Evolution

1. The size of the brain relative to the whole body increases in certain evolutionary lines.

2. Increased specialization of function.

3. The increasing sophistication and complexity of the forebrain.

No. Evolution is a consequence of selective pressure(s) from the environment acting on organisms. Virtually all living beings are not conscious of this process.

The only species that *could* consciously direct its own evolution is Homo sapiens (humans), but currently it doesn't.

Artificial selection can and has consciously directed evolution, but it always was a species acting over other different species, not on their own evolution.

Darwin's theory of evolution is basically 'Survival of the Fittest" or "Natural selection." Genetic mutations occur in every species. Sometimes these are beneficial. For example a calf born more muscular than the rest will be more likely to mate and consequently pass on his genes to his

all organisms have been living for millions of years. change over time.
Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection. Short and memorable explanation.

Natural selection is the nonrandom survival and reproductive success of randomly varying individual organisms.

Scientists have concluded from abundant evidence and the analysis of that evidence, that he earth is about 4.5 billion years old. This is more than merely a hypothesis, since they have the evidence for their conclusions.

Scientists realised nearly two hundred years ago that the earth must be at least a few million years old. Early in the nineteenth century, Charles Lyell examined the great volcano of Etna on Sicily and studied the historical records of frequent eruptions. He noticed that each time it erupted, a new layer of lava would be added, causing the mountain to grow at a measurable rate. By knowing the height of the volcano, its approximate rate of growth and the frequency of eruptions, Lyall determined that the volcano must be several hundred thousand years old. At the edge of the volcano, under the first lava flows, he found fossil shells that were virtually identical to the shells of molluscs still found in the Mediterranean Sea. From this, he deduced that the fossils were geologically recent, that a hundred thousand years was geologically short and that the age of the earth must be immense.

In 1862, Lord Kelvin announced that he had calculated the time it would take the world to cool down from its molten state. He calculated that this was between 20 and 400 million years, but later refined his calculations to within the range 20 to 100 million years. With the subsequent discovery of radioactivity, it was soon realised that the uranium present in the earth could have prolonged its cooling for as long as necessary to harmonise with other methods.

Samuel Haughton, an Irish geologist, calculated that sediments were deposited on the ocean floor at the rate of "one foot in 8,616 years". He then calculated a minimum duration of around 2000 million years. Unwilling to accept such a long period, he scaled it back, by a factor of 10, to just 200 million years.

In the early years of the twentieth century, Rutherford established the age of a rock as 500 million years, by measuring the amounts of radium and helium present. Strutt soon realised that some of the helium would have escaped as the rocks were crushed for analysis, leading to false short estimates of the ages of the rocks - they were really even older than the initial estimates.

In the late 1930s and early 1940s, using the new techniques and the world's most advanced mass spectromoter, Alfred Nier dated some rocks at up to 2570 million years old.

The oldest things so far found on earth are zircon crystals found in Western Australia, that are more than 4 billion years old.

Some Young-earth Creationists have incorrectly claimed that Noah's Flood could have altered the rates of decay for radioactive elements found in rocks on the earth, so that the earth is really only a few thousand years old. However, any effect from a Flood on the earth would not have affected rocks on the moon or in outer space. Zircon rock collected from the surface of the moon has now been identified as more than 4.5 billion years old. Material from meteorites has also been dated to approximately 4.5 billion years old. These figures support the calculations for the age of the earth.

Answer 1

Although Gould was often quote-mined by creationists suggesting that Gould thought that the fossil evidence did not support common descent, none of this relates in any way to natural selection, the proposed mechanism for evolution.

Answer 2

No. Stephen Jay Gould said that natural selection was the best explanation for the evolution of species. However, he differed from Charles Darwin in his understanding of the process.

Whereas Darwin appears to have expected that evolution would be a gradual, continuous process, Gould suggested a process of punctuated equilibrium. He said that species were more likely to have remained relatively unchanged for long periods until a period of rapid evolution resulted in the evolution of new species. He felt that this was more consistent with the fossil record.

Answer 3

As a palaeontologist by profession this was Gould's area of expertise. Although revered as a great scientist Gould has received some attention from creationists for parts of his comments on the nature of the fossil record. He is quote-mined as referring to the fossil record in relation to evolution in the following way:

"The absence of fossil evidence for intermediary stages between major transitions in organic design, indeed our inability, even in our imagination, to construct functional intermediates in many cases, has been a persistent and nagging problem for gradualistic accounts of evolution."

Stephen Jay Gould (Professor of Geology and Paleontology, Harvard University), 'Is a new and general theory of evolution emerging?' Paleobiology, vol.6(1), January 1980,p. 127.

"All paleontologists know that the fossil record contains precious little in the way of intermediate forms; transitions between the major groups are characteristically abrupt."

Stephen Jay Gould 'The return of hopeful monsters'. Natural History, vol. LXXXVI(6), June-July 1977, p. 24.

"The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology. The evolutionary trees that adorn our textbooks have data only at the tips and nodes of their branches; the rest is inference, however reasonable, not the evidence of fossils. Yet Darwin was so wedded to gradualism that he wagered his entire theory on a denial of this literal record:

The geological record is (here Gould is quoting Darwin) extremely imperfect and this fact will to a large extent explain why we do not find intermediate varieties, connecting together all the extinct and existing forms of life by the finest graduated steps. He who rejects these views on the nature of the geological record will rightly reject my whole theory. (end of quote)

Darwin's argument still persists as the favored escape of most paleontologists from the embarrassment of a record that seems to show so little of evolution. In exposing its cultural and methodological roots, I wish in no way to impugn the potential validity of gradualism (for all general views have similar roots). I wish only to point out that it was never "seen" in the rocks.

Paleontologists have paid an exorbitant price for Darwin's argument. We fancy ourselves as the only true students of life's history, yet to preserve our favored account of evolution by natural selection we view our data as so bad that we never see the very process we profess to study."

Stephen Jay Gould 'Evolution's erratic pace'. Natural History, vol. LXXXVI95), May 1977, p.14.

Gould's commitment to Darwinian evolution followed from an understanding and knowledge of the fossil record that belies the literal text of the quotes lifted out of context by creationists. What the evidence shows is clear from the completestatements of Gould and many other palaeontologists in their proper context, no matter what creationists make of them.

the creationist claim is actually very true, here is a chapter from my SCIENTIFIC book:

Carbon Dating

Many evolutionists believe this to be the proverbial nail in the coffin to the creation of the world, believing that this is the most solid evidence against creationists. In this section I am going into a bit of science so hold on. If this is only going to bore you and make you put down this book, by all means skip to the end, don't worry it will be under a big title labeled conclusion, you can't miss it. For those of you that have taken a chemistry class or two and want to know the intimate details, by all means, read on.

The premise:

The premise is that, cosmic rays hitting the atmosphere create speeding neutrons that collide with nitrogen atoms producing carbon 14. Further, the decay of these atoms into carbon 12 is progressing at the same rate as the creation of these atoms.

All things should absorb these atoms of carbon 14 their entire life, maintaining the same ratio of Carbon 14 to carbon 12 as the atmosphere. Once the animal/thing dies, it's carbon 14. This ratio, (1 to 1 trillion) will begin to change, the number of carbon 14 atoms diminish while the number of carbon 12 atoms remain the same. This carbon should decay at a steady rate, thus scientists can track it back like a clock, determining the approximate age of the artifact. The smaller the ratio is, the longer the animal as been dead.

Percent 14C Remaining

Percent 12C Remaining

Ratio

Number of Half-Lives

Years Dead(Age of Fossil)

100

100

1 to 1T

0

0

50

100

1 to 2T

1

5,730

25

100

1 to 4T

2

11,460

12.5

100

1 to 8T

3

17,190

6.25

100

1 to 16T

4

22,920

3.125

100

1 to 32T

5

28,650

T = Trillion

The Problem

Dr. Willard Libby first experimented with carbon 14, assuming that the ratio of one carbon 14 to one trillion carbon 12 atoms has always been the same. This "assumption" was based on the fact that the earth has been billions of years old. As any REAL non-bias scientist will tell you, all the calculations can be right, but if they are based on a wrong assumption then the product will be wrong. And as my chem. 3a teacher always said, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

In Dr. Libby's original work, he noted that the atmosphere did not appear to be in equilibrium. This was a troubling idea for Dr. Libby since he believed the world was billions of years old and enough time had passed to achieve equilibrium. Dr. Libby's calculations showed that if the earth started with no 14C in the atmosphere, it would take up to 30,000 years to build up to a steady state (equilibrium).

If the cosmic radiation has remained at its present intensity for 20,000 or 30,000 years, and if the carbon reservoir has not changed appreciably in this time, then there exists at the present time a complete balance between the rate of disintegration of radiocarbon atoms and the rate of assimilation of new radiocarbon atoms for all material in the life cycle.2

Dr. Libby chose to ignore this discrepancy (nonequilibrium state), and he attributed it to experimental error. However, the discrepancy has turned out to be very real indeed, as the ratio of carbon 14 and carbon 12 is not constant.

The first problem with this is that the magnetic field around the earth is weakening, (don't worry it always has been, recycling your water bottle won't help) allowing more cosmic rays into the atmosphere, and producing more c14 than in the past. Also, volcanoes, floods, decaying plants from floods,( and if the bible is true, there was a big one), can all greatly increase the carbon 14 in the atmosphere, ruining any chance of getting an "accurate ratio".

In the 1990's a group known as the RATE group was put together to determine the age of the earth. This team included:

• Larry Vardiman, PhD Atmospheric Science
• Russell Humphreys, PhD Physics
• Eugene Chaffin, PhD Physics
• John Baumgardner, PhD Geophysics
• Donald DeYoung, PhD Physics
• Steven Austin, PhD Geology
• Andrew Snelling, PhD Geology
• Steven Boyd, PhD Hebraic and Cognate Studies

This team's purpose was to collect "censored evidence" that evolutionists had been hiding/covering up. These men took ten coal samples, each from a different strata that had been labeled to be millions of billions of years old. Since coal is made from compressed living plants etc. you would think it would be perfect for the job.

Careful not to contaminate the samples, the carbon dating found the coal to have a significant amount of carbon 14. This was a significant discovery, because half life of carbon 14 is relatively short, (5,730 yrs old). There should be no carbon 14 in these samples after about 100,000 years. The average age of these samples, according to evolutionist "science" only came to 50,000 years. However using a creationist pre-flood ratio of carbon 14 to carbon 12 reduces the age to 5,000 years, just about dead on the the biblical age of the earth.

Conclusion: Yes you just saw the words "dead on to the biblical etc." don't panic, you should have read along, now look at what you've missed. For the scientists now asleep, we had a beautiful read without you. Please turn the page for the summary.

Okay, we just learned that since you need a starting ratio for carbon dating, and since nobody knows what the starting ratio was, probably because there weren't any scientists around 6 thousand to several billion years ago. And the best you can do with this technology of carbon dating, is operate it on an assumption, an assumption that if wrong, badly distorts the outcome, thus carbon dating is pointless, unless you want an inaccurate age of a recent item, like whether or not the 1980's magazine you got is original.

A recently discovered 220-million year old fossil, Odontochelys semitestacea, is further evidence of evolution. This new species of turtle had a fully formed shell on its underside, but only a small partial shell on its back, extending from its backbone.

Scientists had long debated how the turtle shell evolved. As well as a partial shell, Odontochelys semitestaceaalso had ribs that had begun to widen, thus demonstrating that the fully developed shell of later turtles evolved from the ribs of earlier species.

Odontochelys semitestacea is one more piece in the jigsaw that shows conclusively how life on Earth evolved from earlier species.