to be 500,00 years old and all evidence disappeared

It appears obvious now that you have taken your information from Jack Chick's "Big Daddy" tract. You should be aware that Big Daddy is filled with factual errors and blatant misrepresentations, and constructing an argument based upon the information found in that tract will not yeild a convincing case. Information based upon Peking Man that is not a complete fabrication can be found here.

The fossil "Nebraska Man" is found. Scientifically built up from a single tooth, 44 years later it was found that the tooth belonged to a pig.

You are obviously misinformed regarding the history of the Nebraska Man find. It was located in 1922, but even the man who found it and originally believed it to be a hominid tooth expressed doubts by 1925, and it was well-known to be a pig's tooth in 1928. That is not a 44-year time span, as you claim. That you are so misinformed on the subject suggests that you have not done any serious research in the study of human origins and the related hominid fossil finds.

News flash 1912: Missing Link Found

The fossil "Piltdown Man" is found. Remains claimed to be 500,000 years old. Cited for decades as proof of evolution. Over 500 doctoral dissertations were written. In 1956 the hoax was revealed. Scientifically built up from a jawbone, it was found that the jawbone belonged to a modem ape.

This again demonstrates a lack of research. It is true that Piltdown Man was a hoax, and it did take some time to expose it, but that is because very few scientists were allowed to examine the find until the mid 1950s. Moreover, it appears as though you are drawing research from known creationist falsehoods. I have attempted to locate even a fraction of the "over 500 doctoral dissertations" written on Piltdown man, yet not one creationist who has made the claim has been able to reference a single one. In fact, I have discovered that there were very likely no dissertations written on the subject at all (please feel free to correct me if you have a reference to an actual doctoral dissertation).

News flash ~1900: Missing Link Found

The fossil "Neanderthal Man" is found. Over 40 years later it was discovered that the skeleton was from an old man that suffered from severe arthritis.

This is completely false. No mainstream researcher has drawn such a conclusion.

"Lucy" turned out to be a chimpanzee

This claim is also false. It appears that you are obtaining information from either Kent Hovind or Jack Chick. Neither are a reliable source of information on the subject of evolution.

"New Guinea Man" turned out to be from 1970

New Guinea Man is approximately 5000 years old, and was never believed to be anything other than a modern human. It has never been presented as a transitional form.

"Peking Man" claimed to be 500,00 years old and all evidence disappeared

It appears obvious now that you have taken your information from Jack Chick's "Big Daddy" tract. You should be aware that Big Daddy is filled with factual errors and blatant misrepresentations, and constructing an argument based upon the information found in that tract will not yeild a convincing case. Information based upon Peking Man that is not a complete fabrication can be found here.

The fossil "Nebraska Man" is found. Scientifically built up from a single tooth, 44 years later it was found that the tooth belonged to a pig.

You are obviously misinformed regarding the history of the Nebraska Man find. It was located in 1922, but even the man who found it and originally believed it to be a hominid tooth expressed doubts by 1925, and it was well-known to be a pig's tooth in 1928. That is not a 44-year time span, as you claim. That you are so misinformed on the subject suggests that you have not done any serious research in the study of human origins and the related hominid fossil finds.

News flash 1912: Missing Link Found

The fossil "Piltdown Man" is found. Remains claimed to be 500,000 years old. Cited for decades as proof of evolution. Over 500 doctoral dissertations were written. In 1956 the hoax was revealed. Scientifically built up from a jawbone, it was found that the jawbone belonged to a modem ape.

This again demonstrates a lack of research. It is true that Piltdown Man was a hoax, and it did take some time to expose it, but that is because very few scientists were allowed to examine the find until the mid 1950s. Moreover, it appears as though you are drawing research from known creationist falsehoods. I have attempted to locate even a fraction of the "over 500 doctoral dissertations" written on Piltdown man, yet not one creationist who has made the claim has been able to reference a single one. In fact, I have discovered that there were very likely no dissertations written on the subject at all (please feel free to correct me if you have a reference to an actual doctoral dissertation).

News flash ~1900: Missing Link Found

The fossil "Neanderthal Man" is found. Over 40 years later it was discovered that the skeleton was from an old man that suffered from severe arthritis.

This is completely false. No mainstream researcher has drawn such a conclusion.

"Lucy" turned out to be a chimpanzee

This claim is also false. It appears that you are obtaining information from either Kent Hovind or Jack Chick. Neither are a reliable source of information on the subject of evolution.

"New Guinea Man" turned out to be from 1970

New Guinea Man is approximately 5000 years old, and was never believed to be anything other than a modern human. It has never been presented as a transitional form.

"Peking Man" claimed to be 500,00 years old and all evidence disappeared

It appears obvious now that you have taken your information from Jack Chick's "Big Daddy" tract. You should be aware that Big Daddy is filled with factual errors and blatant misrepresentations, and constructing an argument based upon the information found in that tract will not yeild a convincing case. Information based upon Peking Man that is not a complete fabrication can be found here.

The fossil "Nebraska Man" is found. Scientifically built up from a single tooth, 44 years later it was found that the tooth belonged to a pig.

You are obviously misinformed regarding the history of the Nebraska Man find. It was located in 1922, but even the man who found it and originally believed it to be a hominid tooth expressed doubts by 1925, and it was well-known to be a pig's tooth in 1928. That is not a 44-year time span, as you claim. That you are so misinformed on the subject suggests that you have not done any serious research in the study of human origins and the related hominid fossil finds.

News flash 1912: Missing Link Found

The fossil "Piltdown Man" is found. Remains claimed to be 500,000 years old. Cited for decades as proof of evolution. Over 500 doctoral dissertations were written. In 1956 the hoax was revealed. Scientifically built up from a jawbone, it was found that the jawbone belonged to a modem ape.

This again demonstrates a lack of research. It is true that Piltdown Man was a hoax, and it did take some time to expose it, but that is because very few scientists were allowed to examine the find until the mid 1950s. Moreover, it appears as though you are drawing research from known creationist falsehoods. I have attempted to locate even a fraction of the "over 500 doctoral dissertations" written on Piltdown man, yet not one creationist who has made the claim has been able to reference a single one. In fact, I have discovered that there were very likely no dissertations written on the subject at all (please feel free to correct me if you have a reference to an actual doctoral dissertation).

News flash ~1900: Missing Link Found

The fossil "Neanderthal Man" is found. Over 40 years later it was discovered that the skeleton was from an old man that suffered from severe arthritis.

This is completely false. No mainstream researcher has drawn such a conclusion.

"Lucy" turned out to be a chimpanzee

This claim is also false. It appears that you are obtaining information from either Kent Hovind or Jack Chick. Neither are a reliable source of information on the subject of evolution.

"New Guinea Man" turned out to be from 1970

New Guinea Man is approximately 5000 years old, and was never believed to be anything other than a modern human. It has never been presented as a transitional form.

"Peking Man" claimed to be 500,00 years old and all evidence disappeared

It appears obvious now that you have taken your information from Jack Chick's "Big Daddy" tract. You should be aware that Big Daddy is filled with factual errors and blatant misrepresentations, and constructing an argument based upon the information found in that tract will not yeild a convincing case. Information based upon Peking Man that is not a complete fabrication can be found here.

Because your post was a reply to me and it said...

No, it was a reply to another who asked what relevance the existence of one or two frauds has to the vast amounts of real, non-fraudulent evidence. I was providing an anecdotal explanation from a situation where another creationist claimed that the existence of even one fraud conclusively disproved evolution.

You want references to textbook and articles that taught Nebraska Man? One textbook is "Fossil Men: A Textbook of Human Palaeontology" 1957.

Why do you believe that this reference is a source that supports your claim? It does not. The textbook that you reference published a story about how Nebraska Man was a mistaken find based upon a pig's tooth. It did not, as you claim, present Nebraska Man as a legitimate find with pictures of what Nebraska Man looked like.

The truth be told, it was in *all* the textbooks at the time of the Scopes trial and the judge was even questioned as to whether or not it should be admitted as evidence. He declined because the trial was not supposed to be about whether evolution was true or not, but what a particular teacher has taught in a particular classroom.

You again appear misinformed regarding the facts.

Articles were published in Scientific American, The NY Times, and the French L'Anthropologie.

You claimed that articles were written describing "how Nebraska man lived". These articles did nothing of the sort. The articles in the respective publications specifically stated that the find was a pig tooth. This contradicts your previous claim.

Simply denying that fraud was perpetrated by evolutionists does not make it go away.

Nebraska Man was not a fraud. It was speculation on a find that did not pan out. There was never any deliberate attempt at deception involved. Even the man who found the tooth acknowledged skepticism regarding whether or not it was a hominid. Repeatedly claiming that Nebraska Man was a fraud only demonstrates that you are not only not misinformed regarding the situation, but that you are willfully passing on misinformation even after you have been corrected on the subject.

Nor that it has been perpetrated again and again in order to promote a *belief* that is as much as religion as any other.

Evolution is a theory supported by evidence. Citing one mistaken find and inaccurately calling it fraud does not make it a religious belief.

There's Orce Man, the Piltdown Skull, and Java man to name just a few.

Piltdown Man was a hoax that made no sense in light of legitimate hominid finds. It represents fraud committed by one individual or a small group of individuals, not of researches of evolution as a whole. Java Man was not a fraud, and only creationists claim that it was. Ocre Man is not a fraud.

Evolutionists have never had a problem with fraud so long as it gets them to the conclusion they want.

Thus far you have cited exactly one incident of fraud. Nebraska Man was not fraud, and was of no significance. Only creationists claim that Nebraska Man is anything more than a footnote in the history of homonid research. Thus far all actual frauds -- two -- have been exposed by other researchers working in the field, not by creation scientists.

There's Orce Man, the Piltdown Skull, and Java man to name just a few.

Piltdown Man was a hoax that made no sense in light of legitimate hominid finds. It represents fraud committed by one individual or a small group of individuals, not of researches of evolution as a whole. Java Man was not a fraud, and only creationists claim that it was. Ocre Man is not a fraud.

Evolutionists have never had a problem with fraud so long as it gets them to the conclusion they want.

Thus far you have cited exactly one incident of fraud. Nebraska Man was not fraud, and was of no significance. Only creationists claim that Nebraska Man is anything more than a footnote in the history of homonid research. Thus far all actual frauds -- two -- have been exposed by other researchers working in the field, not by creation scientists.

That's evident by looking dogs, or horses, etc... I think what I'm looking for is an actual instance where we can show that a species mutated in such way that we would begin to classify it differently.

So you are seeking Observed Instances of Speciation?

Consider that the plants are still Coca because they are defined that way. Names of species are all just groupings based on what people saw, afterall.

As for chromosome counts changing, a quick look gives me these links.

Consider that the plants are still Coca because they are defined that way. Names of species are all just groupings based on what people saw, afterall.

As for chromosome counts changing, a quick look gives me these links.

In all seriousness, and not trying to be sarcastic, where is the example of good mutation?

How about a mutation that results in a decreased risk of arteriosclerosis, heart attack, and stroke?

I reply to an anonymous (and vapid) coward only to note that I failed to distinguish between the proper scientific use of the term "macroevolution" and the creationist drivel use of the term, with which the parent AC seems enamored.

Here is a brief explanation, from a different section of my favorite FAQ, that describes the difference:

"Microevolution and macroevolution are different things, but they involve mostly the same processes. Microevolution is defined as the change of allele frequencies (that is, genetic variation due to processes such as selection, mutation, genetic drift, or even migration) within a population. There is no argument that microevolution happens (although some creationists, such as Wallace, deny that mutations happen). Macroevolution is defined as evolutionary change at the species level or higher, that is, the formation of new species, new genera, and so forth. Speciation has also been observed.

Creationists have created another category for which they use the word "macroevolution." They have no technical definition of it, but in practice they use it to mean evolution to an extent great enough that it has not been observed yet."

It is, in the classic creationist style, redefining terms in order to minimize the damage done by actual science to predetermined conclusions.

Now, this is probably a generalization that doesn't always hold true, but my experiance is that I have yet to hear a satisfactory layman-friendly account of the sheer volume of evidence that they have.