Consider the fact than many insects have such short life spans. Some flies only live for one hour. They have less than 60 minutes to find a partner, mate, find a place to lay eggs and die. According to evolutionary scientist, the evolution process takes about 250-300 million years to occur. What is the likely hood that not one, but two of these flies would evolve within one hour of each other in a 300 million year process? So the window of evolutionary opportunity is faster than a camera shutter compared to the length of time the process takes.
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Einstein once said that the only things that are infinite are the universe and human stupidity, and that he wasn't sure about the former. I'm beginning to think that strawmen arguments posing as scientific theories might also be infinite (assuming you don't consider that a subset of human stupidity...)
@Derp
He's not saying that these flies would evolve faster, he's saying that the likelihood that two flies would mutate in exactly the same way at the same time and in the same place is extraordinarily slim.
Of course, he's correct, that would be basically impossible. However, since evolution doesn't work that way, his comment is still incredibly stupid.
Because evolution = gradual changes in DNA, and...
Ah, fuck it. You people are never going to get it.
I'm also pretty sure he thinks the organism itself mutates, as in, the DNA of a living animal changes during the course of its life.
So he's saying an hour isn't enough time for a fly to spontaneously change its DNA and THEN pass that on. XD
The likelihood is zero. Evolution in the real world is not evolution like in Pokemon. Evolution is based on genes, and you can't change the genes you are born with. Ergo an individual cannot evolve into anything during its lifetime, evolution is the sum of the changes in a populations genome over unfathomably long periods of time.
Also, the fly with the shortest adult lifespan is the mayfly, which only lives for 24 hours.
BTW, if you go to the link now you are redirected to another page. Apparently they realized it was really stupid, even for a creationist. Here's the message:
"A general observation. On occasion, an atheist will post a mocking comment on a blog, website, or forum related to this topic. Once this happens, hundreds of atheists rush to my site and flood my email with profanity, mocking, and insults. People are definitely sheep. If you’re an atheist rushing out to prove your dedication to the zeitgeist, your emails only prove the truth of what this study claims"
However, the original page is cached here:
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:chttkEKrZ_oJ:www.exchangedlife.com/Creation/unexplai.htm
Evolutionary change occurs across entire populations, not individuals. It's the offspring that will display minor differences from their parents. As a result, evolutionary change more accurately observed by generations rather than years.
A fly's generation is considerably shorter than a human's, but I think humans are a dead end while the fly (among other insects) continues to evolve in a noticable fashion.
What is the likely hood that not one, but two of these flies would evolve within one hour of each other in a 300 million year process?
You don't necessarily need two flies both with the exact same mutation in order for the mutation to survive, so the question is pointless.
Maybe some of these fundies should really go back to the farm. We can demonstrate evolution mutation via any domesticated animal and pretty much every pet too. Got a cow that produces more milk, mate her more and see what happens. Got a snake with an unusual pattern? Mate it out with several other patterns to prove out the morph and come up with cool looking snakes. Evolution does not need two of the same partners... but then I supoose Exchangedlife would have to do a little reading on Mendel and that would hurt.
Anon #1310642, you are awesome.
exchangedlife, you don't even understand what evolution is. What you're refuting has nothing to do with actual evolution.
Huh? What does the lifespan of an insect have to do with how long it took to evolve? Animals change over time, there are moths that are now darker than they were 200 hundred years ago, because of pollution. The darker ones survived to breed, and the lighter ones got eaten. That's how it works. Their lifespan is irrelevant.
Besides the obvious point that evolution occurs in populations and not individuals; I feel I must point out that the short "life span" refers only to the adult stage. Assuming that the OP was talking about mayflies; there entire life span is generally one year for the nymph. They then, through the process of evolution, all emerge at the same time so that they can find a mate and lay eggs before they die and/or are consumed by predators.
1) Luckily, we do not follow Lamarck anymore.
2) Even following the misrepresentation of evolution, insects have been here for a given time. The fact that each insect generation spans little time is irrelevant, it simply means that there are more generations to try your luck.
"Some flies only live for one hour."
No they don't, their larvae stage lasts much longer than that. Their lifespan after metamorphosis isn't the whole thing.
It's adorable watching people like this try to get into an argument. "I have never done the barest amount of research into this sciencey thing, but my preacher mentioned it once as something he was against, so I'm going to debate it anyway!!" It's like an Amish person trying to impress a computer programmer with his knowledge of "BIOS backup decryptors."
" What is the likely hood that not one, but two of these flies would evolve within one hour of each other in a 300 million year process?"
Only a creationist would be dumb enough to think that could happen.
Edit: From the cached page:
Even the creationists admits that the evidence supports evolution.
Maybe it's because I've been away from FSTDT for a while, but my fundie-to-English translator seriously couldn't understand his attempted point.
I did eventually get it, thanks to reading through the comments on this page.
And yes. It's stupid.
Actually, I think that some flies like mayflies that live for one day, not one hour. But even with such short lifespans, it's easier to see evolution occur quicker because they go through more generations in a shorter amount of time. It's easy to see this with antibiotic-resistent bacteria.
Populations evolve, not individuals. Do you have any idea how quickly flies mate? (And I'm pretty sure that not even mayflies live for a mere hour.) Even if that is true, the lifespan of the species would have gradually shortened. It wouldn't have happened all at once.
Another exaggerated claim by a fundie. Wow. the exact same fundie that made the exaggerated astronomy claim in the last post.
It's a shame that even the cached page is gone. What is it about fundies that they are so afraid to defend what they said, or get afraid when someone offers a rebuttal? If your comment can't stand open debate, you probably shouldn't have said it in the first place.
1: 300 million years is HORSE. SHIT. That figure was pulled directly out of someone's rectum. Again, HORSESHIT!!! It's been 65 million years since the fall of the dinosaurs, you FUCKING RETARD!!!
ahem. #2: Scientists have specieated common fruit flies(drosophila melanogaster, from memory) countless times and in some experements statistically discouraged cross-breeding(genetic isolation is THE harbinger of new species) in just a few generations. So... What? If people already proved you wrong with flies, the very analogy you used, where does that leave you?
3: FLIES DON'T LIVE THAT LONG!! THEY LIVE WEEKS! Even if a species of fly lived for an hour(someone mentioned mayflies, the ADULT, winged form being the short-lived phase of the life cycle), your argument would still be HORSE-FUCKING-SHIT!! Evolution affects the phenotypes of populations!
4: Do NOT mess with a biologist. Bitch.
Evolution doesn't work that way. There are much more difficult questions regarding evolution, about parasites which use more than one host during their life cycle for instance, but fundies don't ask them because you need an understanding of evolution in order to do so.
It takes thousands of generations, millions of mutations, before speciation is so far along that they can no longer procreate together. Just look at dogs and wolves. They can still have offspring with each other, after tens, maybe hundreds, of thousands of years of mutations and adaptations.
According to Wikipedia, dogs are still a subspecies of Canis Lupus, i.e. wolves.
@Swede
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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