lol
I'll play but this feels very subjective.
The purpose of this constraint is to avoid an argument like this
You: This is my argument, how could Muhammad have known xyz.
Me: This is how....
You: (Completely ignore that I disproved your point) So how did we all get here then?
That kind of discussion would just be annoying.
We can never talk about anything ever again? Or just in THIS thread?
We should at least agree to change before changing.
Well, it's certainly an observed argument about the facts.
Evolution itself is an observed phenomenon. Animals developing a new section in their digestive system when introduced to a new island with less meat and more vegetation. Nylonase developing the ability to consume Nylon, and many observed instances of speciation too. Not only do we observe it, but in an e-coli experiment scientists observed not only e-coli evolving a new ability to consume citrus but it was a multi-step evolutionary process; and because the scientists froze all of their samples each day we can revive older generations and repeatedly observe this mutation occur.
So not only is it observed, it is reproducible. Evolution is a fact.
You are arguing for "natural selection as an aspect of Evolution" and not for Evolution itself?
I am arguing that humans share a common ancestor with chimps, bonobos, and apes; something most Muslims won't accept because it is contrary to the Quran. It's funny how it's only people who believe in divine creation that struggle to accept the facts of evolution, people of religions without a story about a god that created humans in their current form don't seem to share the same inability en masse.
So the strength of your argument is that, because children (of whatever species) inherent certain traits from their parents, and their environment may favor those particular traits, that proves that Evolution is what it claims to be?
No, I thought I made the strength of my argument clear. Maybe you need to re-read it to refresh your memory? Specific ERVs in the genomes of humans/chimps etc in the same position show that we inherited them from common ancestors. I am not trying to explain to you how evolution works, I am showing you the proof that it has already worked and that humans and chimps are the result of a divergence of two species from a single common ancestor species.
Wikipedia - "ERVs are activated and produced in high quantities during the implantation of the embryo. They are currently known to possess immunosuppressive properties, suggesting a role in gestational immune tolerance, protecting the embryo from its mother's immune system."
You didn't read the whole page. This is for
Viviparous mammals only (mammals that have their young develop inside their body). Reptiles and birds lay eggs and are neither viviparous or mammals. These too show the same trait of commonly held ERVs which corroborate the evolutionary tree of life.
You are also only quoting the observed behaviour of SOME ERVs and ignoring the opening sentence on the page
"Endogenous retroviruses (ERVs) are retroviruses derived from ancient viral infections of germ cells in humans, mammals and other vertebrates; as such their proviruses are passed on to the next generation and now remain in the genome."
The origin of the ERV is unquestionable, they originated as an infection in our ancestors. I'm afraid you have simply quote mined that page and taken something out of its intended context - it doesn't mean what you want it to mean.
Because of this concept I'm inclined to think that the presence of the retroviruses has little to do with the Evolutionary origins of life on earth, and is more of simply an aspect of Life as we know it... still mysterious as scientists attempt to crack the code using their horse blinders/one-trick-pony method of believing evolution is true and therefore refusing to look in any other direction for the origins of life.
Here is some news for you. There is no worldwide conspiracy amongst scientists to pretend god does not exist!
These are all individual people, all with the ability to independently verify the findings and conclusions of others. Any scientist who presented proof that evolution was untrue would win the Nobel prize and go down in history as the first person to disprove the world's most solid scientific theory ever that no scientist before them was able to disprove. Does that sound like a conspiracy to you?
I've been disinclined to take it seriously once I discovered that Darwin's grandfather first cobbled together the theory from Masonic mysticsm
Even if that is true it has nothing to do with it. The *scientific* theory is based on observed facts. Whether Darwin's father was a Mason or a Satanist it would make no difference to the observed facts, his personal traits cannot affect reality. Darwin was merely the first person to publish the idea. The scientific theory of evolution through natural selection is FAR more than Darwin's initial findings, Darwin couldn't have dreamt of the evidence we now have! So personal attacks on Darwin are futile, let's have some objective evidence instead please!
Natural selection results in things like diiferent breeds of cat
Yes, it results in cats which look different or might not even be able to breed. Did you know that a lion and a tiger can produce fertile offspring even though they are found on different continents?
Humans have bred pedigrees dog into all the different breeds you now see. This period of time is NOTHING compared to how long life has existed on this planet. The variation that you see in dogs from over only the past 200 years fits into 3,600,000,000 years over 18 million times. That's a LOT more evolution.
Importantly though it not only makes the animals look different, they look different because their DNA has diverged. Once two groups of the same species have their DNA diverge too much they can no longer mate with each other
See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EnsatinaOnce they cannot mate then they are on different evolutionary paths, because their individual mutations are not fed into each other's DNA pools. They mutate separately, and become different things. Over time they look different.
or even the psychic trait that enabled the line of prophets to communicate with God,
I don't think you really thought through the implications of your statement. You are saying that these people could communicate with god because they had evolved brains, rather than because god spoke to them. You are implying that god needed man to reach god, rather than god having the ability to reach anyone.
You think that a human can evolve the ability to talk to god telepathically but a chimp can't grow a bigger brain and lose its hair? Strange how you accept the more complicated case of evolution for which there is zero evidence whilst at the same time rejecting the more simple cases of evolution for which there is mountains of evidence.
Don't you think you started to look at the evidence without caring what it points to, rather than being selective in what you look at because it contradicts something you WANT to be true?
So, next steps:
1: You still need to explain why humans + chimps have the same *inherited* ERV infections in our DNA.
2: You are yet to present your best objective argument for why Islam is correct.
Topic: TheRationalizer Vs MRasheed - Facts of evolution Vs Facts of the Quran