"I have extreme doubts that you're correct about this. If it were true, then "50% red" is a heritable characteristic. Do you have any reference that can support your claim?"

No, you misunderstood me. I 50% red does not mean the individual is "half red". 50% red means half of the total population is red. So if the starting population is 20% red and the end population is 80% red, then evolution has occurred even though no NEW trait is introduced. It's the same trait, just the frequency that it's seen in the population has changed.

And that exact same logic shows how changing the colorblind frequency, even by a small amount, is evolution. It's just such a tiny amount that you can't notice it and the average person is going to, falsely, say that's not evolution.

You have no clue what I'm saying. You don't realize how you're straying from the technical definition that you dogmatically asserted just a few posts ago.

In fact, you said:

Are you using the term "evolution" in the phrases "slowly evolving" and "not evolving" correctly or not?

Yeah, you're chasing your own tail now.

"50% red" is the frequency of the trait in the population. I'm looking for you to provide a reference that says "a heritable characteristic is the frequency of traits in a population."

by the way...

If you really don't want to sound arrogant, then I would suggest that you stop assuming that the rest of us aren't as intelligent or knowledgeable as you. Your posts all seem to read to me as if you're trying to prove that you really did read that book and take those classes. Trust me, there are smart people here with more impressive credentials.

Grunch: Darwin addressed the OP in the Origin of Species. IIRC he said something about people find it very hard to accept things that have many steps, none of which they can see. And then he made some comparison to how hard it was for people to accept that some little river they can see trickling away at the bottom of a canyon created that canyon by trickling away (just for a very long time). I mean I'm probably butchering what he said but its the best my memory can do.

Or as Ann Coulter would say: "Darwin said, and I quote, "Evolution didn't happen and God created the Grand Canyon.""

I think my earlier point was missed, which is that humans would have evolved to create the theory of evolution, but the flip side is some humans also evolved to be skeptical of evolution. A certain % of the population being skeptical of evolution must somehow therefore serve an evolutionary purpose (must confer some sort of reproductive advantage, in other words). It's right there in evolution, the answer to your question. Not believing in evolution (apparently) has some sort of survival value. Not sure why evolutionists cannot see this.

Don't worry OP, I have no plans to pass on my teribble DNA.

It should be pointed out that there's an evolutionary pay-off between length of generation and speed of evolution. Turtles that live beyond 100 have got to that point because they don't need to evolve as quickly as bacteria.

Human beings have different physical characteristics because we have evolved to be adaptable to our surroundings, not because we preserve the dying. The dying usually don't get to reproduce anyway, and if they do, it's because they're healthy enough - that's just how society works. We've only had hospitals and decent hygiene standards for a very short amount of time, yet evolution hasn't seen fit to get rid of down syndrome

Hopefully you're just trying to make a point and aren't trying to claim something that even I, untrained in biology beyond the age of 16, can see - that genes aren't always active, so killing off all the colourblind people in the world doesn't kill off colourblindness. I mean, that's just way too obvious, right?

In an RGT thread, he implied that humans evolved from dinosaurs and monkeys. He's either a bit sensational in his writing, or needs to take more bio classes and read more books still.

I'll answer the OP with another question.

Why is a 3-dimensional earth so hard to accept?
http://theflatearthsociety.org/cms/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Earth_Society

Some people are determined to bury their heads in the sand because it fits their life and community. I like to ask if it really matters to try to convince them.

The only people that seem to need to know about evolution for a career would be convinced by the time they were finished schooling. I'd argue that its a waste of effort to convince the die hard religious right; they'll never accept your proof and your best conceived argument is likely to fail with them.

tldr but "because it is fantastically rich, complex and counterintuitive." Plus its somewhat of a snub for some folks.

I think any description of "evolution" without the concepts of imperfect replication, heritability and selective advantage is a wolf in sheeps clothing though. Its a brilliant idea because once its been thought of, every biology freshman is stupefied to find that there are doubters.

Aaron, you seem to have a misconception that evolution has to constantly go on at a steady rate which means you don't understand how evolution works, because if you did you'd know that there's different degrees of rates that evolution can go at. It all depends on how strong natural selection is...Some species can evolve almost not at all and some others can evolve very fast at the same time.

And in the definition:

1. Any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations (taken from wikipedia)

It says heritable characteristics of POPULATIONS. Not heritable characteristics of a randomly chosen individual of a population. Frequency of a trait is a characteristic of a population.

This.


What about this thought? Is it possible that the variations that we see in dogs today is a not a result of an original set of dogs breeding and adding mutations into their DNA? Is it possible that, instead, the variation is the result of a loss of information in the DNA beginning from a set of original dogs?

How does evolution create complex systems such as an eye when the individual pieces of the eye serve no purpose unless the entire thing is present?

Why don't we see a wealth of fossilized transitional forms? Many of the ones that are supposedly discovered are later found to be complete frauds, a result of terribly bad science, or not transitional forms at all.

Natural selection is obvious. Macro-evolution is not.

Well, this thread is going off topic...I assumed you all already knew the basics about natural selection but I guess not...Remember when I said ~50% of the US doesn't believe in evolution. Some of you guys are in that 50%. Btw, even though its worse in the US than other countries, it's not overwhelmingly accepted in other countries.

The question is: Do non-acceptors genuinely not believe the theory of evolution is true? Then why do they accept the theory that the earth is round? I'm sure if you polled the US, 99.9%+ of the population would answer that yes the earth is round. Isn't the evidence of evolution as strong as the evidence the Earth is round?

Or do they accept it, but find it so contradictory with their religion that they pretend they don't accept it?

So much for not trying to sound arrogant
No, it's not. The earth being round has been proven by many things that people can see, and experience themselves. The horizon line moving as you travel, literally seeing the curvature when in an airplane, believable pictures of earth, and other planets taken from space, the fact that sattelites go around earth, and keep coming back again and again. Evolution is still beyond the scope of the human experience to actually see in action. The evidence is nowhere near as strong as it is for a round earth.

This isn't obvious to someone who's so smart that they are currently in college?

Also, this.

So you're saying they don't accept for both reasons huh? And for the round earth, most people haven't actually traveled around the globe, or seen it themselves from space, yet they still believe it. As for evolution, you can see it before your very eyes (if you make some effort and have some time. Unless you're looking at bacteria in which case it'll only take a few days. You also have to have the confidence that nobody is tampering with things while you sleep to deceive you).

You can also see it in dogs. Look at how different a dalmation and a chiwawa (sp?) look. They each evolved from a wolve, and all within only a few hundred years. We've seen them evolve because we were the one's who guided their evolution.

Please read my posts in this thread. I have answered your question already. There's really nothing more to add.

If you're talking about seeing something with your own eyes, than this is lol unless you've seen the different breeds of dogs evolve from wolves yourself. I agree that it's great evidence, but certainly not evidence witnessed first-hand.

I highly doubt any intelligent informed person is going to say that this kind of micro evolution doesn't take place. This does not at all prove macro evolution though.

For non-original questions, always check wiki first: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_the_eye

We do see 'transitional forms.' It's just that when 1 pops up, people like you demand to see 2 more to fill the new holes made. Plus, becoming a fossil is hard, and very few organisms ever get fossilized.

I'm using your definitions. My point is that you're meaning two different things by the words that you're using. Your attempt at a non-arrogant conversation has blown up in your face.

You're still missing the point.

So brown eyed parents having a brown eyed kid is not an example of a heritable characteristic because the kid is not a population. You seem to be losing it. I'll repeat my request:

Also (and again), are you saying that "50% red" (as an expression of the current red/blue ratio in the population) is a heritable characteristic?

The reason why people don't believe in evolution is because of the different method used by scientists and religious people to find the 'truth'.
Scientist use experiments and logic while the religious rely on a book.
So it doesn't matter how easy to understand and how good the evidence for evolution is because a religion person does not believe that these things make something true.

Well....yes, of course it does, since "micro" and "macro" evolution are in fact not real things, but colloquialisms that sometimes make conversation easier but should never be confused with actual, non-arbitrary categories.

Why would this be easy to figure out? Animals are the same year after year, why would ancient people think they evolved from different animals?

[ ] That's it
[ ] That's evolution

Realizing that curly hair is heritable is light years away from realizing that fish turned into mammals. People definitely understood the concept of heritiblilty; look at dogs or horses, bred to be the way they are intentionally by humans thousands of years ago.

some people were simply brought up to believe in something other than evolution. and without direct evidence (i'm assuming the transitional "missing links" would be sufficient for many). they simply won't believe what goes against what they've been taught or been led to believe, or what they have been provided evidence (or what they consider evidence) for for a large amount of time.

you're a biology major. and it's possibly that you may pursue a post graduate education in biology. if you do so, you'll invariably run into a situation where someone presents at a meeting, or publishes a claim that goes against what was almost considered dogma. and you'll hear discussions by very intelligent people ripping the claim. after a few years and more studies, sometims the claim is wrong, sometimes right. most often it's something in between. but what happens during the process is people take sides. very intelligent people, dig their heels in arguing their interpretation of the data, sometimes against what appears to be overwhelming evidence (of course only the people on the opposite side really believe it's "overwhelming).

personally i think no on likes to be wrong, and people tend to believe what they were taught first (i have no evidence for this, nor have a read any studies proposing this, it's simply a gut feeling). so they're gonna resist anything new.