Originally posted by OldRegular:
Evolution is an atheistic philosophy, therefore theistic evolution is an oxymoron by definition. I say that evolution is a philosophy not true science. Science is a branch of knowledge or study dealing with a body of facts or truths systematically arranged and showing the operation of general laws.
1. What are the facts or truths of evolution?
2. What general law does evolution demonstrate?
Quite simply, evolution is the science that tries to explain the observed fact of what we know as, well, evolution.
Maybe an analogy would be in order. If you hold an object up in the air and let go, what happens? It falls to the floor. This is the observed fact of gravity. Now, why does it fall? Well, here is where we get into theory and it really is not worked out so well. Einstein tried to explain gravity as a curving of space-time itself. This theory has been very successful. But we still want to know why things fall. Currently, it is hypothesized that there is a force particle called the graviton that transmits the gravitational force. But it is yet to be discovered. (Interestingly, one of the big hints going for string theory is that it predicts a particle that has the characteristics expected of the graviton. No other theory makes such a prediction.) Gravity is also mysterious in that it is so weak. We need to explain why. But you can see how there are theories of gravity that try and explain the observed fact of gravity.
Now, back to evolution. The observations are compelling enough that most scientists consider evolution to be an observed fact. The current issues are to learn more about how the process of evolution takes place and what has happened in the past. This is done by continuing to study aspects of current and past life. These studies should reveal for you the facts and truths upon which evolution lies.
Let's take the example of fossil transistions. There are many, many examples of such transitions. Some of the better known are the fish to amphibian transition,
the whales ,
the horses , and
the reptiles to mammals .
Of this subject Gould said
Since we proposed punctuated equilibria to explain trends, it is infuriating to be quoted again and again by creationists-- whether through design or stupidity, I do not know--as admitting that the fossil record includes no transitional forms. Transitional forms are generally lacking at the species level, but they are abundant between larger groups.
Stephen Jay Gould, "Evolution as Fact and Theory," Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes, 1983, Norton, New York.
But there are many other areas of evidence. One area to look at is shared endogenous retroviruses. These are viruses which have inserted their DNA into a germ lne cell of their host which has then been used for reproduction and then fixed into the whole population. Here is an example concerning humans and the other apes.
"Constructing primate phylogenies from ancient retrovirus sequences," Welkin E. Johnson and John M. Coffin, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Vol. 96, Issue 18, 10254-10260, August 31, 1999.
Here, about a dozen different retroviral DNA inserts are used to construct the evolutionary tree of human and the other apes and primates. See the following chart to see how closely the different inserts match.
http://www.pnas.org/content/vol96/issue18/images/large/pq1892815002.jpeg
The genomes of modern humans are riddled with thousands of endogenous retroviruses (HERVs), the proviral remnants of ancient viral infections of the primate lineage. Most HERVs are nonfunctional, selectively neutral loci. This fact, coupled with their sheer abundance in primate genomes, makes HERVs ideal for exploitation as phylogenetic markers.
...
Endogenous retrovirus loci provide no less than three sources of phylogenetic signal, which can be used in complementary fashion to obtain much more information than simple distance estimates of homologous sequences. First, the distribution of provirus-containing loci among taxa dates the insertion. Given the size of vertebrate genomes (>1 × 109 bp) and the random nature of retroviral integration (22, 23), multiple integrations (and subsequent fixation) of ERV loci at precisely the same location are highly unlikely (24). Therefore, an ERV locus shared by two or more species is descended from a single integration event and is proof that the species share a common ancestor into whose germ line the original integration took place (14). Furthermore, integrated proviruses are extremely stable: there is no mechanism for removing proviruses precisely from the genome, without leaving behind a solo LTR or deleting chromosomal DNA. The distribution of an ERV among related species also reflects the age of the provirus: older loci are found among widely divergent species, whereas younger proviruses are limited to more closely related species. In theory, the species distribution of a set of known integration sites can be used to construct phylogenetic trees in a manner similar to restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) analysis.
Emphasis added.
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/96/18/10254
There are many other such examples. There is a specific complication concerning ERVs and humans in YE "science." As shown above, humans and the other apes and primates share insertions that demonstrate their common ancestry. (The quote is "Therefore, an ERV locus shared by two or more species is descended from a single integration event and is proof that the species share a common ancestor into whose germ line the original integration took place.") In a young earth hypothesis, this is a major problem. You would have to assume that the humans and all the "kinds" (whatever that may be) of primates and apes were infected by the same combination of virii, that they all inserted the exact same sequence in the same place, and that all these insertions were fixed into the various species.
Furthermore, since these insertions are common between essentially all humans, in a young earth they all must have taken place in the (about) ten generations between the creation and the last common ancestor (Noah) and none have taken place since. Unlikely.
Another example are atavisms. These are things like whales with legs, humans with tails and toes in horses. The amazing thing is that such atavisms only occur with parts that would be expected based on the evolutionary history of the organism. You never see a reptile with atavistic lactal nipples of a mammal with atavistic feathers. Such things would be serious problems for evolution.
Another issue is the so called twin nested heirarchy. Whatever way you try and group animals into larger and larger groups, it comes out the same. You can use physical traits. You can group them by evolution based on ancestors in the ofssil record. You can do it based on genetics. It always comes out essentially the same. Here is thread detailing this for genetics with humans.
Link to Thread. You will find the same results for any combination of coding and noncoding genes.
And this can go on and on. We have not touched on ontogeny. Past biogeography. Present biogeography. Parahomology. Vestiges. Pseudogenes. Transposons. Or any of a whole host of observations.
