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Author Topic:   Transitional Forms
Thmsberry
Inactive Member


Message 3 of 35 (41)
01-09-2001 8:06 AM


Everykneeshallbow,
I agree with your problem. I never can understand how based on a lack of subjective evidence can anyone say that they have scientific evidence of something.
The fossil record simply is not falsifiable.
Example: I find a fossil of a bird like creature before two legged dinosaurs supposedly evolve. However, birds who also walk on two legs, according to evolution, evolved from two legged dinosaurs. This should be a contradiction to the theory. But I can always rest my faith in the lack of evidence.
I can say. You know what. Fossils are rarely ever made. The reason we have a bird fossil before any two legged dinosaurs. Is because we are wrong about when two legged dinosaurs emerged. They actually emerged before this bird fossil and no specimens fossilized. It is not a contradiction. If the remains would have fossilized, we would have the evidence. But we know that this is correct, because descent with modification(evolution) did occur. The fossil record is our evidence.
How can a theory claim to be falsifiable if you alway have the ability to rely on the conjectur of absence data to corraborate the data.
I have made this next example in this forum before Let's see if you can see how this is the same sort of faith.
One could argue that creationism is falsifiabe because the corrobarating evidence, i.e. the creator could decide to show up and say "creationism is wrong, Darwin was basically right. Yes, I created the first cell, but by descent with modification the myriad diversity of life evolved." Thus, Creationism is falsifiable.
The point is both faith systems rely on a beliefs in something for which there is no current evidence available for.
Darwinism, Neo Darwinism, Modern Synthesis is not a true scientific theory it actually an origin narrative that does not predict the evidence. It actually serves as an origin narrative that can be adjusted to conform almost any finding to its canon. Its stength actually comes from the fact that it provides naturalist, materialist, and humanist the best self-fufilling natural, material, human explanation for something for which their is an extreme lack of corrobarating evidence.
The saddest part is most of them will not simply come to terms with the fact that this faith system does not actually fall into the framework provided by the scientific method.

Thmsberry
Inactive Member


Message 10 of 35 (50)
01-10-2001 9:55 AM


Gene,
I am glad you at least admit there is a debat on the dinobird hypothesis. There are many who will claim that it is a fact and not debated.
But also,
You wrote:
"However, evolution indefinately predicts that fish preceded amphibians and amniotes. If you were to find a higher animal back in the Cambrian, evolution would be falsified because there is no way that a hypothesis could be altered to accomodate the observation, as it could in the dino-bird example you gave."
This is simply not true. If a higher animal was found in the Cambrian, the headline would read new fossil causes sciencist to reevaluate mammals evolved. They would say this lucky fossil would have survived, but all the other early amphibians, fish, and etc. did not happen to fossilize. With the fossil record, you can alway claim the cooberating (sp?) evidence is missing.
Descent with modification is not falsifiable by a fossil.

Thmsberry
Inactive Member


Message 11 of 35 (51)
01-10-2001 10:10 AM


quote:
Originally posted by nibelung778:
This is a reply to post 3
T-Thus, Creationism is falsifiable.
And you argue that fossil evidence is not falsifiable?
By your same argument alone, the creator could also come down and announce that evolution or the fossil record is wrong thereby providing equally valid falsification according to your logic. Since the likelihood of the creator coming down and doing either appears to be remote, the validity of this argument to provide evidence of falsibiablity of anything is highly questionable to say the least. I am sure you were just trying to be amusing by making that argument.
T- this faith system does not actually fall into the framework provided by the scientific method.
It is always odd how nonscientists act as if they are better qualified to determine what is scientific than scientists. Creationists think that one small flaw in evolutionary theory will cause the whole system to crumble to dust, and this feeling is reflected in your example. No single out of place fossil find is going to invalidate the entire theory. As gene says, your example is a strawman. No good scientist is going to rationalize this way and if he or she did it would be hailed by the scientific community as the BS that it really is.
T-How can a theory claim to be falsifiable if you alway have the ability to rely on the conjectur of absence data to corraborate the data.
Two different things. Conjecture from an absence of data is idle speculation, but idle speculation has no basis for falsification and doesn't get papers published.
According to you, evolutionary theory does: not predict the evidence, (is) an origin narrative, (and is a) faith system...
That's really several different topics to try to debate. You make many claims (acting almost as if making a claim makes it valid) but provide no substantiation. Perhaps you should try to stick to one point at a time.
What kind of evidence would falsify the theory of evolution? That is a good thought question (but another topic). My opinion is that it would almost take God coming down here and settling all this once and for all (heaven forbid!) to actually falsify evolution, since there is so much evidence across so many different scientific fields of study which support this theory. Falsifying the theory would presumably create havoc in general biology, biochemistry, paleontology, geology, archeology, molecular biology, and physics. Perhaps you think those are nonscientific disciplines? I think you trivialize the scientific process to think that your example would provide adequate falsification. The scientific method provides the framework and freedom in which theories can objectively be falsified based on evidence. The history of scientific progress provides numerous examples of how the process of falsification works and works well in science.
How does all this relate to the topic, transitional forms? If I understand it all correctly, the concern seems to be that scientists fill gaps in transitional forms with faith and that because their thinking is based on faith, it is not falsibiable. The only 'faith' that is used is the faith in logical, predicable, and orderly processes that obey natural physical laws. If Mr X was seen at 4th and Main at 7pm on 1/6/01 when my car was stolen and my car was found in Mr. X's driveway with his fingerprints on the inside, I don't need spiritual faith to conclude that Mr. X took my car. I don't need to fill in the gaps (seeing Mr. X get into my car and drive off). I have a chain of evidence, as science does for evolution with a sequence of transitional fossil forms. My theory that Mr.X took my car is perfectly falsibiable if I find more evidence that contradicts my theory. It is the same with scientific theories.
[This message has been edited by nibelung778 (edited 01-09-2001).]

Nibelung,
You seemed to avoid completely my falsify point. Can you explain how you can falsify your claim that the fossil record supports evolution? You are claiming it is scientific evidence. Please provide the means to falsify it.
You also argue that the claim that God could falsify christian creationism is improbable. Interesting. You can't argue that. There is now way to argue what God will and will not do and then to set a probability to it. You can not even argue whether or not god exists let alone what God would do? The chance of God falsifying christian creationism is probably the same as all the missing transitional forms needed for the phylums that emerged during the 5-10 million years of the cambrian explosion of life.

Thmsberry
Inactive Member


Message 12 of 35 (52)
01-10-2001 10:28 AM


Larry,
You keep talking about evidence.
What evidence?
Every explanation that I have ever heard for the Cambrian explosion has been pure speculation.
If it was not for the Cambrian explosion, you would have a stronger argument.
But most of the variety of life that we see today evolved in such a ridiculous short period of time.
The problem people always miss is the fact that during Cambrian we had an ozone layer so nothing would increase the rate of mutation.
There is no speculate explanation of this element of the fossil record that actually works genetically.
The evidence does not match the genetics.
Are you trying to transform the evidence to your image to your likeness.
And let's not even begin to talk about the fact that the fossil record suggest that Prokaryote precede Eurokaryotes and yet if you were actually to use random natural processes Eukaryote cells are more probable than Prokaryotes. The existence of Introns and Junk DNA better fit a naturalistic model of descent with modification than an entire kingdom of creatures without Introns and junk DNA evolving into creatures with unnecessary information. In terms of Natural selection Prokaryotes are better suited for their environment than unicellular eukaryotes. They can replicate faster and even mutate faster and more efficiently.
Note: I am not talking about Archae (Phyla/Kingdom there is a debate on there classification).

Thmsberry
Inactive Member


Message 18 of 35 (61)
01-11-2001 12:14 PM


Percy,
I understand most of your point and agree with a lot of it. Especially your point that even with contradictory evidence most scientist would continue to use descent with modification out of tradition(a typical human cultural construct)
However, your comment about higher forms appearing in the Cambrian does not work for me. If an amazing amount of higher forms are present, you can always make the claim that due to early geological condition on the planet and the probablity of fossilization in the first place, that the predecessors for these higher forms simply did not fossilize, but they did exists. Note: it is the same argument I made before just increasing the number of fossils and making a untestable geolgical claim.

Thmsberry
Inactive Member


Message 19 of 35 (62)
01-11-2001 12:24 PM


Nibelung,
Show me how you can falsify evolution using the fossil record.
It needs to be falsifiable in way that you can not simply create a narrative that can explain away the discrepency or discrepencies.
While your car example is interesting, we are talking about the fossil record. Use it please.
Also, descent with modification only needs one example of life on this planet not evolving from a live common ancestor. Any organisms will do. And descent with modification becomes just partial theory. And this has been my argument all along.

Thmsberry
Inactive Member


Message 20 of 35 (63)
01-11-2001 12:32 PM


Larry,
Keep in mind that no one argues against the fact that life on this planet has varied over time. Evolution.
We are arguing against descent with modification.
Using descent with modification, how do you get the development of Introns in Eukaryotes from there supposed Prokaryote ancestors?
Thanks. If the theory works, it needs to work here as well. Unless, like I have been arguing all this time, it is just a partial theory.

Thmsberry
Inactive Member


Message 23 of 35 (67)
01-11-2001 7:51 PM


You wrote:
"If they found human fossils in the Cambrian that would falsify evolution because organisms do not appear without ancestors. Small gaps are to be expected, but there must be a starting point.
Your argument is invalid because you are not basing it upon the Theory of Evolution, you are basing it upon what you believe scientists would do. "
This is not true. Keep in mind these are origin narratives.
This is how it will go. At some point in the future, Human beings figure out how to artificial produce worm wholes. They use them to travel in time. One period of interest was the Cambrian explosion for the possible descent with modification implications (I hope we will know enough by this time that people will not still be claiming that this theory alone explains the origin of all life on this planet). A few of the time travelling scientist got killed and fossilized during their exploration. Thus, this is why we have human fossils and no prehuman forms.
Using Occum's razor, devoid of any human mammalian ancestors this would be the second best solution.
The first is the human fossil are false or the result of an accident in the lab.
From the realm of science fiction, human fallibility, and etc. Scientist can pull these origin stories out of thin air. All these stories sound quite correct. So did spontaneous generation.
You can always shape the story to account for contradictory or a lack of evidence.

Thmsberry
Inactive Member


Message 24 of 35 (68)
01-11-2001 8:12 PM


Larry,
You wrote:"As I'm sure you are aware, there are a few different ideas on how this might have happened.
Two of which are:
1) nuclear origin hypothesis
2) prokaryote origin hypothesis"
Your side likes the term strawman. I have been trying to use it, but I have no word for this strategy that you guys use. I ask you about evidence for the origin of introns. A specific question. And you talk about the origin of the nucleus. Which sole purpose appears to eliminate introns out of gene sequences and protect chromosones. Hey I got a term. It's a chicken before the egg argument.
And honestly, I am going to need more than you simply mentioning the prokaryote origin hypothesis. What specific hypothesis do you mean? Are talking Akaryote, Archae, symbiosis, and etc? What do mean? I need an explanation.
Also, stop blurring the issue. Why would I be try disprove biological evolution? I do not need to. My argument is it only acount for allele changes in an organisms genome. These mechanism over time can lead to speciation and genus level events. But organisms of higher taxa similarities have distinct genomes that actually contain new genes and nucleotide differences so varied in the nonevolutionary hierarchy that a new explanation is needed. Darwin and the framers of the Modern sythensis had no idea of true genomic structure and this accounts for most of the problem.
I am arguing the evidence. Descent with modification is a good partial theory that can explain the apparent species and genus level variations in genomes. However, the extrapolation used to go from "microevolution" to "macroevolution" is pretty much science fiction or what I like to call an origin narrative that does not have cooberating evidence.

Thmsberry
Inactive Member


Message 29 of 35 (74)
01-12-2001 1:12 PM


Nibelung,
Great. I am glad you and some others have been willing to admit that the fossil record alone can not be used to falsify evolution.
One slight problem with your post, however. I do not say there is a limit to the changes possible in a nucleotide sequence. That would be a interesting argument. But easily defeatable. My argument is that none of the known mechanims for allelic diversity lead to new genes with new functions.

Thmsberry
Inactive Member


Message 30 of 35 (75)
01-12-2001 1:57 PM


Larry,
You wrote:"ROTFLMAO--nice dodge. And you are doing a good job of providing such stories. Do you care to deal with any evidence? Gene and I will accept human fossils found in the Cambrian as falsification. Is there such evidence? Yes or no?"
But Larry, the reason for my science fiction scenario and the hoax scenario is that science has strongly established that no homosapiens were alive during PreCambrian or Cambrian. Thus, if human fossils in the Cambrian is a falsification. Yet, we know except for my fantastic scenario this could not possible happen. Then, the fossil record is not falsifiable. QED
But more importantly, Dodge Dodge. You have failed to explain how a known mechanism of mutation in a genome can make the transition from Prokaryote to Eukaryote. Or unicellular to multicellular organisms. Or the entire family of proteins that separate Eukaryotes from Prokaryotes.
My argument is like being pregnant. Either you have a placenta or you don't. The ancestor of creatures, using descent with modification, that had a placenta did not have one. So it is a series of proteins with a novel function and regulating hormones which determine when the mother develops it. What mechanism can produce such change in one generation.
Are you getting my argument or not? When you look at lower levels of taxonomical difference you do not get any problems. You avoid any of these problems. The scientific evidence does not support the extrapolate higher levels of taxa using descent with modification.
But let's go back for a second.
Using descent with modification, What mechanism changes a prokaryote to a Eukaryote?
Does your side have an answer?
If the theory is not simply a partial theory like I argue, it must work in all cases.
You have briefly referred to some theories on how this happened, but do those theories actually support descent with modification or do they utilize a different mechanism to explain this evolution.
Does your side spend so much time debating with young earth creationist about speciation that you have not bothered to deal with the issue of whether descent with modification can be extrapolated?
And please stop referring to that genus/species transitional fossil link. I have examined it about three times now and still do not see how it directly addresses my extrapolation argument. I am arguing higher taxa and it arguing lower taxa. But I agree with lower taxa. It's a red herring.
The force of gravity and electromagnetism are the forces that determine the behaviour of matter until you get to the nuclear level. They are merely partial explanations of the forces that govern matter.
Similary, Scientist are observing organisms using genetics. Descent with modification explains the origin of genus, species, and individual variation. But these mechanism do not produce new genes with entirely new functions. Organisms with higher taxanomical differences have distinct functions and genomic arrangements. Extrapolation has not been demonstrated to provide a scientific explanation.
Show that descent with modification is the only mechanism. Thus, making it a complete theory. Thus, show that descent with modification, can produce the difference between Eukaryotes and Prokaryotes. Given that the theory argues that Prokaryotes came first.

Thmsberry
Inactive Member


Message 32 of 35 (78)
01-13-2001 5:14 AM


I basically answered this in my long series of replies to gene and nibelung in one post in the other board. In my section of responses to Gene's post 67, 68, 69.
You have a habit of referring to the great oracle 29 lines of information for macromutation. It simply does not counter my argument. If you think it does. Could you please show me how? and include the link. I can't seem to find it.
And descent with modification, is the theory that all life on this planet originated from a common living ancestor. The organism evolved by genetic mutations within its genome. Speciation, Genu,... kingdom level events occur as organisms adapt as some of these mutation are favored by their changing environment or different genetic populations of the organisms are isolated by this ever changing environment or the formentioned adaptation cause some of the organisms to sexually isolate themselves. and etc.
Your side has the habit of mentioning aspects of Neutral theory, macromutation (not to be confused with macroevolution), endosymbiont hypothesis, foreign transposons, horizontal transfer, and etc.
If you are accepting of these theories, then you agree with my argument. The modern synthesis is a partial theory.
It's like you are attacking my argument that Modern Synthesis is a partial theory by using elements of different theories that if they were correct would infact make Modern Synthesis a partial theory.

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