Umm...

Originally posted by snowinscotland
OK. Take a good look at your family tree, if you can amass enough info try to go back for four generations. What you are looking for is the sixteen people on that line, ie your great great grandparents. Then look for all the people from there to here.

Okay. What does that tell me?

Originally posted by josephw
Okay. What does that tell me?

Any dead ends?

Originally posted by josephw
They, animals and crops, are not new "kinds" of animals and crops. A cow is a cow.

It's not evolution, it's mutation.

A cow is a cow, not quite, through selective breeding they've made certain horses faster, cows fatter certain others more adapted to hot/cold weather etc... and as for crops, many have been bread for fungal resistance etc.
Now I know this is driven by human hands, but if cows for example had emigrated a warmer climate on their own, the ones better suited to heat would have gained many advantages, including preferential breeding without our help. This in turn eventually produces a whole group of cows better suited to the heat. And given enough time and Isolation these cows would probably be unable to breed with cows from a completely different region. Which would in the end result in two completely separate populations of cow, in other words 2 species.

It's not evolution, it's mutation. What exactly is the difference when applied over extremely long periods of time? enlighten me please

Originally posted by snowinscotland
Any dead ends?

Sure.

Originally posted by josephw
They, animals and crops, are not new "kinds" of animals and crops. A cow is a cow.

It's not evolution, it's mutation.

What do you mean by "kind"? Please provide a rigorous definition before making claims based on it. The animals and crops are definitely new animals and crops and yes a cow is a cow, but what does that have to do with anything? An ape is an ape and so are you.
It is evolution and yes, mutation is involved. You cannot 'prove' or show or otherwise correctly claim that it is not evolution because it is evolution by definition.

twhitehead, i like the way i've only started posting here a few days back yet we're having discussion on that other thread where we're not exactly agreeing, yet here we're on very much the same side of the fence......

Do you just disagree with everyone on principal just to make sure they've thought about what they're saying? This isn't a criticism I tend to do the same thing.

Originally posted by Mexico
twhitehead, i like the way i've only started posting here a few days back yet we're having discussion on that other thread where we're not exactly agreeing, yet here we're on very much the same side of the fence......

Do you just disagree with everyone on principal just to make sure they've thought about what they're saying? This isn't a criticism I tend to do the same thing.

No, I do not disagree with everyone on principal. I disagree with everyone that I disagree with. I do not pretend to have views I do not actually hold. I also do not agree with anyone simply because I think they are on the same side of the fence as me. I am not inflexible however as it is not unusual for me to criticize someone and for them to correctly point out that I have misunderstood them or that I am wrong. I try to admit it when I am wrong (and it has been pointed out so I can see it).

Originally posted by josephw
Sure.

Now take a good look at the dead ends, and the differences between them and the others, especially photographs, and anything you know about them, or can find out. What are the differences between them and the ones who furthered the generations of Josephw's?

ZOMG. I should start a Museum of the Flying Spaghetti Monster to combat this blasphemy!

(Blessed be His Noodley Appendage!)

Originally posted by snowinscotland
Now take a good look at the dead ends, and the differences between them and the others, especially photographs, and anything you know about them, or can find out. What are the differences between them and the ones who furthered the generations of Josephw's?

I'm not sure what you mean by differences.

Originally posted by josephw
I'm not sure what you mean by differences.

Well, the best way to look at it is to take a pair of siblings, where one had offspring that survived to maturity and reproduction and one didn't.

Each had a set of genes, selected from the same two sets (leaving aside any social complications etc).

One set of genes, for whatever reason, was capable of reproduction. The other wasn't, or rather, didn't. When you look at them, what were these differences? If might not be obvious, or it might be very clear. Either way, the set that didn't is lost forever, in all probability. The set that reproduced, continues. That is natural selection for fitness for reproduction, or evolution, if you like.

Originally posted by snowinscotland
Well, the best way to look at it is to take a pair of siblings, where one had offspring that survived to maturity and reproduction and one didn't.

Each had a set of genes, selected from the same two sets (leaving aside any social complications etc).

One set of genes, for whatever reason, was capable of reproduction. The other wasn't, or rather, ...[text shortened]... ontinues. That is natural selection for fitness for reproduction, or evolution, if you like.

This is true of all living things. I don't see how labeling it as evolution or natural selection means that living things are evolving. I don't see the connection.

Originally posted by josephw
This is true of all living things. I don't see how labeling it as evolution or natural selection means that living things are evolving. I don't see the connection.

It means change you idiot. Living things change over time. Groups of humans develop immunity to particular diseases - that's an example of change over time.
Sure that's not a new species, but give it time ....

Originally posted by josephw
This is true of all living things. I don't see how labeling it as evolution or natural selection means that living things are evolving. I don't see the connection.

You are correct, in that all living things evolve. And this is how evolution works.

Perhaps it might be better if your grandfathers brother (for example) in the old picture had a rather big nose. Perhaps that was enough, just, to put off any prospective partner at the critical time, leaving him a bachelor, and thus ensuring that his genes (including his big nose) were lost forever.

Now look at the picture again. Here was a functional (we're guessing) human being who has not procreated, and so the gene pool has changed slightly, now being untroubled by your grandfather's brother's genes. Suble, but immensely powerful, because those genes have now been totally lost, whereas your grandfather's genes, not quite having the same big nose, have successfully propagated, and some will reside in you.

Is this little step in evolution something you understand?

Originally posted by josephw

The scientific elite have spent the last 2 centuries developing a theory the whole world has fallen prey to.

Surely not everyone. Merely those not initially so beholden to a set of peculiar metaphysical beliefs that subsequent open-minded inference is impossible.