Evolutionary Science-v- Creationism

[Happy Monkey]

He only thinks they're stumped because he can't understand their answer.

[Happy Monkey]

For example:

Comfort replied, "I don't have the evident faith the professor has to believe in the theory of evolution, and so I am glad that he took the time to explain his beliefs as to why females had evolved along with males in every species in creation.


"Okay, I've got it," Comfort continued. "Your belief is that species do not arise from single new mutant males that then have to find a corresponding mutant female. So, let's take it slowly for those of us stupid folk who like empirical evidence. We are looking at a contemporary male and a female elephant. They are part of a population of elephants. Let's go back to their elephant ancestors 10,000 years ago. They are still male and female elephants (they had to be because that's how elephants reproduce). Let's now go back one million years to what you called 'the populations of pre-elephants that contained males and females.' Obviously, they are still male and female way back then because that's how pre-elephants reproduced," Comfort said.



"Let's go back even further (100 million years ago) to pre-pre-elephants that also contained males and females. At what point of time in evolutionary history did the female evolve alongside the male? And why did she evolve? Then explain, if you would professor, why horses, giraffes, cattle, zebras, leopards, primates, antelopes, pigs, dogs, sheep, fish, goats, mice, squirrels, whales, chickens, dinosaurs, beavers, cats, human beings and rats also evolved with a female, at some point of time in evolutionary history. Professor, I know you believe, but please, give us who are healthy skeptics some empirical evidence. Remember, stupid people like me want good hard evidence before we, like you, become believers in Darwin's theory," Comfort said.

[Undertoad]

He's got it exactly backwards: male/female reproduction is precisely what permits serious evolution to take place. A creature could create its own progeny's DNA, but that DNA would be the same, wouldn't it? Or the changes that it would have would be random. But when two different sets of DNA come together, you have as xoB said, non-random traits that carry on, including recessive traits, which make certain progeny more likely to succeed and to continue to combine their DNA with others.

Witness the practice in plants, which Mr. Comfort does not mention. We have a male holly tree in our front yard. Oddly enough that means it has no berries. It's not that the male and the female trees fuck to have children. It's that having different sexes and combining their DNA is the best way for them to evolve.

[DanaC]

I want to see this dickhead explain Fig wasps without referencing evolution for both the wasp and the fig in which it breeds.

[Happy Monkey]

He'd probably go with "kinds" and macroevolution vs microevolution, like OnyxCougar. Or just say, "God did it."

Another amusing part of his misconception is the idea that it is the female that is unexplained by evolution. I mean, it is theoretically possible for females to self-clone, so even if evolutionaty theory worked the way Comfort claims, it should be the male that is unexplained.

[DanaC]

I may be wrong, my biology is a tad shaky, but don't fetuses start out female and then some develop into males ?

[DanaC]

I'd also find his explanation for mitochondrial (sp) DNA interesting...

[Undertoad]

The zygote/fetus is male or female from the start due to presence of XX female or XY male chromosome.

[Sundae]

Ah - must be a British educational issue, because although I learned that the sperm determines the sex of the foetus, I also learned all foetuses are essentially female. Explaining the nipples in a male (cat as well as human, as I know from Diz) and the clitoris inc hood (NOT known from Diz) which becomes the penis in the male.

I haven't googled it because I don't want to pretend to knowledge I don't have. But if someone could match up these two opposite strands of knowledge I'd be grateful.

[Happy Monkey]

I've heard that, too. Female-like physiology comes first, which develops differently for males. But for humans (all mammals), it actually "is" male or female based on genetics.

Some reptiles have the gender based on incubation temperature rather than genetics, though. I don't know if they also have the physiological female-to-male effect.

[Sundae]

Ahhh, 'splains it, thanks. Female develops first, but can become male after.

Poor Diz cat - he occasionally gets static shocks from his otherwise redundant nipples when I stroke him. And some to the nose too. Must be my parents' choice of carpet!

Then again, his claws rip my skin when he is supposedly just playing... Frequently! Sod it, a few shocks to the nips don't count between friends. (Gitmo excepted).

Re male & female, I was shocked to learn it was the sperm that made the difference. Because even at a Catholic school we learned Henry VIII did what he did (divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived) because no woman could bear him a son. Oh, well, Jane, but she died and so did her son it doesn't count, okay?

[morethanpretty]

That is why he did it SG. He just didn't know it was his own damn fault, women tended to have the blame heaped on them for any procreation issue: infertility, sex of child, deformities, ect.