Evolution discussion

[moda0306]

Speaking of penance, I don't think even accepting Christ as my savior will get me to heaven after admitting that Deserts post reminded me of these rants from Team America: World Police.


http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=32iCWzpDpKs

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=32iCWzpDpKs

(I hope those work as mobile links)

[doodle]

Interesting. To me, Hitchens is far, far more abrasive than Dawkins or Tyson. I haven't seen much of Dawkins though, but he was extremely polite in the video I saw.

Hitchens is a bit of an animal, to me. I love the guy, but holy cow he's a bit of a dick.

Yeah, he can be a real asshole.  I've noticed that when he's debating somebody a bit dim, he is just relentless.  But I started to like him in his debate with Doug Wilson (the movie "Collision" documents the series of debates).  I think he met his match in some respects.  He was still a bit of a dick, but he was humorous and even somewhat humble at times.  Wilson had his ups and downs as well.  But at the end of that movie and some follow up viewing and reading, I really liked both guys. 

But Dawkins strikes more as a douchebag than an asshole.  And we all know it's harder to be around a douche than an asshole.   

Sorry Mountaineer, I think I need to do some penance for my filthy language! 

No penance required.  You are forgiven.  Confession is good for the soul, absolution is even better   And, it's not like I've never said those things, or thought those things.  We are all sinners, well, except for YHWH   On second thought, hold down the comments about assholes ... after a hemorrhoid operation and an anal fistulotomy several years later, I'm a bit sensitive on that subject   One would expect (Hitchens, Dawkins, and followers) that my butt would have evolved to a more perfect state than it turned out.  I think I'm just an example of things going downhill rather than upward to perfection as the evolutionists hope for.  Oh well ......

... Mountaineer

Blending most of my food has had the unintended benefit of making my bowel movements a thing of beauty. I recommend either chewing your food until completely liquid or blending your food to anyone with problems like you mentioned

[stone]

I also don't like Dawkin's style at all. "Sour style of discource" sums it up well.

But I am left bewildered by how you guys find the evidence for evolution by natural selection so unconvincing.

You say that you are not convinced by the fossil record, but the fossil record is not the key part of the evidence. To me by far the clearest picture comes from the genetic code as I linked to before and that traces through the "macro evolution" that you are doubtful about. Anyway I don't agree that the fossil record is incompatible with evolution -far from it -intermediate forms would never be hugely abundant so would not be much seen in the small number of fossils that get preserved. It is like how prototype cars or gadgets are not what archaeologists will find when they dig up our stuff in the future.

And yes I do work with genetics. I have personally used directed evolution as a biotechnological tool to make reagents because it was impossible to design them. So I have seen the astonishing power of mindless biological selection working over a 24hr period and am left in little doubt as to its capabilities over a four billion year time span.

No, no, no!  (sorry to get excited here).  If evolution was fact, the fossil record would contain far MORE of what we'd call transitional forms than it does any form we see around us today.  Evolution would have plodded along, with literally hundreds of millions of hears of half bird/half fish critters (or substitute your favorite transitional form).  The fossil record, assuming evolution, should look almost entirely opposite of how it actually does appear.  We should find almost no fossils of present day life forms (recognizable forms), and almost ALL transitional forms.  Fish with stubby wings, maybe a a half crab/half fish, etc. to infinity. 

It is exactly the opposite of proto versus production product.  I've been in volume product development for way too long, so let me describe why it's just the opposite: In product development, you might build many tens of prototypes in preparation for pilot production run of hundreds, and then a production run of 100's of thousands or more.  The reason the protos are outnumbered by production units is because they're all designed.  They didn't evolve, they had intelligent designers, planning to make a profit on the large production run to pay for the relatively few, expensive protos.  Again, this all exactly opposite an undesigned, random process like the theory of evolution.  In that mechanism, everything is on its way to becoming something else, so we should see almost nothing like today's creatures in the fossil record. 

Please tell me you understand this!  Darwin did, and it worried him greatly.  In fact, if he'd lived long enough to see what the actual fossil record turned out to be, I'm convinced he was smart enough that he would have discarded his theory and found a better (though still godless) theory. 

Edited to add Darwin's quote:
“Why, if species have descended from other species by insensibly fine gradations, do we not everywhere see innumerable transitional forms.”?

I do understand your point and respectfully disagree. A transitional form would be expected to be transitory and to (relatively) very rapidly evolve over to having an optimised form. Once a form was optimised, selection would stabilize that form so that it was around for long enough and abundant enough to be seen in the fossil record. That is what I'd expect natural selection to do. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punctuated_equilibrium
As a recent example, cichlid fish have evolved to an astonishing degree over the last 100000 years in African lakes.

[stone]

Desert, I just found this site:
http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/ ... /hoxgenes/

It has great photos of how  single random mutations can transform a body plan. It is not the "gradualist", "evolution by creeps" sort of change that you claim is the only sort compatible with evolution by natural selection.
Presumably whenever such a radical transformation creates an advantage, then the rest of the body rapidly evolves so as to accomodate/make the most of the transformation. That creates a new life form that then is conserved in that optimal form for eons until the next such episode takes place.

[l82start]

The idea that creatures could somehow decide to evolve for short spurts, then stop when they reached the new optimized state is just not sound thinking (and I don't mean that to disrespect stone; I appreciate your thoughts).  How does the species or environment know when to press on the gas and when to press on the brake?  What is "optimized?"  A fish with some feathers?  Or a fish with some stubby wings that don't work and some feathers?  How did evolution know that it needed to keep scurrying along until that poor deformed fish with feathers finally learned to fly ... and then stop. 

I don't get it.  It really reeks of special pleading, and is very convincing to me that evolution is in fact unsupportable.  Nobody would stoop this low to defend something with real evidence.  This looks desperate.

you are making it sound like evolution requires a bunch of cronenberg creatures running around with strange useless appendages, that fit no need and serve no purpose, i don't think evolution works that way, unless i am wrong, each development serves a purpose, fills a niche and builds on previous adaptations..

if new niches or opportunities open up then creatures change and adapt to fill them, i am obviously not an expert but "optimized" for an environment is an obvious aspect of nature everywhere we look, i don't see why it seems so unsupportable..

[l82start]

Yes (to the first bolded statement).  Evolution requires a very long series of small, advantageous mutations that are naturally selected at each stage.  So a fish becoming a land animal has to gradually develop legs, etc.  The first mutations necessarily must be small, and thus not very useful,

that is not necessarily true, a small adaptation could confer great advantage, thus the reason it is selected /more prosperous

but nevertheless selected.  And not just selected once, but selected for millions of generations.  I don't think any evolutionist would argue that a normal fish had an offspring with a fully developed wing capable of flight.  That would be absurd; the complexity of a wing is too high.  So evolutionists, not me, are the ones that depend on these very small, incremental changes. 

Second bolded statement:  Optimization for the environment is something I agree with 100%.  It's the lack of the intermediate forms, millions of them, in the fossil record, that does not support evolution.  For example, one could logically argue that a bird would have many advantages over our walking fish.  But to obtain flight, the fish doesn't just see a need and sprout wings; the wings have to be accomplished over millions of generations of tiny little bumps that are somehow naturally selected, until they become wings.  And the skeleton needs to get lighter at the same time, and the feather needs to evolve itself as well.  Transitional forms should dominate the fossil record, if evolution is fact.  They do not.

i am no expert on the subject and even if i were i would likely find it incomplete and in need of work. in spite of that, scientific understanding and methods are still the best way to understand the workings of the natural world.
asshole atheists have done science a huge disservice when they used evolution as a proof of atheism or a argument against the bible (creationists do religion and its purpose a similar disservice using biblical creation as a replacement for science)
i am not surprised the fossil record is incomplete, it takes an incredible confluence of optimum conditions over a long period of time to create one, if a critter doesn't get buried in (the right kind of) mud then covered then left undisturbed it isn't going to be a fossil.. the simple fact that only a small fraction of the earths surface or of the environments the transitional critters would live in can create a fossil goes a long way toward explaining a thin record..  maybe our current understanding will be found lacking or even way off base in some respects..  i still don't have any problem with saying "i don't know for sure".. "but evolution seems the best explanation so far"   

[stone]

Desert, please can I re-emphasize this:

Desert, I just found this site:
http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/ ... /hoxgenes/

It has great photos of how  single random mutations can transform a body plan. It is not the "gradualist", "evolution by creeps" sort of change that you claim is the only sort compatible with evolution by natural selection.
Presumably whenever such a radical transformation creates an advantage, then the rest of the body rapidly evolves so as to accomodate/make the most of the transformation. That creates a new life form that then is conserved in that optimal form for eons until the next such episode takes place.

You worry that punctuated equilibrium style evolution is "special pleading" that goes against what Darwin expected evolution to do. BUT we can see today how a tiny random change in certain genes can cause a wholesale reconfiguration of a body plan.  In one fell swoop, a single random mutation causes a fly to have its antenna transformed into a pair of legs sticking out of its face. We can see today a mechanism in action that Darwin had no idea was available.

To my mind this debate is not about testing the fallibility of Darwin's personal understanding but of trying to understand the reality of what is really going on. Ideas always develop over time. If you dig deep enough almost nothing is fully understood. There is a raggedy edge to all aspects of knowledge. I think it is important to embrace that reality and revel in the fact that we still have so much more to learn. That approach appeals more to me than just throwing our hands up in the air and saying that because reason will always take us to that raggedy edge of imperfect understanding, we have to instead plump for explanations that are not constrained by worldly observation and so can be as neat and tidy as we make them up to be.
[img width=500]http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/ ... utants.jpg[/img]

[hljockey]

Even though I'm mostly scientifically illiterate on this subject I think I kind of get evolution and can see some truth in it.

But what do you do with the fact that the human brain seems to be programmed to ask where did it all come from and how did it start? Can you really blame people thus programmed for being skeptical when the best that science has to offer is that it all started with a "BIG BANG" and thinking to themselves "yeah, and I have bridge in Brooklyn to sell you too?".

[stone]

Stone, I had some time to read and think about homeotic transformations.  While interesting, I don't see these tranformations as supportive of evolution.  What is described is essentially reorganization of DNA, causing a leg to grow in the place an antenna should be, etc.  While certainly interesting, for evolution to occur we don't need to see a malfunction like this, we need to see newly created forms.  Evolution has to be about creation, both in the short term and long term.  We need to see a mouse sprout some functionality it doesn't already have, for example.  We know that damaged DNA can cause horrific deformities in humans and animals, but we don't see evidence for new functionality creation.  If one could plop a bunch of earthworms in a pot and one of them developed some biological form not previously observed on the earth, that would be something to take notice of. 

So, I still don't see support for evolution in the fossil record, in DNA, or in bacterial natural selection processes that you've described in this thread. 

Basically it boils down to whether a "horrific deformity" can ever be a "functionality it doesn't already have". From what I can see, the changes in the hox-gene clusters between different types of animals (as described in that link) trace how an initial change gave rise to "horrific deformities" that we now view as being wonderful evolutionary adaptations. What you describe as micro-evolution (such as the difference between Chihuahuas and Great Danes) presumably kicks in immediately to accomodate/make the most of any such evolutionary hiatus.
You worry that we can't see new lifeforms radically transforming and then being fixed as successful species whilst we watch. Just think about the arithmetic of it. Think how few such radical transformations there have been over the course of the four billion years of evolution. Think how rapidly selective breeding can change a wolf into either a Chihuahau or a Great Dane (perhaps a hundred years). Then think how much you are asking by demanding to see an evolutionary transformation of body plan occur either in front of our eyes today or preserved step by step in the incredibly incomplete fossil record.

[stone]

I guess this isn't dramatic enough for you but it is an example of evolution in a natural setting:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news ... ution.html

In just a few decades the 5-inch-long (13-centimeter-long) lizards have developed a completely new gut structure, larger heads, and a harder bite, researchers say.

[Mountaineer]

I guess this isn't dramatic enough for you but it is an example of evolution in a natural setting:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news ... ution.html

In just a few decades the 5-inch-long (13-centimeter-long) lizards have developed a completely new gut structure, larger heads, and a harder bite, researchers say.

Is this a lizard species change or something similar to Navy Seals are meaner and tougher than artists because the Seals swim in more hazardous locations?

... Mountaineer

[moda0306]

I'm too distracted with other stuff to really dive into evolution right now, but what I find most interesting is that even if ID's observation contain real, true insight about amoebas being able to transform to lizards, or lizards to birds, or birds to mammals, because of the huge adjustments that it would take, it is still totally reasonable to imagine humans sharing ancestry with apes, no different than this:

[img width=500]http://cdn.theanimals.pics/pictures/www ... y-Wolf.jpg[/img]


shares common ancestry with this...

[img width=500]http://www.blogoncherry.com/wp-content/ ... 20x827.jpg[/img]

[moda0306]

Shit... could a mod reduce that pic size?  I can't find how to do that.

Obviously I'm less evolved than some of my more tech-savvy cohorts here .

[l82start]

Shit... could a mod reduce that pic size?  I can't find how to do that.

Obviously I'm less evolved than some of my more tech-savvy cohorts here .

done

for future reference replace the [img] with this at the front [img width=500]

[l82start]

another interesting picture for the evolution deniers

"mud skippers" a fish that walks around on land, and fills a place in nature between aquatic and land animals 

[stone]

I guess this isn't dramatic enough for you but it is an example of evolution in a natural setting:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news ... ution.html

In just a few decades the 5-inch-long (13-centimeter-long) lizards have developed a completely new gut structure, larger heads, and a harder bite, researchers say.

Is this a lizard species change or something similar to Navy Seals are meaner and tougher than artists because the Seals swim in more hazardous locations?
... Mountaineer

It is a genetic change not training.

[Mountaineer]

another interesting picture for the evolution deniers

"mud skippers" a fish that walks around on land, and fills a place in nature between aquatic and land animals

I'm still not quite sure how mud evolves?  I assume that was the point of the picture? 

... Mountaineer

[l82start]

another interesting picture for the evolution deniers

"mud skippers" a fish that walks around on land, and fills a place in nature between aquatic and land animals

I'm still not quite sure how mud evolves?  I assume that was the point of the picture? 

... Mountaineer

first you start out with dust, add water, breath life into it... and poof you get man..

[Mountaineer]

another interesting picture for the evolution deniers

"mud skippers" a fish that walks around on land, and fills a place in nature between aquatic and land animals

I'm still not quite sure how mud evolves?  I assume that was the point of the picture? 

... Mountaineer

first you start out with dust, add water, breath life into it... and poof you get man..

That was "most excellent".    I did not see that one coming.  ROFLMAO. 

... Mountaineer

[dualstow]

Speaking of all these lungfish and mudskippers, we have all these amphibious creatures like salamanders and frogs, so why is it so crazy to think that life on land began with life in the sea?

[stone]

I guess this isn't dramatic enough for you but it is an example of evolution in a natural setting:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news ... ution.html

In just a few decades the 5-inch-long (13-centimeter-long) lizards have developed a completely new gut structure, larger heads, and a harder bite, researchers say.

Stone, first a comment on the fruit flies:  The mutation that resulted in an antennae being replaced with a leg wasn't evidence of evolution (to me, at least), because I'm looking for evidence of new content (physical and genetic) being generated randomly over time.  It's a high bar, I admit, but one that's required to support the theory of evolution.  We could see it in real time, or in the fossil record.  The fruit flies didn't generate anything new, they exhibited a deformity in which an appendage was placed in the wrong place.  Similarly to a baby born with its heart outside its body, it's unfortunate, but obviously a deformity relying on previous DNA content (now if a baby was born with some wings or something, we'd have to talk). 

Now on to the lizards:  This article is the best we've discussed in this thread so far.  At first glance, it appears that these lizards developed a new structure, these "valves" or muscle structure in their digestive system.  And they might have, but I think it's far more likely that the DNA required for the development of this muscle structure was already present in their DNA, and was naturally selected on this island.  I didn't pull that belief from mid air; if you do a bit of reading, you'll learn that other lizards have this same structure.  Yes, these lizards could have evolved the same structure "from scratch" over 30 years, but it seems more likely that that structure was already available in their DNA and was selected by the lack of insects on the island.  It appears that further study of the DNA of the original versus "evolved" lizards would be very interesting. 

In order to believe in evolution, we need to see signs of the generation of NEW CONTENT.  Fossil record or recent history, either would begin to support the theory.  It seems difficult to find though.

First off, our DNA sequence indicates that the "new content" comes from shuffling around, recombining, duplicating  and mutating the existing content. It is a bit like how we get cancer causing changes in our DNA. Years ago I personally had a lymphoma and the doctors told me that the tumor came from a gene recombination that randomly joined part of a cell surface signalling protein gene  with a gene that caused the protein to instead go to the cell nucleus. From the point of view of the tumor, that "new content" was just what it needed to grow at my expense . Obviously that is just in a cell in my body rather than in the inherited germline but it is the same basic mechanism.

That link about the hox genes http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/ ... /hoxgenes/ describes how as evolution has progressed the hox gene clusters have duplicated and then diverged to create the diversity of hox genes that control ever more complex body plans.

If you want an example of fully "new content" coming about in evolution as we observe it in real time, bacteria can be studied in big enough numbers to see such events. I think bacteria being able to use a new food source that they previously couldn't use is a clear example of new content and this is what these people found in a 25year long experiment:
http://www.pnas.org/content/111/6/2217.full

The appearance of citrate utilization in a >25-y long-term evolution experiment (LTEE) with Escherichia coli provides an opportunity to study a deep historical record leading to a key metabolic innovation (3, 9, 10). E. coli cannot ordinarily grow on citrate as a sole carbon source under aerobic conditions (11, 12), a phenotype that has been used to define it as a species (13). Just 1 of 12 replicate LTEE populations gained the ability to aerobically use citrate (Cit+), and this rare innovation happened only after ?31,500 generations of growth in glucose-limited media, despite the presence of an excess of citrate as an untapped carbon source all along (10). The actualizing event for the Cit+ trait is known: tandem amplifications of a chromosomal region that place a copy of an aerobically active promoter upstream of a citrate transporter (citT) are present in all Cit+ isolates from this population (3).

However, the Cit+ trait was surprisingly weak when it first appeared. The earliest individuals with the citT mutation exhibit little or no growth on citrate as a sole carbon source and appear to have derived only a small benefit from this mutation under the conditions of the LTEE (3). In fact, a majority of the population remained Cit– for at least 1,500 generations (225 d) after the citT mutation evolved, and these initial Cit+ individuals were only detected retrospectively in historical samples of the population by using a sensitive indicator agar test for citrate utilization and allowing days to weeks for a positive result (10). Adding a high-copy plasmid with a module containing the new promoter configuration and citT gene to the ancestral strain of the LTEE leads to a phenotype similar to that of the early Cit+ clones, indicating that this mutation is, at least qualitatively, sufficient on its own for this rudimentary version of the new trait (3).

Shortly after ?33,000 generations, this LTEE population experienced a massive increase in the final cell density it reached at the end of each daily growth cycle (10). This population expansion was due to the evolution of new Cit+ variants that fully use the abundant citrate in the media after glucose depletion. We call this strong phenotype Cit++, to differentiate it from the weak Cit+ phenotype of earlier isolates with just the citT mutation. Cit++ cells contain one or more additional refinement mutations that make robust growth on citrate as a sole carbon source possible. Strains with the Cit++ trait can be readily distinguished from Cit+ strains by their ability to form colonies within 48 h on minimal agar containing citrate as the only carbon source.....
......we developed recursive genomewide recombination and sequencing (REGRES), a method that uses conjugative chromosomal transfer, phenotypic selection, and whole-genome sequencing to identify the alleles required for an evolved trait.

The "new content" came from rearrangements, duplications and mutations of existing DNA but that is how all our genetic code comes about.

[Mountaineer]

For those of you who would like to understand more about the Creationists' view of evolution, you may wish to read some of Johnathan Sarfati's books (available at Amazon).  This is the author's background:

Dr. Safarti studied science at Victoria University of Wellington. He obtained a B.Sc. in Chemistry with two physics papers substituted (nuclear and condensed matter physics). His Ph.D. in Chemistry was awarded for a thesis entitled A Spectroscopic Study of some Chalcogenide Ring and Cage Molecules . He has co-authored papers in mainstream scientific journals on high temperature superconductors and selenium-containing ring and cage-shaped molecules. He also had a co-authored paper on high-temperature superconductors published in Nature when he was 22. In 1999, his first book was published Refuting Evolution, which countered a teachers guidebook by the National Academy of Sciences, Teaching about Evolution and the Nature of Science, which had been widely circulated and publicized. Refuting Evolution now has 450,000 copies in print. Later that year he was a co-author of the updated and expanded Answers Book [note: now entitled The Creation Answers Book], answering 20 of the most-asked questions about creation/evolution. He later wrote Refuting Evolution 2, countering the PBS Evolution series and an anticreationist article in Scientific American. In 2004, he wrote Refuting Compromise, defending a straightforward biblical creation timeline and a global flood, and answering biblical and scientific objections, concentrating on the errant teachings of day-age/local flood advocate Hugh Ross. It has been acclaimed as the most powerful biblical and scientific defense of a straightforward view of Genesis creation ever written! In 2006, he co-authored 15 Reasons to Take Genesis as History with Don Batten, as a concise reference guide for Christians, including pastors and theologians, why Genesis can be trusted as real history of Creation about 6000 years ago and a global Flood. In 2008, he finished By Design: Evidence for nature's Intelligent Designer the God of the Bible. This demonstrates many examples of design in many areas, shows why chemical evolution can't explain the origin of first life, and answers many objections to the Intelligent Design movement by invoking the biblical Creation-Fall model.

... Mountaineer

[stone]

The "new content" came from rearrangements, duplications and mutations of existing DNA but that is how all our genetic code comes about.

You've bought the story, that's for sure.  Somehow a reproducing singled-celled organism managed to create itself from disorder, then gradually created ever-more-complex DNA and structures, finally resulting in conscious humans.  And this all happened without leaving behind transitional forms, because of punctuated equilibrium, where an optimum life form can go non-optimum, realize it, then jump quickly to a new, more complex, optimum form without leaving behind pesky fossils in the process.  Order from disorder.  Amazingly complex structure from nothingness. 

We've probably reached a logical stopping point in this debate for now.  I'm not sure what else to say.  Strangely, this exercise has left me more skeptical of other so-called scientific conclusions by mainstream science.  Never stop questioning, especially when the answers are as tortured as those put forward by evolutionists.

That's your reaction to seeing the example of the bacteria that (whilst people watched) evolved the ability to live on a food source that they could not previously use; where every step along the way was documented and archived by observing scientists? In exact detail it was recorded what random DNA changes led to the new ability. It was measured and recorded how the crucial fundamental changes initially gave little if any advantage and it was only the confluence of those changes with subsequent changes that provided the benefit. Then all the transitional forms were lost from the evolving population and we were only left with the new optimal form. BUT in this case the scientists had archived samples of the bacteria from every day and so can give anyone who asks a sample of the bacteria from any step along the way. They have gone back years later with improved technology to conduct ever more detailed analysis of those archived transitional forms.
http://www.pnas.org/content/111/6/2217.full

Are you saying that this was all some sort of elaborate hoax or that for some reason you don't class it as evolution (if so please explain) or what?

Life is amazing, I wonder at it as much as you. But to me a large part of what makes it so wonderful is the way that it is self organizing.

[Mountaineer]

More problems with the evolution hypothesis beginning with the "big bang hypothesis":

New observations of the star cluster Messier 54 show that it is just as deficient in lithium as our own galaxy, furthering a mystery about the element's big bang origins. "Most of the light chemical element lithium now present in the Universe was produced during the Big Bang, along with hydrogen and helium, but in much smaller quantities. Astronomers can calculate quite accurately how much lithium they expect to find in the early Universe, and from this work out how much they should see in old stars. But the numbers don't match — there is about three times less lithium in stars than expected. This mystery remains unsolved, despite several decades of work."

... Mountaineer

[moda0306]

More problems with the evolution hypothesis beginning with the "big bang hypothesis":

New observations of the star cluster Messier 54 show that it is just as deficient in lithium as our own galaxy, furthering a mystery about the element's big bang origins. "Most of the light chemical element lithium now present in the Universe was produced during the Big Bang, along with hydrogen and helium, but in much smaller quantities. Astronomers can calculate quite accurately how much lithium they expect to find in the early Universe, and from this work out how much they should see in old stars. But the numbers don't match — there is about three times less lithium in stars than expected. This mystery remains unsolved, despite several decades of work."

... Mountaineer

Woah. An unsolved scientific mystery related to predictions about the Big Bang!?  Guess this debate is over. 

Jk, Mountaineer.

But really, even if this were news in regards to the Big Bang  (I'm sure there are tons of mysteries about it), the Big Bang isn't evolution. Evolution is the study of how life progresses and progressed. The only thing they have in common is they drive religious folks nuts.