1. Dimensio Said,

   I am curious. Can you explain the extent of the research of the physical evidence that you have conducted prior to forming your conclusions?

2. -Zach- Said,

   Sure. I have been studying logic and reason most of my life. I’ve been studying people, and their need for credentials and degrees for the most elementary of subject matter.
   Nothing I said, was complicated or needed any type of expertise to understand. It is basic logic, that’s all.

   In my studies I have learned that when people ask you about your credentials, it usually means that they disagree with you, and that’s certainly fine with me. I’m proud of you for making it all the way through the article to the bottom where you posted your comment.
   But I guess that doesn’t mean you read it all.
   That’s ok too.

   If you have any specific questions, be sure to post again.

3. Ed Darrell Said,

   Who says evolution must proceed very slowly? Darwin posited that it usually moves slowly — but even Darwin’s supporters at the time thought that was error.

   The work of Peter and Rosemary Grant at Princeton has confirmed that evolution can proceed astoundingly fast — new species in a year, if selection pressures are high. Two to three generations to a new species.

   In addition to logic and reason, science demands evidence. There’s a mountain range of evidence for evolution. You should spend some time in the vinyards of biology — get Jonathan Weiner’s book, The Beak of the Finch, a story of evolution in our time.

4. stoogepie Said,

   Hey Zach. I’ll debate you on this one.

   First, you are wrong about Basilosaurus evolving to Dorudon. The chart moves down. Dorudon evolved to Basilosaurus. Whales are mammals that adapted from land mammals to sea mammals. The Dorudon had the little “limb” or “bump” left over from this evolutionary process. As you point out, that did create some drag. So the Basilosaurus had a very minor advantage over the Dorudon, and eventually the bump disappeared.

   But even looking at evolution this way really doesn’t do the science justice. For instance, Dorudon and Basilosaurus coexisted happily for millions of years. You treat “survival of the fittest,” one of many tenets of evolutionary science, as though it alone explains all evolutionary change, and that’s simplistic. Survival of the fittest is indeed a tenet of evolutionary theory, but it takes place every minute of every day and does not alone account for millions of years of change. Lion X and Lion Y compete for food. One will outpace the other, or fight better, or think better. Or there may be plenty of food for both. Survival of the fittest will rule their day-to-day, minute-by-minute existence. It will not take millions of years and it may result in no evolutionary change whatsoever. Over time, there may be natural selection, but nature will play a part because natural selection demands a condition that favors one adaptation over another. So, if food becomes scarce or lions become overpopulated, natural selection will play a role in which variations survive. But one variation may not “win.” If the faster lion is able to catch fast prey that the stronger lion cannot, food scarcity may result in evolution to a cheetah, and both can survive. The lion will win the bigger, slower prey. The cheetah will win the prey that outruns the lion. Survival of the fittest is not a simple formula for, “oh, is that an improvement or isn’t it? It will only survive if it’s an improvement.” No, there is room for a lot of variation and a whale with a protrusion will do just fine until a challenge makes the disadvantage of that protrusion so glaring that the variation dies out.

   Next you bring up birds from dinosaurs. According to your view of evolution, chickens and ostriches do not exist, because their useless wings lack “intent.” Or do chickens have wings just because we like to eat them?

   First, let’s dispel the evolution-takes-millions-of-years myth. No, evolution requires a challenge created by nature and an adaptation capable of answering that challenge. So, if you develop a pesticide that kills 98% of cockroaches and you sell it and it is popular, all of the roaches that are not resistant will die. In an instant, natural selection has taken place. All the cockroaches that were not resistant are extinct. Only resistant cockroaches exist. Evolution has occurred and your pesticide is now worthless. (This actually happens every few years in the pesticide industry.)

   Now let’s discuss evolutionary changes that do take millions of years: they may be a response to nothing and may simply be variations within a species. So, let’s say everything is great in the dinosaur kingdom. Dinosaurs will have a great amount of variety, like dogs do today. Some, like Velociraptors, will develop so that their bones are light and their arms do little more than hold sets of claws for killing. The more aerodynamic those arms are, the more efficient a predator the creature will be. If those arms develop into wing-like structures, they will actually aid in speed and evasion, whether or not they allow flight. Hence, emus and ostriches. Like the Velociraptor, the emu is bottom heavy, devoting about 1/3 of its entire body mass (full mass, including bones) to leg extensor muscles. Just those muscles! It is built for running speed, strength, and endurance. Traditional arms would weigh it down. But wing-like extremities don’t hinder it and, in fact, serve a purpose that has nothing to do with flying. Delicate, wing-like extremities cost little in terms of body weight but allow temperature regulation. So, the emu has an intricate set of blood vessels in its wings. It uses those to cool off when it gets too hot and to heat up when it gets too cold.

   Similarly, dinosaurs may have been aided by wing-like extremities when it came to temperature regulation, since at least some were cold-blooded. In fact, it looks like feathers were another method some dinosaurs used purely for heat regulation, and had nothing to do with flight. Wings are a great way to regulate temperature. They are light, so they don’t weigh down bipedal creatures, yet they can be flat and thin, so air circulates around them easily, especially if flapped, allowing the blood to cool in all the tiny blood vessels. Spread your wings on a sunny day while lounging around and they heat you. Modern birds exhibit these behaviors. Flight is an evolutionary adaptation of wings, not the end-all-and-be-all of wings, as you might surmise by looking around today and wondering why the heck a creature might develop primitive wings when they serve no obvious purpose. No, they served a pretty obvious purpose that they continue to serve, but you think they serve only their most obvious purpose: to allow flight.

   Okay, this comment is too long. My point is, evolution really does make sense. The evolution of things like wings makes sense. I don’t pretend to have all the answers and evolution, like many young sciences (nuclear physics is another example), still has a lot left to discover and fully understand. But it makes sense and is the most probable of all theories about the origins of species.

   I have one question for you as a logician, though. Do you dispute nuclear physics because it doesn’t conform to what is obvious? Do you dispute quantum mechanics because it says that the energy states of atoms is probabilistic rather than wholly predictable, as you would guess from looking at the world around you? Do you refute that, between states, electrons are nowhere? Do you ask what the intent is behind dark matter and quarks and leptons? Do you refute their existence because you can’t see the intent behind them? Why is there dark matter? Why are there quarks? Why are there gluons and neutrinos? After all, if we are going to paint a picture, we have an intention that becomes the art. Nuclear physics has no intention. It just describes what it sees. It is what it is.

   I ask because it seems illogical to ask for intention. And it seems unscientific. Logic dictates that you come up with the most probable explanation for phenomena, not that it satisfy one particular criteria you have set for it. Science dictates that you apply Occam’s razor to phenomena versus competing explanations. When discussing the origins of species, both the logic and the science are wholly satisfied by evolution. That doesn’t mean evolution needs no refinements. It’s a young science. But you don’t look for intent when you study chemistry or physics or astronomy, do you? You don’t ask for the intent behind photons or electron states, do you? No, you do it only for evolution. And why? What is your intent? Well, the only reason I see for your insistence that, in this particular instance, intent be obvious is that you have the same agenda as you accuse the intelligent designers of having: some other component of your world view is threatened by evolution. I could be wrong, of course, as I have been before. But that’s the danger of looking for intent when it is really just not necessary to a logical discussion.

   Now, please don’t ask me for my credentials.

5. -Zach- Said,

   First of all, and foremost in my mind, you are absolutely right about the Basilosaurus not evolving to Dorudon. That will need a certain revision. I picked the graph quite carelessly as you saw. I will find another graph that shows the idea I was looking for, and be sure to fix it.
   Thank you.

   Secondly, I don’t know if you understood what I was saying about intent. As I said “Natural selection works in a way that there doesn’t need a purpose, it’s just survival of the fittest. The longest beak gets the most worms, while the shorter beaks die off. This makes good sense and there is no doubt that it takes place.” “Natural selection” is not a brain, it can not think ahead about what it’s going to create and that’s fine, it doesn’t have to. It doesn’t need intent. It’s just whatever works best. No problems there.

   My point, which may need to be made clearer, (or read more carefully, I’m not sure) is that all appendages must start out as something. You know, if we look at the bone structure of any limb or finger or fin, it had to start out as just a bump. I’m not even making question about how the bump got there, which is another problem I have, but let’s say some odd mutation created the bump, but that doesn’t explain why it would grow. In natural selection, we know that the more advantageous something is to the species, the more that species will thrive, and reproduce. It doesn’t make sense that a creature with a small, insignificant bump on the bone would be thriving more than a creature without that bump.

   “Survival of the fittest is indeed a tenet of evolutionary theory, but it takes place every minute of every day and does not alone account for millions of years of change. Lion X and Lion Y compete for food. One will outpace the other, or fight better, or think better. Or there may be plenty of food for both. Survival of the fittest will rule their day-to-day, minute-by-minute existence. It will not take millions of years and it may result in no evolutionary change whatsoever.”
   When we are looking at Lion X and Lion Y, we know that one “outpaces, fights better, or thinks better” than the rest, so ultimately, whatever lets him do that, will BE the evolutionary change. His pride will be more equipped for living, and whatever had given him those advantages, whether it be slightly longer legs or stronger muscles, will be the evolutionary change.

   As for flying animals, you are using my logic against yourself. “According to your view of evolution chickens and ostriches do not exist”. I don’t have a view of evolution, and these animals, do exist. This whole article is about how I don’t think it worked the way everyone thinks. If I had a guess of where evolution would have gone, I would’ve thought that the fastest, biggest, and strongest birds would be the most highly evolved since, being able to fly and hiding in the very tops of trees to get away from competitors, can give you quite an advantage. Why anything more evolved would have “lost” flight is beyond me. (And flying would also be a lot of fun….)

   “…if you develop a pesticide that kills 98% of cockroaches and you sell it and it is popular, all of the roaches that are not resistant will die. In an instant, natural selection has taken place. All the cockroaches that were not resistant are extinct. Only resistant cockroaches exist. Evolution has occurred and your pesticide is now worthless.”
   This is NOT evolution. This is natural selection. These cockroaches have not changed one bit from what they were before.

   “I have one question for you as a logician, though. Do you dispute nuclear physics because it doesn’t conform to what is obvious? Do you dispute quantum mechanics because it says that the energy states of atoms is probabilistic rather than wholly predictable, as you would guess from looking at the world around you? Do you refute that, between states, electrons are nowhere? Do you ask what the intent is behind dark matter and quarks and leptons? Do you refute their existence because you can’t see the intent behind them? Why is there dark matter? Why are there quarks? Why are there gluons and neutrinos? After all, if we are going to paint a picture, we have an intention that becomes the art. Nuclear physics has no intention. It just describes what it sees. It is what it is.”
   Stoogepie, which question was the ONE you had for me as a logician? I see 8. 
   I think that you didn’t understand what I was saying about intention. I don’t think everything needs intention. I think the amazing thing about all of the Laws of Physics that exist, are mysterious and wonderful in that way.
   I do not know much about those more intricate sciences, so I don’t know that I will address them. Evolution from one animal to another animal, is something that anyone can look at. There are complexities in the theory, I don’t address those things. They don’t need to be addressed, when talking about logic. We do not need to understand imaginary numbers if we are just working with integers. In the same regard, we do not need to know about quantum mechanics if we are talking about this type of evolution.

   As for your credentials, I know that you are a thinking person, and that’s all I need.

6. KFJ Said,

   Wow….quite the feedback!!!!

   I will add that it takes far more faith to believe in evolution than it does to believe that God spoke everything into existence!!!!

   I do believe that animals evolve to adapt to their surroundings…just as we as humans do.

   Hmmmmm…could that be because we have the same Creator or just pure happenstance!!!!

7. -Zach- Said,

   KFJ,
   I know.. I love the feeback. It’s awesome!
   It’s great to be able to put ideas out and have them critiqued by people all over the world. It’s quite a new thing with the age of the internet, especially for people without credentials….like me.
   

8. -Zach- Said,

   Ed,
   Thanks for the info.
   I should definitely look into those readings.

9. stoogepie Said,

   Hey Zach. Awesome response and thank you. You are right. I had either read poorly or misunderstood. I’m not sure which myself, but thanks for clarifying.

   And I agree about the feedback. I was afraid my very lengthy response might be too much. Thanks so much for engaging me.

   First, my point about the lions is that mutations and variations within species need not be about whatever seems to us to work best. It’s whatever works, period. There are natural mutations everyday, most of them benign and unnoticed. So, there are many, many varieties of ant. One variety doesn’t just work better than the other and supersede all the others. They co-evolve. What they have works for them. Now, if nature introduces a challenge, one may prove a better adaptation than the others. Then that species would indeed supersede the others, but there need be no such enviromental challenge and all the varieties of ants with their bizarre differences will coexist.

   So, no, if you have Lion X and Lion Y, one outpacing, fighting better, or thinking better need not lead to any evolutionary change at all. It’s just one strong lion! As an example, consider the case where one lion fights better but another lion is faster. Why would there be any evolutionary change as a result of this? Both will provide for their prides, breed, and carry on. That will happen until there is a natural challenge that causes better fighting to win out over speed or vice versa. And there need never be such a challenge. Meanwhile, all mutations are not even immediately functional but may become so only when a challenge is introduced.

   But, where nature favors one mutation over the other, there must have been some challenge that proved serious enough that it gave one mutation a mating advantage. In the case of a horn on a rhino, the horn or horns serve to make a rhino more attractive to members of the opposite sex, mainly because horns are made of protein and demonstrate health: you eat so well and are so fit that you have protein to spare. So, even tiny horns demonstrate that a rhino has found better grass. Horns are also useful in digging for water and roots. So, yes, horns help them find better food.

   For those purposes, is it not obvious that any horn is better than no horn at all? Moreover, this is demonstrated in modern rhinos, which come in single-horn and dual-horn varieties. The ones with two horns have little stubby horns. They are useless for defense or aggression, but very useful for finding food and water, for demonstrating fitness, and for attracting mates.

   I’m far from an expert (or even very knowledgeable), but it should be much harder to find a bump or a stump of an appendage that is not vestigial but is rather the beginning of a useful limb and is also, in the meantime, useless. I agree with you that that is unlikely and I would wager that such a thing has never happened. Appendages will almost always adapt from other appendages. That is not to say that a fish will not develop fins over time that are just stumps but that still lead to better mobility, higher visibility to the opposite sex, or some other advantage such as burrowing or digging or covering up its eggs. But those would qualify as useful mutations (just like a stubby rhino horn).

   A bird would lose the ability to fly because it does nothing for the bird but losing that ability does. Ostriches do not need flight. They are incredibly efficient, fast, powerful land creatures. Yet, they have an impressive wingspan that allows them to shield their chicks, etc. Losing the ability to fly is an evolutionary tradeoff like losing the ability to breath underwater. If it serves no purpose and getting rid of it gives you an advantage in some other area, you will lose it. On the other hand, if something serves no purpose but there is no advantage to be found by losing it, you may not lose it until a challenge presents itself that identifies the net benefit of one variation over another. So, even if your criteria is that one must gain speed or strength or something in order for a mutation to become dominant (I think it can be far more subtle than that), ostriches gained speed and strength by losing their ability to fly.

   And, sorry, but I disagree about the cockroaches. They have absolutely evolved. All cockroaches in the example are now resistant to an environmental threat that the vast majority were not immune to before. All of them, meaning that cockroaches as a whole have changed from what they formerly were. A particular non-dominant trait has become entirely dominant. If that’s not evolution in action, why not? Evolution doesn’t have to be visible. Would you call it evolution if, instead of a pesticide, a microbe that lived in the wings of cockroaches mutated into a malignant microbe and therefore only cockroaches without wings survived, so that all cockroaches were now wingless? Why is that evolution and not a change to every last cockroach that is not visible to the naked eye? Moroever, consider the fact that such a change — from winged to wingless or from non-resistant to resistant– could take place in only a few generations of cockroaches (not millions of years) and, moreover, if we were looking back at the fossil record a million years later, we would say, “Geez. All of a sudden cockroaches all lost their wings and there is no explanation at all. Why would that happen? Evolution doesn’t explain that.”

   I disagree that the “fastest, biggest, and strongest” of anything will “be the most highly evolved.” No, there is room for variation and the “strongest” does not necessarily mean that it will supersede the species. That’s like saying that, in a few hundred or even a few million years, all humans will have the bodies of weightlifters and be able to run as fast as the fastest sprinters today. That would only be true if their bodies gave them such a distinct advantage over the rest of us that we could not survive. But we can survive and mate. You may not have the body of a weightlifter (maybe you do, Zach, but I don’t, so maybe I should have used myself as an example instead), but you do have the mind of a great thinker (okay, that’s why I used you as an example). But your particular strengths are no better or worse, at least right now. The point is not to make the strongest or fastest of every species. The point is to make creatures well adapted to their environments and able to procreate. Just as you can coexist with weightlifters and sprinters and even with dogs and mosquitoes and oak trees — at least until there is an environmental challenge — so there can be weak, slow birds who eat and mate just fine, and birds adapted to life on land to the extent that their wings become useless for flight but are useful for other things, and millions of variety of fish and trees. The “most highly evolved” means it can survive and nothing more until an advantage presents itself.

   Oh, but Zach, I admit that there are lots and lots of gaps in our knowledge of evolution. It’s still very young. Even worse, there are many, many more gaps in my knowledge of evolution. I know that it explains a lot and that we have seen it in action. I don’t see inconsistencies, though. I see gaps in knowledge, just as we have in physics and medicine and astronomy. We haven’t answered all the questions yet.

   You’re right about my gajillion questions at the end of my last comment. Put counting among the many things I am not so good at.

10. Dimensio Said,

    Sure. I have been studying logic and reason most of my life.

    I did not ask about your background with respect to the study of “logic and reason”. I inquired regarding your education on the physical evidence used in support of the theory of evolution. If you have not actually studied the theory of evolution — and your initial article prior to its revision suggests that you have not — then you cannot rationally claimed to have applied “logic and reason” in an attack upon the theory, because you have no factual basis on which to apply your logic.

11. stoogepie Said,

    Hi Dimensio. I hope you don’t mind if I respond. Zach builds a logical argument upon facts and premises and he cites the sources of his facts at the end of his post. But his post and his replies to comments are built entirely upon logic. That’s why, for instance, when I questioned a fact he presented in my original comment, Zach was able to revise the entry to include a different fact that supported the same logical argument.

    If you want to argue that a fact as Zach presents it is incorrect, that’s perfectly fair. But to state that he cannot apply logic and reason to premises that are widely understood to be the backbone of evolutionary theory because he may not have adequately studied some unspecified “physical evidence” seems a standard ad hominim attack: it’s an appeal to his lack of authority to discuss something as universally logical as a premise.

    To give a rather famous example that I have mirrored in my comments, Bishop Hugh Montefiore refuted evolutionary theory based upon polar bears being white. He argued that, if polar bears are at the top of the food chain in the Arctic, they would have no need to evolve a white coat to act as camouflage. This is a logical argument, not a factual one, unless you refute the facts that polar bears are white and are at the top of the food chain. Richard Dawkins responded with a logical retort: he wouldn’t want to be a black polar bear trying to sneak up on a seal in the snow. Note that both rely upon the same set of facts: polar bears are white and are at the top of the food chain. Both also rely upon one evolutionary principle: through natural selection, polar bears have evolved to have white coats as a form of camouflage (perhaps among other reasons). Montefiore refutes this principle logically, not factually, and Dawkins supports it logically, not factually. They reach different conclusions because Montefiore sees camouflage as always defensive but Dawkins points out that it can have an offensive purpose as well. In logical terms, Dawkins points out that Montefiore has committed the logical fallacy of argument by lack of imagination, a form of argumentum ad ignorantiam or appeal to ignorance. The facts are not in dispute here. The underlying principles are, and they are susceptible to pure reason.

    All that I’m getting at is that I think all logicians would disagree with you: it is perfectly rational to apply logic and reason to any premise, whether or not you have studied the facts extensively, provided that you are prepared to support any facts you use (or those facts are not in dispute). For instance, you do not need to be an expert on the physical facts of capital punishment to form a principled, logical argument for or against it. Similarly, you do not need to be an evolutionary biologist to debate whether a particular fact is logically consistent with basic premises underlying evolutionary theory.

12. Alex Said,

    Ok, so this is the second time I write up this comment because I got an internal server error this first time and lost it. So here it goes V 2.0

    After reading this huge page of comments I came up with a few thoughts on my own, It’s probably going to seem like an attack on StoogePie’s comments but, he just left so much material….

    Number One: StoogePie: “I ask because it seems illogical to ask for intention. And it seems unscientific.” Ok, so, I think that this is absurd because the whole reason in any scientific field is to find the “intent”, or why things are. You talked about dark matter, scientists want to find out it’s reason for being in this world, which to me is the same as “intent” (notice how I say “intent” because I don’t think we’re on the same page as to what intent is.)

    Number Two: StoogePie: “It’s a young science. But you don’t look for intent when you study chemistry or physics or astronomy, do you?” Chemistry and Astronomy are anything but young sciences. Maybe we disagree on what makes a young science, but even if you are solely basing it on chronology, both of these fields were around before Darwin made his trip to the Galapagos Islands.

    Number Three: StoogePie: “A bird would lose the ability to fly because it does nothing for the bird but losing that ability does. Ostriches do not need flight. They are incredibly efficient, fast, powerful land creatures.” I can’t honestly see any advantage to a bird, or any living creature, losing its ability to fly. You imply in your statements that these birds at one time had the ability and lost it, because it was advantageous to lose this ability for something else. I can’t see a scenario where a strictly land ostrich is advantageous to one that can fly, and catch prey from the sky. This seems to me like saying, hey let’s take away Superman’s ability to fly, I mean, he still is a strong dude, and can catch the bad guys, but let’s just take away flying. I’m sure it’s self-evident but it seems to me like a flying Superman is more efficient at his job than a land-bound one.

    Number Four: This may not have to do exactly with the article, but it did strike me as something I wanted to mention. KFJ: “I do believe that animals evolve to adapt to their surroundings…just as we as humans do.” I can’t exactly agree with this. Here’s a weird idea but, I think that humans aren’t exactly evolving anymore, (I’m sure there must be something we are still evolving, but I haven’t thought of it yet.) and instead we are evolving the world around us. In the animal kingdom the tallest giraffe gets the foliage at the top of the tree, he passes his genes on while the others die off. In the human world, we have the ability to reason, and when we can’t reach the cookie jar on the fridge, we don’t just give up, and let the tall humans get the cookies. Instead we invented a ladder so that the shorter people could climb up and get the cookies. Now everyone passes they’re genes on. We are evolving the world around us, instead of the other way around. In the animal kingdom the slowest animals or the ones with deformities are given up on, there doesn’t seem to be much emotion involved, in the human world, we don’t give up on the humans that can’t “compete” with the rest of the humans, instead we set up programs to try and help those people along. I don’t want to go into detail on exactly what I mean when I say “compete” because I don’t want to offend anyone. Doesn’t that seem kind of like putting a stop to evolution?

13. stoogepie Said,

    Hey Alex, I don’t feel at all attacked at all. Hey, even if you had attacked me, you deserve applause just for making it through all the comments! And I did give you a lot of material! But you make some great points and I have to thank you for that.

    Number One: You know, I think you’re right about this. I misunderstood Zach’s original statement about intent, and it’s so subtle and intelligent that I think I dealt with it incorrectly at first and now will still not do it justice. I was distinguishing science asking how things work versus it asking why things work that way. So you’re right that we probably started out on a different page. But I don’t know if we wind up on so far apart. Zach is right that evolution is no brain, it has no intent. As you point out, I took it for granted that the same was true of other sciences, but I think it is far more subtle than that. No, to different degrees, most sciences ask “must it work that way?” And some sciences, like biology in general (except for evolution) and medicine as a biological science in particular, do ask, “Yeah, we know how it works, but why?” So, you saw the subtlety that I missed at first. Thanks for pointing it out. It is, indeed, something that evolution as a science lacks. It’s a really sharp observation by both you and Zach that I have yet to fully wrap my mind around.

    Number Two: No, you’re right. Chemistry and physics are old sciences by nearly any measure. I meant for my statement that evolution is a young science to stand alone, but I bunched a billion questions into that last paragraph and called them one question. I would rate quantum physics as young and say there are as many gaps in our understanding of it as exist with evolution.

    Number Three: I disagree with this one. It’s not like ostriches would be Superman. Ostriches could not still fly and yet have the running speed or the leg strength of horses. They would be unicorns! So, imagine a very powerful bird like an eagle or a hawk. They have flight but have nowhere near the raw strength of an ostrich. The ostrich is the fastest bird on land and the largest living species of bird. Some males can be over 300 pounds. The next time you see a 300-pound bird fly by, you can call it Superbird. An ostrich can kill with a single kick of its powerful legs. Now, name any other bird that, on your typical stroll through the African Savannah, you worry might just kill you with a single blow. The eagle or hawk is a 98-pound weakling that can fly. That isn’t to say that flight doesn’t serve them well. They are awesome predators, but they couldn’t take you or a hyena on in fight and survive. An ostrich could. An ostrich is Superman without flight. It has the super strength without the ability to fly. Compared to ostriches, hawks and eagles and owls and other awesome flying predators are ten-year-old boys that can fly. They’re great for flight and they can do some damage, but their ability to fly limits the amount of raw land speed and awesome power they can ever have.

    Number Four: I think you just threw this one in so that I wouldn’t feel like you were beating up on me alone! Seriously, this is a really great observation and I think you could be absolutely right. Modern medicine and technology allow humans to manipulate the world instead of the world manipulating us. Not so long ago, certain diseases, deformities, accidents, or bad circumstances meant certain death. Now, in many cases, those people can survive and procreate. When you add in our ever-expanding predictive abilities — we can sometimes tell when a person is at risk for a disease — we really may be stopping human evolution. And things like hearing loss and poor eyesight, which might have been fatal in the harsh reality of a purely natural environment, can be beat with technology. I don’t think I’ve fully wrapped my mind around this one yet, either, but it’s a great observation.

    Oh, and I feel your pain. I, too, have typed in comments only to watch them disappear when I click submit. It happens sometimes on all websites and it drives me nuts!

14. Nick Said,

    Woah,
    Where did you get that historical text of the two rhinos chit-chatting? This discovery certainly proves that peer-pressure has been around for many millenium. Perhaps evolution is no more than the adaptation of a fad. Which came first, the chicken or the egg? I’d like to belive that the rhino’s horn was “cool” before it was “useful”. Atleast that’s what all of my experience with present culture and civilization would lead me to believe.

    Long story short, I’d rather be a rhino with a horn, then a rhino without.

15. -Zach- Said,

    Nick,
    I’m gonna have to be upfront with you (and everyone else).
    The original picture of the two rhinos talking has been modified. That’s right. It’s not completely real.
    It was actually just a still picture I took out of an old black and white video of these ancient trigonias. I took their dialogue from the video and I added in the speech bubbles. I brought this picture into Photoshop and added speech bubbles and … I colored the grass green. Otherwise, it’s as real as they come.

16. Ron Moses Said,

    Hi Zach,

    I’m a firm believer in evolution myself, but I applaud you for questioning it. Science should always be questioned, otherwise it’s not science. The only thing I would caution you against is the common trap of “I have questions, therefore it’s flawed.” Don’t get me wrong, you raise valid, thoughtful questions. But questions neither validate nor invalidate a theory, answers do. You seemed to have closed your argument at the question-raising stage, without exploring whether someone has answered these questions already. (Which they have, as other commenters have pointed out. Now it falls to you to discover and evaluate those answers.)

    Keep on raising those questions. You seem to have a keen, inquisitive mind, and the debate depends on people like you to keep it moving forward.

    Oh…and in regards to humans not evolving anymore. As a 6′4″ person who has toured many Colonial-era homes and other buildings throughout New England, I can assure you we are, at the very least, getting taller.

17. Adam Said,

    Since gene-sequencing has confirmed the theory of evolution, it takes no more faith to hold this theory than, say, the theory of relativity - in fact I’d say it takes much less: at least the theory of evolution makes intuitive sense.

    Now don’t get me wrong - of course it takes faith to believe the theory of evolution, as it takes faith to believe anything at all (even that one exists - Descartes’ famous statement is nothing more than a statement of faith - it Proves nothing). The point is that this is the most reasonable explanation we have, to date. You say, Zach, that you prefer to hold no theory at all than to hold a wrong one - this smacks me of hubris: are any of the theories you run your daily existence by are more than rough approximations. Do you have access to Truth?

    The main challenge you raise to Darwin has been raised before - and responded to in some depth by people like Stephen J Gould and Richard Dawkins. I’m not saying they’re necessarily right - but the key point for me is that, insofar as the word “proof” has meaning, the theory of evolution has been proven. The mapping of rhibosomal RNA reveals a tree of descendance very similar to those drawn up on the basis of external appearance and behaviour by taxonomists. You can clearly follow the genetic mutations over time from one species to another.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phylogenetic_tree

    Personally, even before the necessary advances were made that make such demonstration possible, I feel that the theory of evolution was the best available explanation for the diversity of species. The only alternative theories around tend to involve magic beings of one kind or another. As David Hume so beautifully put it - if you can see only one side of a set of scales, and you note that it is raised and has a feather on it, all you can say is that there is something heavier than a feather on the other side. To posit some super-powerful uber-architect in order to explain the universe is like positing a family of elephants with pink moustaches on the invisible side of the scales in order to explain the raised feather - excessive, unnecessary and highly improbable.
    So if we’ll accept that great big Daddies in the sky don’t qualify as a genuine alternative theory - what else have you got that actually works pretty well?

    Again - if you feel that scepticism is the only option until you have certainty, you’re screwed (unless you have that common ability to believe things with certainty without question - which may actually be enviable - but which doesn’t seem to be your thing - at least not what you’d like to think is your thing). For a quick example (that I find pretty much all consuming actually): take logic. It’s a system of rules that just seem undeniably bleeding obvious (that’s blind belief). If ‘A & B’ then ‘A’. If ‘If A then B’ and ‘A’, then ‘B’, etc. But if we question these laws we can only justify them on logical grounds - which is entirely circular and therefore logically unsound. Effectively we hold the laws of logic on the basis that denying them would just be silly - they work just fine thanks, and I’d rather have a wrong theory that works than no theory at all.

18. Adam Said,

    I say above that phylogenetic trees allow you to follow genetic mutations from one species to another. I add: you can also follow the genetic mutations within the same species - the hidden diversity within species. It’s this constant genetic variation that sometimes gives rise to new species.

    I just read this excellent example of evolution observed within the last century and a half within a species.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peppered_moth_evolution
    This species of moth was originally pale and well camouflaged in its natural habitat. Still, because of the omnipresent variations in genes, sometimes they produced darker offspring (by mutation) - this was selected against because they were less well camouflaged. However, as pollution increased and soot covered their trees, the darker ones actually started doing a lot better, whilst the paler ones were less well camouflaged. Quite fast, the entire population became dark, with only the occasional pale offspring. What changed was not the genes of the species - they were variable across the species - but the selective pressures and therefore the predominance of one or the other existing genetic variation. When those pressures changed again and less coal was being burned towards the end of the 20th century, the shift in colouration reversed again, so that now they are mostly pale.
    This case is indisputable evidence for natural selection and Darwinian theory of evolution. I see no other theory that can account for it.
    It should be widely taught.

    Note that the only creationist argument against this massive case (studied independently by numerous groups) is consistent fraud and error. The ‘blocked-ears “I’m not listening to youuuu!”‘ approach to rational discussion.

19. Victor Schetinger Said,

    I happened to get to alogicalillation trought a picture a stumbled upon (yes, on stumbleupon…) and been reading the interesting articles and even more interesting comments for the last hour.
    In matter of fact, this happens to be a really strange coincidence. I am a graduate student of Computer Science in Brazil and for the past months have been seriously interested in evolutionary and genetic theories, such as Dawkins work, wich broaded my mind and instigated my interest. So, the reading of this article and comments came well along to be enjoyable and constructive for my personal beliefs.

    Past with the “not-so-on-topic” information, i think i found most of my issues with the article mentioned on the comments, and my issues with the comments solved within the next comments, so its kind of frustrating not having to poke anyone or making an interesting 10 paragraph argument about animals growing stuff, but at the same time it makes me think ive found a piece where i share simillar points of view.

    As someone from different culture, im very intrigued to know the religious orientations of the people involved in this argument, since its particularly a theory that has direct influence on faith and beliefs, and i dont think anyone seriously religious would give that much thought and consideration crafting logical explanations as you did.

    Furthermore, in alex fourth point he reached a subject i wasnt expecting, and after thinking a bit about it i find it dangerously true. We have interrupted a process that has been ruling all known (and uknown) life cycles, without the necessary care. Think of it, the whole human nature on its “counsciousness” already deny the basic principles of “natural selection flow”, since we find so attached to “human concepts” (god i love quotes) as moral and good. And also, our evolving process now doesnt favorite biological aspects anymore, its something in a different layer, so subtle to the genes. Recently i read (sorry, no specific references) about children being over-allergic in the past few years, and that it has been ocurring due to over-protection and modern life commodities that allow such anommalies happen. Even tought you may argue i pointed a phenotypical aspect, i think it can still be used to support this line of thought.

    So, i just wanted to give feedback on this since it interested me so much. Sorry about my bad english, i dont use it as often as id like, and certainly not as correctly as i should. And sorry again if i didnt make myself clear or the ideas werent as on-topic as you would like, but im always interested in talking and arguing, so enlight me about my mistakes because i might be present in future comments.

20. Cheryl Said,

    Well, all I can say is…………polar bears are white because……….that’s the way GOD made them!!!!

21. ken Said,

    polar bears are white because their hairs are hollow, cheryl:

    http://www.loc.gov/rr/scitech/mysteries/polarbear.html

    hollow hairs make better insulators.

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