Evolution to the uneducated

[sacrosanct]

It is often incredibly difficult to debate with people who “don’t believe in evolution”. The principle reason is a total lack of understanding concerning the terms, concepts, and theories around evolution. My main questions for the gathered here is “Why do all of these things get lumped into Evolution as well as argued that one must necessitate another.”

The following is a good starter document for both creationist and anti-creationist alike. If people simply disregard these points, there isn’t anything you can talk to them about. There is simply no way to discuss or debate evolution and intelligent design/creationism if these points are ignored. You shouldn’t let your debating opponent drag your efforts off topic by not understanding what you are talking about.

Abiogenesis - In the natural sciences, abiogenesis, the question of the origin of life, is the study of how life on Earth might have emerged from non-life. Scientific consensus is that abiogenesis occurred sometime between 4.4 billion years ago, when water vapor first liquefied,[2] and 2.7 billion years ago, when the ratio of stable isotopes of carbon (12C and 13C), iron (56Fe, 57Fe, and 58Fe) and sulfur (32S, 33S, 34S, and 36S) points to a biogenic origin of minerals and sediments[3][4] and molecular biomarkers indicate photosynthesis.[5][6] This topic also includes panspermia and other exogenic theories regarding possible extra-planetary or extraterrestrial origins of life, thought to have possibly occurred sometime over the last 13.7 billion years in the evolution of the Universe since the
Big Bang.[7]

Origin of life studies is a limited field of research despite its profound impact on biology and human understanding of the natural world. Progress in this field is generally slow and sporadic, though it still draws the attention of many due to the eminence of the question being investigated. Several theories have been proposed, most notably the iron-sulfur world theory (metabolism first) and the RNA world hypothesis (genetics first).[8]

(From Wikipedia)

Big Bang Theory - The Big Bang is a cosmological model of the universe that has become well supported by several independent observations. After Edwin Hubble discovered that galactic distances were generally proportional to their redshifts in 1929, this observation was taken to indicate that the universe is expanding. If the universe is seen to be expanding today, then it must have been smaller, denser, and hotter in the past. This idea has been considered in detail all the way back to extreme densities and temperatures, and the resulting conclusions have been found to conform very closely to what is observed.

(From Wikipedia)

Evolution - In biology, evolution is the process of change in the inherited traits of a population of organisms from one generation to the next. The genes that are passed on to an organism's offspring produce the inherited traits that are the basis of evolution. Mutations in genes can produce new or altered traits in individuals, resulting in the appearance of heritable differences between organisms, but new traits also come from the transfer of genes between populations, as in migration, or between species, in horizontal gene transfer. In species that reproduce sexually, new combinations of genes are produced by genetic recombination, which can increase the variation in traits between organisms. Evolution occurs when these heritable differences become more common or rare in a population.

(From Wikipedia)

These are typically the three main issues talked about in discussions of Evolution vs Creationism. They are not dependant on one another. They do not rely on one another.

When you start talking about actual Evolution, realize it is one large theory. This Theory has several major components that can be talked about separately but they all fall under the umbrella of Evolution.

Natural Selection - Natural selection is the process by which favorable heritable traits become more common in successive generations of a population of reproducing organisms, and unfavorable heritable traits become less common.

Natural selection acts on the phenotype, or the observable characteristics of an organism, such that individuals with favorable phenotypes are more likely to survive and reproduce than those with less favorable phenotypes. The phenotype's genetic basis, genotype associated with the favorable phenotype, will increase in frequency over the following generations. Over time, this process can result in adaptations that specialize organisms for particular ecological niches and may eventually result in the emergence of new species. In other words, natural selection is the mechanism by which evolution may take place in a population of a specific organism.

Genetic Drift - In population genetics, genetic drift (or more precisely allelic drift) is the evolutionary process of change in the allele frequencies (or gene frequencies) of a population from one generation to the next due to the phenomena of probability in which purely chance events determine which alleles (variants of a gene) within a reproductive population will be carried forward while others disappear. Especially in the case of small populations, the statistical effect of sampling error during random sampling of certain alleles from the overall population may result in an allele, and the biological traits that it confers, to become more common or rare over successive generations, and result in evolutionary change over time. The concept was first introduced by Sewall Wright in the 1920s, and is now held to be one of the primary mechanisms of biological evolution. It is distinct from natural selection, a non-random evolutionary selection process in which the tendency of alleles to become more or less widespread in a population over time is due to the alleles' effects on adaptive and reproductive success.

Common Descent - A group of organisms is said to have common descent if they have a common ancestor. In modern biology, it is generally accepted that all living organisms on Earth are descended from a common ancestor or ancestral gene pool.[10]

A theory of universal common descent based on evolutionary principles was proposed by Charles Darwin in his book On the Origin of Species (1859), and later in The Descent of Man (1871). This theory is now generally accepted by biologists, and the last universal common ancestor (LUCA or LUA), that is, the most recent common ancestor of all currently living organisms, is believed to have appeared about 3.9 billion years ago. The theory of a common ancestor between all organisms is one of the principles of evolution, although for single cell organisms and viruses, single phylogeny is disputed (see: origin of life).

Age of the Earth - Modern geologists consider the age of the Earth to be around 4.54 billion years (4.54×109 years).[11] This age has been determined by radiometric age dating of meteorite material[12] and is consistent with the ages of the oldest-known terrestrial and lunar samples.

Historically the age of the Earth was determined either by using creation myths in religious texts, or by philosophical interpretations of geologic features, most notably the Greek philosophers Theophrastus and Xenophanes. Some Biblical young earth creationists believe that the earth was formed as recently as 4004 BC, whereas Hindu beliefs have the universe enduring for billions of years before being destroyed and recreated in an endless cycle.


1 ^ Is this life? ABC Science Online. Retrieved on 2007-07-10.
2 ^ Simon A. Wilde, John W. Valley, William H. Peck and Colin M. Graham, Evidence from detrital zircons for the existence of continental crust and oceans on the Earth 4.4 Gyr ago, Nature 409, 175–178 (2001) doi:10.1038/35051550
3 ^ www.journals.royalsoc.ac.uk/content/01273731t4683245/. Retrieved on 2007-07-10.
4 ^ geology.geoscienceworld.org/cgi/content/abstract/34/3/153. Retrieved on 2007-07-10.
5 ^ www.journals.royalsoc.ac.uk/content/887701846v502u58/. Retrieved on 2007-07-10.
6 ^ www.journals.royalsoc.ac.uk/content/814615517u5757r6/. Retrieved on 2007-07-10.
7 ^ map.gsfc.nasa.gov/m_mm/mr_age.html. Retrieved on 2007-07-10.
8 ^ Chapter 6, last section in Alberts B, Johnson A, Lewis J, Raff M, Roberts K and Walter P, Molecular Biology of the Cell, 4th Edition, Routledge, March, 2002, ISBN 0-8153-3218-1.
9 ^ Balme, D.M. (1962), "Development of Biology in Aristotle and Theophrastus: Theory of Spontaneous Generation" (Phronesis: A journal for Ancient Philosophy, Volume 7, Numbers 1–2, 1962), pp. 91–104(14)
10 ^ The earliest life-like forms probably exchanged genetic material laterally in a manner that is analogous to lateral gene transfer amongst bacteria. For this and other reasons, the most recent common ancestor may have been a genetic pool rather than an organism.
11 ^ Age of the Earth. U.S. Geological Survey (1997). Retrieved on 2006-01-10.
12 ^ a b Patterson, C., 1956, Age of meteorites and the earth: Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta 10: 230-237.

[McCulloch]

Anti-evolutionists often bring up certain issues with regard to how evolution fits in with the other sciences. For instance, if you assert that abiogenesis could not have naturally happened, then you open the door for miraculous intervention. If the person of literal faith argues against modern cosmology, then it is often done in order to remove the time available for evolution to have happened.

[Fred Flinstone]

Basic education, keep it simple stupid. The following website provides descent simple explainations for most anit evolutionary arguments.

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/list.html

Don't start making facts up, unless you can back them up. Creationists often get into trouble by simple making things up.

KISS again, simple common sense counter arguments.
Such as
Evolution is just a theory.....implies that gravity is just a theory.