Skeptics, Where Is Your Evolution History?

@jackieash If evolution was happening, it seems like that with the millions of animals on the planet, that in the 5000 years or so we have been writing things, at least one creature evolving into something else would have been documented. A lizard morphing into a bird, something. There should be creatures in mid evolution all around us, we see adaptations, but not evolving species, not one. When did evolution stop? Why isn't it going on now?

@Roadsterrider Evolution hasn't stopped. It's ongoing. Humans are evolving. It might not be noticeable in one lifetime, but it is ongoing.

@jackieash I am not talking about one lifetime, Since Darwin made his observations, The Origin of Species was published in 1859, 160 years ago, for 160 years scientists have been working on evidence to support the theory. It seems like with so much attention on it, there would be some critter that has been observed that is at a mid point in evolution. There are adaptations documented in the last 160 years, but in all of recorded history, there is no animal that has "evolved" into something else. Unless evolution has stopped, we should see examples.

@Roadsterrider Evolution has not stopped. THere are so many factors that contribute to how we have the creatures we have; many of those factors are to do with envionmental changes, and how the main species has adapted to the change in its environment. But it is a slow progress; sub speces develop over generations to adapt accordingly, but new species of plants and animals do ermerge, and we hear about them. Very often, it is with hindsight, but there are new genus of creatures being discovered that have evolved from a main species to sub species. THis is how evolution works. It is how humans evolved from other primates, but those other primates still exist. Our subspecies developed and adapted. THere is simply no evidence ofhow humans came about by any other means, and certainly not from mounds of soil.

@Roadsterrider

[quote]If evolution was happening, it seems like that with the millions of animals on the planet, that in the 5000 years or so we have been writing things, at least one creature evolving into something else would have been documented. [/quote]

Well for starters, it's a bit silly to expect a) to see the kind of change you're talking about in such a brief time span and b) that people would have have kept track of one kind of animal over successive human generations and noted that it was now different.
lol Like how would they distinguish between one group of animals changing radically and simply having encountered a new animal?
And are you really expecting to see an iguana with a bird wing or something? Because that's not how evolution works.

But again, the timescale for say, dinosaurs evolving into modern birds is not 5 thousand years or 10 thousand years. It's millions of years. I understand that it's hard to hold that kind of time frame in your head.

[quote]Unless evolution has stopped, we should see examples.
[/quote]

But we do see it and intermediary stages surround us. Lizards that have grown new organs in their digestive tract to process plant matter, yeast that has made the leap from being singled celled to multicellular, fish that can breath air and walk on land.

Here's the thing: If you accept that animal populations can adapt over time and that if two populations are separated they may adapt in different ways and that adaptations may compound until those two populations can no longer interbreed...then you've got evolution.

An this isn't even going into the evidence of the fossil record or the genome.

@jackieash @Pikachu [quote]Anyone come across a talking snake?[/quote]

What's your belief in talking snakes got to do with you finding an alternative account to the account in the Word of God?

@Pikachu In the millions of creatures inhabiting the planet, it seems very unlikely, considering size, complexities, geographical areas, climate and other factors, that they would be an absence of even one over a few thousand years.

@Roadsterrider

I think i've already explained where this description is in error.
There's not good reason to suppose that people should have been keeping close track of emerging forms, the time scale you cite is far too short to produce the sorts of changes you're suggesting should be catalogued and (most importantly) THERE ARE MANY EXTANT AND EXTINCT EXAMPLES OF ANIMALS INTERMEDIATE BETWEEN OTHER EOVLUTIONARY STAGES.

I feel you did not adequately respond to my arguments.
Please do take the time to make a more engaged effort if you're genuinely interested in this topic.

If you're being honest, i want you to respond to this as earnestly as you are able:

[b][i][c=800000] If you accept that animal populations can adapt over time and that if two populations are separated they may adapt in different ways and that adaptations may compound until those two populations can no longer interbreed...then you've got evolution.
[/c][/i][/b]

Do you have any objection to that?

@Roadsterrider mankind is 'one critter' that has shown evolutionary development.
As a species, we are getting taller, more hairless, more sensitive to the sun, and many other micro changes only seen in our genomes and DNA.

On the timeline of earths history, mankind is only a recent development.
If it that timeline was a clock, we.would have only come into existence in the last minute .
Evolution typically takes eons and eons to create significant visual and structural change in a species .

If you seek evidence, the best visual example is us , and our average size.
Our species has made considerable evolutionary change as a whole in our height. In the last thousand years we have grown taller by an inch or two.

@Nunatak I was always amazed at how small the clothing of people from the past were. In the airport in Harrisburg, there is a military uniform that belonged to a soldier from PA, it looks like something a 12 year old could wear. In the museums I have been in, the same thing is true, much smaller framed people. That is adaptation though, not evolution. People today have better healthcare and more abundant food and less physical activity, we grow larger than our predecessors. That isn't just humans, my dog had puppies, I kept one of them and gave the rest away, I fed my puppy per recommendations from the vet, a friend who took another of the pups put out a bowl and let his pup self feed. Pretty soon he was bigger than my pup. Again, it is adaptation, not evolution. We have no record of an animal evolving into another, when animals can no longer compete, they become extinct, not change into something else. This can't be disproved by written history nor can it be disproved by the fossil record.

@Roadsterrider Evolution is affected by many things, ( and is sometimes just a random genetic freakism).
Food , environment, hardship, opportunity etc. So things like food supply, health, safety can be intruments of change over a long enough period .

Dont you think evolution is adaption ?

And youre right, we only have skeletal evidence of crearures, and assumptions from that evidence.
But if there is evidence of similar species, living at different times, with connectable characteristics that show a pattern of adaption, i think it has feasibility.
Otherwise we have to assume that when one species died, another entirely new species, similar to the first developed out of nowhere to take its place.
This seems a more phantastical theory than evolution dont you think ?

Wouldn't it be easier for nature to slowly adapt a species to fit a changing environment, than have a brand new one come into being ?
Or are you saying that we had all these different variations of species, but only the fittest of them survived ?

I mean , if we were always the way we are now from the very beginning, why are we seeing evidence of change within our species happening ?

@Nunatak No, evolution is not adaptation. Evolving is turning into something different. Imagine trying to evolve in a world of huge dinosaurs, into a small warm-blooded mammal. That evolving animal would be prey to larger stronger beasts with almost no survivability at all.

Cave fish deep in underground rivers adapted to an environment where they didn't need eyes, they would starve if they relied on their eyes, over time they adapted to an environment where they didn't need them, but they didn't evolve into something else.

A pattern of adaption is one thing, evolving into a different species is something else. There is no fossil record of a dinosaur evolving into a bird, Pterodactyls may have adapted into the birds we have today, but a large bird evolving into smaller birds is more feasible that a brontosaurus evolving into a sparrow or even a condor.

We are seeing adaptation to our species because of our environment. we are no evolving into a different species, we may be larger, but we are still humans.

If we evolved from primates, why are primates still here? The animals from eons ago evolved into something else and became extinct, right?

@Roadsterrider
Has anyone mentioned that the key element of evolution is time ?
It could take millions of years to see the kind of changes you’re talking about. Plus, there’s the fact that evolution works on a population scale, so it’s not like you can pick out individual animals .

@Roadsterrider Exactly. And if man came from apes, why can't apes talk like people by now? 😂😂😂

@LadyGrace [quote] Exactly. And if man came from apes, why can't apes talk like people by now? [/quote]

Amen, sister. 🤣🤣🤣

@DocSavage [quote]Has anyone mentioned that the key element of evolution is time ?[/quote]

Which has never been proven, Doc. World views are not science.

@GodSpeed63
Yes it has, Chowder head. Time is not a world view. The bible is not a science book,
And you still owe me a light year.

@Roadsterrider there’s a reconstruction of the Mayflower at Plymouth MA built to the original specifications. The bunks are about five feet long.

@redredred And how is that proof that we evolved from another creature? That is evidence of adaptation, not evolution.

@Roadsterrider Well, it clearly suggests support for The point made earlier that humans have gotten taller over the years. Adaptation could easily be seen as support for evolution but the common everyday work in modern genetics labs is far more compelling.