I'm hoping for the evoluntionary permutation of the black fly back to its larval stage permanently.

And if, after 250 million years, flies are still flies, then is flydom the zenith of earthly experience? Perhaps we are evolving toward flydom, rather than the other way around, if the Darwinists are correct.

Fred Jacobsen
San Francisco

No, flies will NOT evolve past flyhood. They've found the perfect form, to fill their niche.

Evolution isn't about ALL forms moving towards some "perfect" being. It's about perfectly filling roles, or niches.
After all, we still have unicellular life.

My hope is that humans are the zenith of earthly experience, although we must first refrain from causing our own extinction.
Also, I use "human" in the sense of being descendants of humans, and not necessarily in the sense of present-day forms.

If humans are NOT the zenith of creation, it will likely be beings created, at least initially, by humans.

"Flies evolved about 250 million years ago."

You see this kind of statement all the time, often in school texts. If you think about it for more than a moment, serious problems arise. Firstly, how can anything evolve at a point in time, even give or take a few million years? Secondly, from what? The statement is meaningless without some indication of what the pre-fly was and "evolved" is just a synonym for "appeared". Thirdly
where was the irksome creature headed? If Michael is right and we have an insect that "evolved" at a point in time and in a state of perfection (the fly is perfect?), then the more rational, logical hypothesis surely is that Something created the fly "and saw that it was good".

Try writing about something that "evolved" a hundred years ago and the fallacies scream out. It is only the hiding behind great swaths of pre-history that allows authors to get away with this clumsiness.

Peter:

If "about" is an error margin of, say, 10%, then that leaves a time span of 50 million years and maybe as many as 250 million insect generations.

That isn't exactly a blink of an eye.

Insects are difficult for paleontologists, because they don't fossilize very well.

But there are a whole bunch of dots for birds leading all the way back to Archeopteryx.

Maybe what's good for the goose is good for the fly?

OJ:

Why?

Another creationist attempt to deliberatly misunderstand evolutionary theory in order to avoid it's consequences to your world view.

Evolution is a fact, if you refuse to face it for religious reasons say so and enough with this shoddy pseudo-logic and straw-man misrepresentation.

Jeff:

Yes, I appreciate that there is a lot of time here. Lucky for you guys, eh?.

"A whole bunch of dots"? I'm overwhelmed.

Amos:

And a very good day to you, too. Actually, I try in my scientifically limited way to base my doubts on the absence of proof, experience and observations, and evidentiary gaps, which I guess don't trouble those of your faith.

There is no lazier scientific point of view than
"Evolution is a fact get over it". Notice
that the "millions and millions of years"
concept is used to excuse evedentiary gaps.

And yet, the "Big Bang" happened in an instant?

By the way Amos, some of us are not a priori
against evolutionary theory. What we are against
is the penchant most evolutionists to place
their theory above the realm of critique.

Amos:

We're all agreed that evolution is a fact. 250 million years ago the fly was not a fly.

Amos: Hey, really, I have no problem with the idea of evolution. However, unlike many folks, I paid attention in fifth grade science when we discussed the difference between a "theory" and a "law."

Why wouldn't they be the same? Flyhood seems to be working out just fine for them.

Peter:

Until recently I had no idea how many dots there are to connect Archeopteryx with modern birds. Quite amazing, really.

There isn't just one kind of fly--there are many, many kinds, each of which branched from another kind over time. And to the extent each filled a long-term niche, they are still with us. Life fills niches, and so long as the niche stays, there is no selection pressure, hence little if any change.

I can't remember the time line awfully clearly, but I think 250 million years ago is about the time large land animals appeared. Meaning a new niche--big corpses--appeared for the first time.

Mere coincidence?

Drivel. Flies have not failed to change over 250 myr.

They did not present themselves full blown (pun) just then, either.

It makes no sense to debate people who are spiritually incapable of allowing the darwinian theory to speak for itself. The primary motive for this post was to take a teleological swing at Darwinism, although Darwinism is explicitly, even militantly, antiteleological.

This is not honest discussion.

Sharp words, maybe, but you ought to consider that presenting carcicatures of serious ideas to serious people will not lead them to Christian conservatism. It will lead them to think that arguments don't get a fair hearing in Christian forums.

I believe that to be a fact. But it seems to me that it would be in your interest to change the fact, if it is a fact; or to work hard against the perception if it's only a pseudofact.

Lastly, the imprecision of the remarks is stunning. Diptera is a very big group and -- this is rich -- includes the most famously fast-mutating of all the metazoa, those fruit flies.

But they're still flies, right?

Mr. Judd;

You've missed Mr. Eager's point, which is that the very formulation "past flyhood" is a meaningles statement in evolutionary theory. It presumes teleology on a non-teleological theory. It also presupposes that the entire species changes as one which is also not part of evolutionary theory. It makes as much sense as discussing Christian salvation by arguing about how new pages get in to St. Peter's book at the Pearly Gates as more people are born.

AOG:

Actually, that's backwards, isn't it? If you guys are saying the fly reached its final form and achieved stasis that would be teleological. I thought Darwin argued that things would change due to survival and envoironmental pressures, not arrive at a final, perfect form.

Harry:

I will allow that I may be out of my scientific depth here and may be pushing sarcasm too far. But I would like to ask you a serious question. I have read your post over several times. It is far too inscrutable for me to challenge or agree with. Are you not in any way troubled by the fact that your theory of life and creation is so scientifically complex, and demands so much hard and serious scientific anaysis, that it is virtually inaccessiable to all but the highly trained scientifically? Do you not see that you must tell the average farmer that he is simply too uneducated to understand the reality behind it all? Seriously, the way you and Jeff talk about evolution makes me see you as analagous to ancient priests claiming an exclusive, inside track on ultimate truth.

So, is evolution an esoteric body of knowledge accessible only to the elect few? Do you need a PH.D in science to appreciate its fundamentals, or to distinguish between its fantasies and its serious realities?

Peter:

To be an expert, or to comprehend?

To be an expert at relativity requires knowing fiendishly complex math. To comprehend requires college level physics, decent algebra skills and no more than a glancing familiarity with calculus.

So what's your take on relativity?

With evolution, it helps to be glancingly familiar with statistics, geology, and biology, and a desire to read the actual works of evolutionary theorists. The last is kind of important. Send me your address--I'll mail you a couple hundred page book. It is a bit of a dry slog, but mountains of data can get that way.

OJ:

Take a look at the taxonomy for flies, and then repeat that statement. If you can.

Jeff:

There are a lot of kinds of flies, but non has ever become unflylike. There are a lot of dog types, but all are still doglike. Darwinism took 250 million years to do what we did in a few thousand, yet you think it also raised us all from primordial muck? How long has there been life on Earth again?

Peter, since I went to religious school, I have never had the benefit of a formal school course in any field of science. No Ph.D. I'm entirely self taught.

One of the interesting things about Darwinism -- not merely interesting but stimulating to people who care to think -- is that, unlike almost any other science, its fundamental principles can be stated briefly. Almost in "25 words or less."

I think this is one reason why people like Orrin -- and a great many even less willing to be informed -- think that they can derive every consequence of Darwinism just because they've read the short statement.

As it turns out, the implications of the Darwinian principles are extremely complex, not obvious and, indeed, require hard study to grasp.

The only other field of science that combines the same features -- simple statement, extremely complex and nonobvious implications -- to the same degree is perhaps the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

Curiously, persons who scorn the Second Law -- perpetual motion fanatics -- are generally regarded as cranks. Persons who scorn Darwinism escape crankdom by wrapping themselves in superstition, strange neo-Platonic sequences of non-reasoning and an entirely undeserved self-claim of superior morality.

When I disparage religion, I disparage it on evidence of what religion really is.

I don't find that Darwinism gets such a fair shake.

OJ:

Clearly, you haven't taken even a passing glance at life's taxonomy.

If you did, you would see your question is self answering.

"I can't remember the time line awfully clearly, but I think 250 million years ago is about the time large land animals appeared. Meaning a new niche--big corpses--appeared for the first time.

Mere coincidence?"

If evolution is in fact random, purposeless, and non-determinitive, then yes it is pure coincidence.

"You've missed Mr. Eager's point, which is that the very formulation "past flyhood" is a meaningles statement in evolutionary theory. It presumes teleology on a non-teleological theory."

Given that the entire premise behind the Big Bang and Evolution is that if you wait around long enough hydrogen turns into people, why is it so outrageous to suggest that one day flies might become something other than flies?

Carl:

Evolution can be all of those things, and still take advantage of a new niche.

After all, evolution takes place within the surrounding environment. It would be surpassing strange if a significant change in the environment didn't have knock-on effects on the life forms within it.

That's not what the entire premise of the Big Bang is, Carl.

It does seem -- though nobody has proven it -- that the makeup of the Universe leads to self-replicating organized systems. Some we consider living, some, like gypsum crystals, we don't.

That the kind we call life is inevitable seems likely but again unproven.

No Darwinian claims that humans were inevitable and it is speculative even to claim that self-consciousness is.

The only example we know of displayed self-organizing examples we call life, but for close to 4 billion years nothing we'd call even incipient intelligence.

If an event is so rare that it happens only once in 4 billion years, but is random (as Darwinists think), then the actual frequency might just as well be one in 8 billion years. In our case, it happened early in the period.

In a nearly similar case, in which the rare random event happened late in the period, it would not have happened at all, since the Sun would have expired first.

This is a consequence, probably, of particle interactions, which in part drive mutations. As we know, a naturally fissioning atom can fission at any time, and some decay within nanoseconds, some only billions of years later.

And that is why Darwinism cannot be teleological. It is driven in part by a random process.

The beginnings of life may, or may not, be random, but evolution is not.

That is to say, although an organism's mutations, or an environmental change, may be random, whether or not the the mutation or adaptation spreads throughout the population is NOT random.

Jeff:

Yes it is strange that they've not reacted at all significantly to change over 250 million years.

Evolution is random, Michael, because it depends on mutations. These are random.

Given a set of mutations and an environment, the subsequent development is not random (although it is too complex for humans to be able to predict how it will go).

It may be easier to understand in a negative than a positive example. Tay-Sachs Disease is thought to be the result of a mutation in the gonad of one man somewhere around Poland.

If that mutation was the result of a cosmic ray (although there could have been other origins), then if he had decided to stay in bed that day, it wouldn't have happened and the course of human history, in his lineage, would have been different.

Orrin, once again you demonstrate that you do not know what Darwinism says. I have not studied the Diptera to any extent, so I cannot quote chapter and verse, but the flies no doubt have reacted significantly to change over the eons.

They speciated. When a species splits, the theory does not require that the old species disappear.

The reason there are so many species of flies, and not just one, is that flies do respond to selection pressures.

An example I know more about, rather similar, is the evolution of the ants from the wasps. The wasps are still here, comparatively unchanged. The ants are new.

Jeff,

Evolution can't "take advantage" of anything. To "take advantage" implies intelligence and requires a goal. A mutation occurs and if the animal survives and reproduces it gets passed on, if it doesn't it goes extinct. Just because a resource that can be exploited exists does not mean a mutation will arise that can use it. By the same token there is no guarantee that any given mutation will help a creature survive. Also, there is a possibility that a mutation will arise that can indeed use an available resource but nevertheless go extinct for entirely different reasons (how many times do you think the ultimate fiddler crab has been squashed by a coconut?). The coming together of an available resource and a creature that can take advantage of that resource and then survive to pass on its genes is pure coincidence.

Harry,

The only person ascribing teleology and purpose to evolution here is Jeff.

Carl:

You are exactly right. Unfortunately, the only way to correctly explain "take advantage" takes about, oh, five sentences, since you did it about as concisely as is possible. So while I try not to, I, as will even textbooks on the subject, occasionally fall prey to using the words "take advantage" to contextually carry all the meaning you conveyed.

If I said a moving wing takes advantage of air flow to produce lift, you would immediately understand what I was saying, and not conclude the wing was conning the passing air into something it wouldn't have done otherwise.

Wouldn't you?

OJ:

What change did the flies experience that effected their entire range?

Not only Jeff, and I think he's being incorrectly interpreted.

Orrin is demanding that evolution be teleological. Since he doesn't believe in it, I suppose strictly speaking he is not "ascribing," but it's a distinction without a difference.

He also claims it is determinist, which it cannot be.