I have no idea of what Rubicon meant by saying "More importantly to me there are aprrox 1.5 to 2million species of identified so far on earth but scientist know that between 5-7 million more have not been discovered. What do you think this fact does to the theory of evolution?"

Species of what? 5-7 million more what have not been discovered? What does that have to do with evolution?

May I give a couple of quick examples of evolution? The pupfish in Death Valley had evolved over tens of thousands of years so it can survive and thrive in 120 degree alkali waters. The cavefish has evolved without eyes and skin pigmentation through countless generations of living in pitch black caves.

What about all the fossils of 400 million years ago and even further back? Doesn't that prove the Earth is more than 6,500 years old? What about fossils of Neanderthal man, Zinjanthropos man, and other "cavemen"? We have evolved from them - some more than others.

At least, you can believe in evolution of a species, can't you? That would be a start in the right direction.

What tree would that be? If there were two branches and evolution is fact then again where are the in betweens? Did we just stop evolving. This is unsettled science. It is as believable to claim that aliens came down and bred the close to human branch you claim then in evolution, along with other species which by the way bodes well for intelligent design and not [I]ntelligent [D] esign least someone think me speaking against Creation, etc
Again this is very much unsettled science and each and every day is accompanied with retractions because of new findings such as referenced by Ann Coulter. So how do we separate fact from speculation when in fact scientist may never be able to uncover the so called missing link.
Again we still have some 5 milion plus species, some in our own back yards that have been uncovered yet. I'm just saying............

I'm just curious what you think of this:

"Mitochondrial DNA appears to mutate much faster than expected, prompting new DNA forensics procedures and raising troubling questions about the dating of evolutionary events."

http://www.dnai.org/teacherguide/pdf...e_romanovs.pdf


Or this:

"Does our mitochondrial DNA show that all humans came from the same mother? If so, did this mitochondrial Eve live 200,000 years ago or did she live at the calculated value of 6500 years ago? Portions of Mitochondrial DNA appears to mutate much faster than expected yet there has been a lot of opposition to this possibility because it goes against the calculated speed of the molecular clock that is based on having chimpanzees and humans diverge 5 million years ago."




http://www.mhrc.net/mitochondria.htm

BKCunningham-

If you had researched a little further, you would have found the author of the first article, Ann Gibbons, did more writing than the one article. I am pasting a synopsis of another of her articles. It states in it that prehistoric Neantherdal bones found in Croatia were over 38,000 years old. This article was written a few years after the one you posted a link to.

"Paleogenetics
Paleogenetics
Close Encounters of the Prehistoric Kind
Ann Gibbons
Summary
On page 710 of this week's issue of Science, an international team of researchers presents their first detailed analysis of the draft sequence of the Neandertal genome, which now includes more than 3 billion nucleotides collected from the bones of three female Neandertals who lived in Croatia more than 38,000 years ago. By comparing this composite Neandertal genome with the complete genomes of five living humans from different parts of the world, the researchers found that both Europeans and Asians share 1% to 4% of their nuclear DNA with Neandertals. But Africans do not. This suggests that early modern humans interbred with Neandertals after moderns left Africa, but before they spread into Asia and Europe. In a separate paper (p. 723), the team describes and successfully tests a new method for filling in gaps in the rough draft of the genome."

That kind of blows the 6,500 years out of the water, doesn't it?

buggyone, thank you for the post. You know and I know, polite people don't discuss religion. It can go on and on and result in people not being friends and nothing being proven except emotions run deep. So before I conclude my discussion of evolution with you, I'd like to ask you something else.

By your comments, you are telling me that it has recently been decided that things aren't as scientists have previously thought and believed they were with Mitochondrial DNA and dating? The prior dating methods were flawed? Is that what you are saying? They are correct this time, for certain? And the previous theory is wrong and has been disproven? Hmmm

This is something that troubles me about the evolution 'debate'.

This past weekend, I took my mom on vacation to Montreal. While driving she said "If evolution is true, how come we still have monkeys?"

She bought into a basic, fundamental misunderstanding of what evolution's record is. It doesn't say we descended from chips or gorillas - it says (as one other poster pointed out) that we and other primates have a common ancestor.

And that's what gets to me - all the misinformation. 30 years ago it was claiming "Ronald Reagan wants to classify ketchup as a vegetable!". People just making (stuff) up! And what's worse, others believing and repeating it!

"Popular rumors will turn into historical fact." That is just the nature of our,(note I said our), limited Grey Matter.
ThevillagerII

BKCunningham,

"By your comments, you are telling me that it has recently been decided that things aren't as scientists have previously thought and believed they were with Mitochondrial DNA and dating? The prior dating methods were flawed? Is that what you are saying? They are correct this time, for certain? And the previous theory is wrong and has been disproven? Hmmm"

No, I did not say anything nor post anything about prior dating methods being flawed. The article I posted had nothing in it about dating methods or previus theory being wrong and disproven. Please go back and re-read what in in my posting - the summary of the article by Ann Gibbons.

Anyhow, at your request, I will not belabor this anymore. I hope to remain on good terms with you.

Yea, like Al Gore and his dramatics about man-made Global Warming. Of course, with most of his "facts" disputed, most people do not pay him much attention anymore.

Hey, take it easy on Al Gore. Without Al, we wouldn't be posting on this wonderful forum. Remember, Al invented the internet . . . :laugh:

Your right of course, and don't forget that the movie Love Story was actually based on him and his wife.:laugh:

We are on good terms, buggyone.

I was commenting on the demise of Mitochondrial Eve. Your post made no sense to me in that regard, but I assumed you knew what you were talking about. I honestly couldn't understand what you were trying to say about the dating methods with your summary of Gibbons' article. I couldn't get access to the article you gave a summary to since it is by subscription only. I assumed you were responding to my two links showing that the methods of dating human beginnings have been proven wrong.

"Philip Awadalla and his coworkers noted in Science: 'Many inferences about the pattern and tempo of human evolution and mtDNA evolution have been based on the assumption of clonal inheritance. There inferences will now have to be reconsidered' (1999, 286:2525). However, rather than merely 'reconsidering' their theory and attempting to revamp it accordingly, evolutionists need to admit, honestly and forthrightly, that 'mitochondrial Eve,' as it turns out, has existed only in their minds, not in the facts of the real world. Science works by analyzing the data and forming hypotheses based on those data. Science is not supposed to massage the data until they fit a certain preconceived hypothesis. All of the conclusions that have been drawn from research on mitochondrial Eve via the molecular clock must now be discarded as unreliable. A funeral and interment are in order for mitochondrial Eve."

Anyway, all is well. Enjoy your golf game if you play today.

http://www.trueorigin.org/mitochondrialeve01.asp

You articulate well. I posted about 5 million undiscovered species only to delinate that there is so much we do not understand about our earth and species living above or below it (wide gaps) that the best scientist can do is guess. Evolution is still theory and scientist posit based on speculation. the Theory of evolution is unsettled science and will continue to be unsettled, certainly for my lifetime

So from a practical standpoint my belief in evolution is unsettled. Bottom line it makes for interesting reading and has been a great source of some fun loving science fiction movies

AMEN!!!! Pretty sure we learned that in 7th grade. True scientists never forget the foundations of their trade... it's those that can be bought that disregard it.

Amen. Reminds me of the so-called scientists that sold their soul for government funds to investigate "global warming." Of course they fudged the numbers so they would get more government grants (read money) allocated for the next year. They sound more like whores then people of science.
But, hey you got to earn a living.:laugh: