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I believe evolution was set in motion from the beginning
Maybe they'll invent a super computer that can do it one of these days.
The theory of evolution does not say that a frog would ever evolve into a dog. I think the problem people have with understanding evolution is not so much how it works, but rather its about the amount of time it takes, once one can comprehend this, I think it makes a lot more sense.
Science depend on a lot more than merely observations, that is just part of the "toolset" that is used. If you look at how the scientific method is applied in this handy overview.
One correction, your "Terrialian" would still be a mammal. In fact it would still be a dog. One of the laws of cladistics is that one cannot evolve out of one's heritage:The theory of evolution does not say that a frog would ever evolve into a dog. I think the problem people have with understanding evolution is not so much how it works, but rather its about the amount of time it takes, once one can comprehend this, I think it makes a lot more sense.
Everything that is living today or have ever lived are one of two things. 1 A transitional species or 2. Extinct.
Since being extinct is not all that interesting, things living today are all transitional species, including humans. This means that you will never see a frog become a dog as these are not in the same family branch, one is a mammal and the other an amphibian. Just as you are not going to suddenly see a dog turn into a tree.
What the tree shows and what evolution tells us, is that each of these families both within a family and between families have common ancestors.
So what we might see in a very very long time, is that from mammals we will have a completely new branch, lets call it "Terrialians" for lack of better word, but that itself is not a mammal, but rather something which shares a common ancestor within the mammal branch with all over Terrialian beings and whatever might branch off from here as well. Just as you can see how fish in the above image have branched into reptiles, mammals and amphibians etc. Which also means that none of these are fish, but rather shares a common ancestor with each other that were a fish, if we track back far enough in time.
So a dog might evolve into a mixture of a dog and a terrialian being, that eventually will make these terrialians no longer able to breed or even look like their dog ancestors or share any significant features with mammals.
To get a better explanation and concentrating on just one species out the millions of one that have lived. I suggest that you watch the following short video about the evolution of whales, and how and why we have gotten to know that evolution is true and what evidence there are for it, or at least just some of them.
Science depend on a lot more than merely observations, that is just part of the "toolset" that is used. If you look at how the scientific method is applied in this handy overview.
Observation could simply be one part or method for conducting an experiment in the "Test with an experiment".
Also there is a huge difference and unfortunately misunderstanding of the word "Theory" when it comes to evolution. This is partly due to how the scientific community name things, won't deny that.
But to quickly explain it with another well know theory, "The theory of relativity" which would also just be a theory, just as evolution, if one do not know what is meant.
Both the "The theory of relativity" and "Evolution theory" are not meant to be understood as theories as they are used in common language, like me saying that "I have a theory, that if I jump very high and land on the ground, that I will cause an Earthquake on the other side of the Earth". Both of the above theories, are scientific theories whereas mine is just an idea.
In science, if you look at the above chart, this would basically be either the "Ask a question" or the "Construct a Hypothesis", were we to alter my idea about jumping above, slightly.
Depending on all the experiments and results discovered by keep repeating the above chart, you will eventually get a lot of data and others might conduct their own experiments as well and share their results.
This will eventually make you end up with a lot of facts about how things works.
Like dropping a rock here on Earth will make it fall to the ground, this we can refer to as being a fact.
However simply knowing that something is a fact is not all that interesting when it comes to science. Which is where the word "theory" comes into play, in fact, this is known as a "scientific theory". Which means that it is a theory that explains the facts and makes it, so if something is known as a scientific theory, it doesn't really get any better within science, as we now know why things work the way they do and we can explain them.
Which is why both "The theory of relativity" and "Evolution theory" are not just theories, but are "scientific theories". And when you look at it, evolution theory is probably the most tested theory of all those we have today, and still it remains as strong as it does. Which means that it is a rather good one, in my opinion at least.
The theory of evolution does not say that a frog would ever evolve into a dog. I think the problem people have with understanding evolution is not so much how it works, but rather its about the amount of time it takes, once one can comprehend this, I think it makes a lot more sense.
Everything that is living today or have ever lived are one of two things. 1 A transitional species or 2. Extinct.
Since being extinct is not all that interesting, things living today are all transitional species, including humans. This means that you will never see a frog become a dog as these are not in the same family branch, one is a mammal and the other an amphibian. Just as you are not going to suddenly see a dog turn into a tree.
What the tree shows and what evolution tells us, is that each of these families both within a family and between families have common ancestors.
So what we might see in a very very long time, is that from mammals we will have a completely new branch, lets call it "Terrialians" for lack of better word, but that itself is not a mammal, but rather something which shares a common ancestor within the mammal branch with all over Terrialian beings and whatever might branch off from here as well. Just as you can see how fish in the above image have branched into reptiles, mammals and amphibians etc. Which also means that none of these are fish, but rather shares a common ancestor with each other that were a fish, if we track back far enough in time.
So a dog might evolve into a mixture of a dog and a terrialian being, that eventually will make these terrialians no longer able to breed or even look like their dog ancestors or share any significant features with mammals.
To get a better explanation and concentrating on just one species out the millions of one that have lived. I suggest that you watch the following short video about the evolution of whales, and how and why we have gotten to know that evolution is true and what evidence there are for it, or at least just some of them.
Science depend on a lot more than merely observations, that is just part of the "toolset" that is used. If you look at how the scientific method is applied in this handy overview.
Observation could simply be one part or method for conducting an experiment in the "Test with an experiment".
Also there is a huge difference and unfortunately misunderstanding of the word "Theory" when it comes to evolution. This is partly due to how the scientific community name things, won't deny that.
But to quickly explain it with another well know theory, "The theory of relativity" which would also just be a theory, just as evolution, if one do not know what is meant.
Both the "The theory of relativity" and "Evolution theory" are not meant to be understood as theories as they are used in common language, like me saying that "I have a theory, that if I jump very high and land on the ground, that I will cause an Earthquake on the other side of the Earth". Both of the above theories, are scientific theories whereas mine is just an idea.
In science, if you look at the above chart, this would basically be either the "Ask a question" or the "Construct a Hypothesis", were we to alter my idea about jumping above, slightly.
Depending on all the experiments and results discovered by keep repeating the above chart, you will eventually get a lot of data and others might conduct their own experiments as well and share their results.
This will eventually make you end up with a lot of facts about how things works.
Like dropping a rock here on Earth will make it fall to the ground, this we can refer to as being a fact.
However simply knowing that something is a fact is not all that interesting when it comes to science. Which is where the word "theory" comes into play, in fact, this is known as a "scientific theory". Which means that it is a theory that explains the facts and makes it, so if something is known as a scientific theory, it doesn't really get any better within science, as we now know why things work the way they do and we can explain them.
Which is why both "The theory of relativity" and "Evolution theory" are not just theories, but are "scientific theories". And when you look at it, evolution theory is probably the most tested theory of all those we have today, and still it remains as strong as it does. Which means that it is a rather good one, in my opinion at least.
That is correct, I should probably have written it a bit more careful
thanks for highlighting it.
Have absolutely no clue what you are talking about
But we do observe evidence that amphibians evolved from fishes.
Individuals don't evolve - populations do, and they only do so in response to environmental pressures. Everything is evolving together, finding new functions and forms, and as they do it makes sense that other populations evolve ways to utilize the functions and forms of other forms.
Odds don't enter into it. Co-dependent populations arose in response to each other. It's not chance that caused that development.
No genus ever "becomes" another. Evolution is changes WITHIN the genus, leading to new populations forming.
Nonsense. Inference can actually be based on a significant number of facts and research. It isn't "only slightly" better than guessing, anymore than concluding that an individual covered in the victim's blood, carrying the murder weapon, was seen at the scene of the crime and had motives for carrying it out is also "just slightly better than a guess". Such an argument is obviously absurd.
Such as...?
But why would we ignore all of the evidence?
Because when you ignore evidence that contradicts your beliefs, you can repeatedly say ad nauseam that said evidence was never presented?
I never said one way or the other regarding Genesis being the answer. I am simply asserting that evolution is most assuredly not the answer either. At least we don't have any scientific proof it is the answer, since, as you said, we do not have enough time to observe one genus becoming another. The best we can do is to infer it, and that is not true science. That is why evolution is a theory. Do have any idea on how many scientific theories have been later proven wrong?
Lock step? This makes me think you're not understanding the lengths of time, the number of individuals involved, and the actual lengths of generational activity gone through to affect large-scale change. There is no "lock step." There is baby step, after baby step, after baby step - through tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands to millions of years.
Bacteria and one branch of bacteria leading to becoming a "plant" (probably something like plankton at first) is all that would be needed to give way to a cycle that could then extend (via those baby steps, remember?) onto land and give rise to more hearty "plants". The "animals" could then follow, once there was a food-source on land.
Yes. Yes it is.
The simple fact is that we can see through the fossil record that a huge variety of creatures existed before we humans came into the picture. And we can also see within the fossil record that some of those creatures are precursors to others, and we can see steps along the way when we get extremely lucky. Like prehistoric creatures with feathers that could not fly. Baby steps. These fossils and their information ARE a reality. What is your explanation that fits the observable details so much better?
And it would be somewhat foolish to conclude that we "know" for sure. Scientists have put forth their best models, and they are holding, and new evidence is being gathered all the time that confirms hypotheses or the theory itself, or even slightly modifies certain aspects of it. That's the other thing you don't seem to understand with all this. Science allows for the modifications of its findings. It is not set in stone. No useful methodology should be.