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Author Topic:   The phrase "Evolution is a fact"
Fosdick 
Suspended Member (Idle past 5500 days)
Posts: 1793
From: Upper Slobovia
Joined: 12-11-2006


Message 61 of 217 (489703)
11-29-2008 12:25 PM
Reply to: Message 44 by Beretta
11-29-2008 1:12 AM


Bacterial facts and soulful beliefs
Beretta writes:
Sorry Fosdick - bacteria can change and adapt to environmental pressure -nobody doubts that. The question is, given enough time and the correct selective pressures, can they change into something like a human being or even into anything but a bacteria?
I always thought my Uncle Howard was slime of the bacterial kind, until he managed to evolve into a decent human being later on. Just joking about that, of course, but you make an interesting statement. You want science to show you factually how bacteria could have evolved into humans. I'll admit that scientists would be hard pressed to back up that claim with empirical evidence. The fossil record is good, but necessarily spotty. Alien implantations notwithstanding, I don't know how humans could not have arrived here any other way.
OK, there is no factual record of any slimy bug evolving into a human being. So, if I were you, I wouldn't believe any of it. Now, you and all the other Creatins believe that humans didn't evolve from anything. Instead, we are all endowed by God with "souls," and that He somehow is vested therein. I've checked up on your belief and I can't find any evidence to support it. There are no pickled souls anywhere in the dusty archives of the Smithsonian. How is it that you have chosen to reject what science says about Darwinian evolution in favor of what your religion says about God-endowed souls? And why would you and all the other Creatins claim that I have a God-given soul, too? I've checked several times and there is no such thing residing within the boundaries of my being.
Hey, maybe I'm just slime, like Uncle Howard was before he became a human.
”FTF

I can see Lower Slobovia from my house.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 44 by Beretta, posted 11-29-2008 1:12 AM Beretta has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 71 by Beretta, posted 11-30-2008 1:51 AM Fosdick has replied

  
Straggler
Member
Posts: 10333
From: London England
Joined: 09-30-2006


Message 62 of 217 (489709)
11-29-2008 1:52 PM
Reply to: Message 56 by Beretta
11-29-2008 8:24 AM


Re: What is evolution?
However innocuous the definition might sound, the implication behind Darwinism is that all organisms originated from a common ancestor over millions of years. That is, mutations, gene duplication mistakes, and natural selection not only lead to changes in allele frequencies, but also caused bacteria to turn into men with time.
So we move from fact to supposition or fiction depending on whether it is true or not.
So evolution is perhaps more aptly described as a limited change in allele frequencies over time. A cake mix changes over time in the oven - so while we admit change, we know that it has limits as it's ingredients only allow it to change into a cake.
Dog genes have instructions to make dogs with varying allele frequencies; the same for human genes and for everything else.
Fine. So you agree that evolution is change in allele frequency over time. You just assert that there are limits to this change.
What is this limit? On what grounds do you conclude that this limit exists?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 56 by Beretta, posted 11-29-2008 8:24 AM Beretta has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 73 by Beretta, posted 11-30-2008 2:00 AM Straggler has replied

  
Rrhain
Member
Posts: 6351
From: San Diego, CA, USA
Joined: 05-03-2003


Message 63 of 217 (489727)
11-29-2008 2:50 PM
Reply to: Message 29 by Fosdick
11-28-2008 1:16 AM


Fosdick writes:
quote:
Why not two, or three, or more? Because the first ones to pop out ate all the late comers? No, there's got to be a better explanation.
No, not really. Not literally "ate the late comers," but one of the observed actions of evolution is that only one organism can occupy a niche with any stability. Competition between species is no different from competition within a species. Take a look at Darwin's finches. They all descended from a single ancestor but they couldn't all occupy the same niche so they diversified.
Why one? Because the only stable solution is one.

Rrhain

Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 29 by Fosdick, posted 11-28-2008 1:16 AM Fosdick has replied

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Blue Jay
Member (Idle past 2697 days)
Posts: 2843
From: You couldn't pronounce it with your mouthparts
Joined: 02-04-2008


Message 64 of 217 (489734)
11-29-2008 3:55 PM
Reply to: Message 50 by Beretta
11-29-2008 7:14 AM


Re: Change in allele frequencies
Hi, Beretta.
Beretta writes:
There is no reason to doubt that the observable process of natural selection does occur (as does speciation); however, observing speciation is not the same as postulating that mutations and natural selection could result in the microbes to men scenario.
This is ridiculously simple, Beretta. And it's frustrating that you don't get it.
It is a fact that allele frequencies change.
It is a fact that these changes accrue.
Logically, you don't assume that there is a limit to a proven phenomenon unless you can prove that there is a limit. So far, you have not done this. In the absence of negating evidence, we default to the universality of what we already know, which is that changes accrue (which is a fact), and use that as our model for describing natural history.
-----
Now, let’s, for a second, grant that you’re correct in postulating limits to the accrual of change. How does this render the phrase, “evolution is a fact,” false? Don’t changes still accrue? Do all facts have to be universally extrapolable to their extreme in order to qualify as facts?
Once again, you are conflating “living things evolve” with “all living things evolved from a single common ancestor over a billion-year time span.” You are claiming that this is an “implication” of Darwinism. But, assuming that you see “evolution” and “Darwinism” as not being synonyms, you should probably stop being disingenuous by saying that the phrase, “evolution is a fact” is the same as the phrase, “Darwinism is a fact.”
-----
Beretta writes:
Bluejay writes:
In these situations, the extrapolation becomes the default position, and does not require any further logical support.
You are calling that logic??
Um... yes. I call it "hypothetico-deductive logic." You've heard of a guy called "Karl Popper," haven't you? "Proof by disproof," and all that?

-Bluejay
Darwin loves you.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 50 by Beretta, posted 11-29-2008 7:14 AM Beretta has replied

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Rrhain
Member
Posts: 6351
From: San Diego, CA, USA
Joined: 05-03-2003


Message 65 of 217 (489735)
11-29-2008 4:03 PM
Reply to: Message 31 by Beretta
11-28-2008 6:13 AM


Beretta responds to me:
quote:
quote:
because the fossil record clearly shows that happening
No it doesn’t
Yes, it does. Again, the fossil record is literally overflowing with transitional fossils.
quote:
(Were you there? Was anybody there?)
I don't have to be. The fossil was there and it will tell us. See, this is what I was saying. You seem to be about half a step away from demanding videotape of every single birth from the very first life on this planet up to the present day and until you can be shown that complete parent-child geneology, then you won't accept anything.
By this logic, we should open up the prisons and let everyone out. Most crimes take place without witnesses and yet somehow we manage to determine who did it and how and when.
You don't get to have it both ways. You don't get to say its valid when you like the results but invalid if you don't.
quote:
How about evidentially? Is it scientifically provable that the morphological mutations of the extent seen in the fossil record are even possible?
Yes. How does the genome know that it isn't allowed to mutate any more? We've seen pretty much every mutation imaginable down to complete duplication of the entire chromosomal record. We have seen point mutations, insertions, deletions, duplications, transpositions, frame shifts, you name it. What would stop it?
You're the one claiming that there's a barrier. You're the one that needs to provide the evidence.
quote:
How do you know that?
Because we can see it happen right in front of our eyes. Why would you have us deny it? You seem to be saying that while you agree that 1 exists, 2 exists, addition works, and equality is real, none of that is sufficient to conclude that 1 + 1 = 2.
We have presented the evidence to you over and over again here. The fact that you deny it doesn't change the fact that it exists.
quote:
quote:
The fossil record is quite literally overflowing with transitionals
Are you sure?
Yes. Hie thee to a natural history museum and look at them for yourself. See, you can't do science just sitting behind a computer. You have to go out and get your hands dirty.
quote:
Even Darwin knew that wasn’t true but he thought that with time, some convincing transitionals might be found.
Incorrect. What Darwin knew was that we didn't have very many fossils. What he said was that his theory would be upheld or fall upon the finding of new fossils. And sure enough, we found the fossils that Darwin predicted. That's what made his work scientific: It made a prediction that could be tested.
You seem to be complaining that everything Darwin said would be needed to show his theory to be accurate was actually found.
quote:
Then there’s Stephen Jay Gould who said that the history of most fossil species includes two features most inconsistent with gradualism -
1. Stasis -they appear looking pretty much the same as when they disappear with morphological change being limited and directionless
2. Sudden appearance - everything appears all at once and ”fully formed.’
Nice misquote. Gould was actually quite pissed off that people would misquote him so. What you are trying to do is claim that Gould and Eldredge were arguing against evolution when what they were doing was arguing for punctuated equlibrium.
From Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes:
We proposed the theory of punctuated equilibrium largely to provide a different explanation for pervasive trends in the fossil record. Trends, we argued, cannot be attributed to gradual transformation within lineages, but must arise from the differential success of certain kinds of species. A trend, we argued, is more like climbing a flight of stairs (punctuations and stasis) than rolling up an inclined plane.
Since we proposed punctuated equlibria to explain trends, it is infuriating to be quoted again and again by creationists-whether through design or stupidity, I do not know-as admitting that the fossil record includes no transitional forms. Transitional forms are generally lacking at the species level, but they are abundant between larger troups. Yet a pamphlet entitled "Harvard Scientists Agree Evolution Is a Hoax" states: "The facts of punctuated equilibrium which Gould and Eldredge ... are forcing Darwinists to swallow fit the picture that Gryan insisted on, and which God has revealed to us in the Bible."
Continuing the distortion, several creationists have equated the theory of punctuated equilibrium with a caricature of the beliefs of Richard Goldschmidt, a great early geneticist. Goldschmidt argued, in a famous book published in 1940, that new groups can arise all at once through major mutations. He referred to these suddenly transformed creatures as "hopeful monsters." (I am attracted to some aspects of the non-caricatured version, but Goldschmidt's theory still has nothing to do with punctuated equilibrium-see essays in section 3 and my explicit essay on Godlschmidt in The Panda's Thumb.) Creations Luther Sunderland talks of the "punctuated equilibrium hopeful monster theory" and tells his hopeful readers that "it amounts to tacit admission that anti-evolutionists are correct in asserting there is no fossil evidence supporting the theory that all life is connected to a common ancestor." Duane Gish writes, "According to Goldschmidt, and now apparently accoridng to Gould, a reptile laid an edd from which the first bird, feather and all, was produced." Any evolutionist who believed such nonsense would rightly be laughed off the intellectual stage; yet the only theory that ecould ever envision such a scenario for the origin of birds is creationism-with God acting in the egg.
It is quite clear that you haven't actually read Gould's work but instead stole a quote from a creationist quote mining site. He directly contradicts your conclusions.
quote:
So you see Darwinist evolution pretty much always happens in such a manner as to escape detection.
Incorrect. We see all the changes we expect to see: I can show you genetic changes happening in the lab and the fossil record shows you the big changes. 1 + 1 = 2 no matter how much you say they don't.
quote:
If you find the handful of so-called ”intermediates’ convincing then you have more faith than I do.
"Handful"? How does one interpret "abundant" to mean "handful"? I repeat my claim: You haven't actually read Gould. Instead, you stole a quote from a creationist quote mining site.
quote:
quote:
We can literally watch the bones of the reptilian jaw move and repurpose to become the bones of the mammalian jaw.
Well you can certainly imagine that that happened but is it true?
You mean the fossils don't exist? The jaws that I have handled with my own hands were just frauds? Again from Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes:
The third argument is more direct: transitions are often found in the fossil record. Preserved transitions are not common-and should not be, according to our understanding of evolution (see next section)-but they are not entirely wanting, as creationists often claim. The lower jaw of reptiles contains several bones, that of mammals only one. The non-mammalian jawbones are reduced, step by step, in mammalian ancestors until they become tiny nubbins located at the back of the jaw. The "hammer" and "anvil" bones of the mammalian ear are descendents of these nubbins. How could such a transition be accomplished? the creationists ask. Surely a bone is either entirely in the jaw or in the ear. Yet paleontologists have discovered two transitional lineages of therapsids (the so-called mammal-like repitles) with a double jaw joint-one composed of the old quadrate and articular bones (soon to become the hammer and anvil), the other of the squamosal and dentary bones (as in modern mammals). For that matter, what better transitional form could we expect to find than the oldest human, Australopithecus afarensis, with its apelike palate, its human upright stand, and a cranial capacity larger than any ape's of the same body size but a full 1,000 cubic centimeters below ours? If God made each of the half-dozen human species discovered in ancient rocks, why did he create in an unbroken temporal sequence of progressively more modern features-increasing cranial capacity, reduced face and teeth, larger body size? Did he create to mimic evolution and test our faith thereby?
Faced with these facts of evolution and the philosophical bankruptcy of their own position, creationists rely upon distortion and innuendo to buttress their rehtorical claim. If I sound sharp or bitter, indeed I am-for I have become a major target of these practices.
You haven't actually read anything about the subject, have you?
quote:
All mutations ever seem to be able to do (demonstrably) is cause a defect in or a loss of information. You know, like typing errors.
Incorrect. Most mutations are never noticed. The most common type of mutation, responsible for over 90% of all mutations, is the point mutation. You'll never see such mutations affect the morphology of the organism.
And of those mutations that do cause deleterious effects, they are selected against, so they do not spread.
Thus, all you wind up with over the generations are neutral and beneficial mutations.
But that said, how do you know a mutation is beneficial until it is put into the environment and tested? You seem to have forgotten about selection. Is a short, squat body that retains body fat easily "beneficial" or is a long, thin body that sheds body fat "beneficial"? Until you define what the environment is, you'll never know.
quote:
quote:
We can see hydracotherium change over time to become modern Equus.
Can we?
You mean the fossils don't really exist? They're really scattered across the strata rather than being in chronological order?
quote:
Even now we have varieties of horses of different sizes.
As if the only difference between Hyracotherium and Equus were size.
quote:
Sticking an hydracotherium at the beginning of the line up is based on a belief that it must have happened, not on proof that it is possible.
As if the only reason we put Hyracotherium first is because the morphology puts it there (which is sufficient enough, but it's always good when you can justify it on multiple levels...it provides independent corroboration.)
quote:
That would be nice but I’d be prepared to accept some positive examples of information building in organisms that goes beyond such things as antibiotic resistance and bacteria being able to adapt to a nylon diet.
Why is that not sufficient? Why don't you tell us what you demand and then when we show it to you, we can watch you shift the goalposts again. First, you claimed it can't be done and then when shown that it does happen, you claim it wasn't a "big" change and hope to high heaven that nobody notices that your original claim was that it couldn't happen at all.
Duplication followed by mutation. Is that or is that no "information building"?
Very simple question. How many times am I going to have to ask it of you before you answer it?

Rrhain

Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 31 by Beretta, posted 11-28-2008 6:13 AM Beretta has replied

Replies to this message:
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Rrhain
Member
Posts: 6351
From: San Diego, CA, USA
Joined: 05-03-2003


Message 66 of 217 (489745)
11-29-2008 4:44 PM
Reply to: Message 36 by Beretta
11-28-2008 10:16 AM


Beretta writes:
quote:
But the diversity appears fully formed in too short a time for so many morphological mutations to have occurred
Why? What is the barrier? You're the one making the claim, therefore you're the one who needs to provide the evidence. That you don't understand how it could have happened is not sufficient. You need to provide the specifics as to what blocks the genome from mutating.
We can achieve reproductive isolation in only 13 generations. What is the barrier and how does it function?
quote:
From so long a period of single celled organisms to extraordinary complexity and variation of forms in so short a relative period in the Cambrian.
Huh? The Cambrian explosion was not "short." It took hundreds of millions of years. What makes it fascinating is the number of body plans that we see happening during it. But even that is mostly due to the development of hard body parts that are more easily fossilized. We have transitional fossils that run from the Pre-Cambrian and through the Cambrian.
And notice how the creationists are always harping on the Cambrian when the Permian was even bigger. This is what happens when you only grab your information from web sites rather than doing your own homework.
quote:
To fill the gaps in with transitional forms is a philisophical choice not a fact clearly arrived at by the evidence.
Huh? That sentence makes no sense. If there were gaps, then there would be no transitionals. The fact that there are transitionals means there aren't gaps. Unless you're going for the typical creationist claim that by putting in the transitional, you create two more gaps on either side.
As predicted, you will seemingly only accept a videotape of the complete parent-child geneology of every single organism that has ever lived.
quote:
No one doubts that there has been change over time -just the limits of the possible changes and the time required to effect such changes were it possible at all.
Why? What would be the barrier? You're the one making the claim, therefore you need to provide the evidence. Since we have seen it happen right in front of our eyes, why should we accept your insistence that it cannot happen?
quote:
Study of mutations has failed to show any increase in information with mutations.
Standard Creationist Rebuttal CB102:
Claim CB102:
Mutations are random noise; they do not add information. Evolution cannot cause an increase in information.
  1. It is hard to understand how anyone could make this claim, since anything mutations can do, mutations can undo. Some mutations add information to a genome; some subtract it. Creationists get by with this claim only by leaving the term "information" undefined, impossibly vague, or constantly shifting. By any reasonable definition, increases in information have been observed to evolve. We have observed the evolution of
    • increased genetic variety in a population (Lenski 1995; Lenski et al. 1991)
    • increased genetic material (Alves et al. 2001; Brown et al. 1998; Hughes and Friedman 2003; Lynch and Conery 2000; Ohta 2003)
    • novel genetic material (Knox et al. 1996; Park et al. 1996)
    • novel genetically-regulated abilities (Prijambada et al. 1995)
    If these do not qualify as information, then nothing about information is relevant to evolution in the first place.
  2. A mechanism that is likely to be particularly common for adding information is gene duplication, in which a long stretch of DNA is copied, followed by point mutations that change one or both of the copies. Genetic sequencing has revealed several instances in which this is likely the origin of some proteins. For example:
    • Two enzymes in the histidine biosynthesis pathway that are barrel-shaped, structural and sequence evidence suggests, were formed via gene duplication and fusion of two half-barrel ancestors (Lang et al. 2000).
    • RNASE1, a gene for a pancreatic enzyme, was duplicated, and in langur monkeys one of the copies mutated into RNASE1B, which works better in the more acidic small intestine of the langur. (Zhang et al. 2002)
    • Yeast was put in a medium with very little sugar. After 450 generations, hexose transport genes had duplicated several times, and some of the duplicated versions had mutated further. (Brown et al. 1998)

    The biological literature is full of additional examples. A PubMed search (at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi) on "gene duplication" gives more than 3000 references.
  3. According to Shannon-Weaver information theory, random noise maximizes information. This is not just playing word games. The random variation that mutations add to populations is the variation on which selection acts. Mutation alone will not cause adaptive evolution, but by eliminating nonadaptive variation, natural selection communicates information about the environment to the organism so that the organism becomes better adapted to it. Natural selection is the process by which information about the environment is transferred to an organism's genome and thus to the organism (Adami et al. 2000).
  4. The process of mutation and selection is observed to increase information and complexity in simulations (Adami et al. 2000; Schneider 2000).
Now, seeing that we have observed the increase in information of the genome, one has to wonder why you are demanding that we lie about it?
Duplication followed by mutation is "increase in information," yes or no?
How many times must I ask it before you answer?
quote:
On the contrary, mutations produce increasing disorder and a loss of information.
Standard Creationist Rebuttal CB101:
Claim CB101:
Most mutations are harmful, so the overall effect of mutations is harmful.
  1. Most mutations are neutral. Nachman and Crowell estimate around 3 deleterious mutations out of 175 per generation in humans (2000). Of those that have significant effect, most are harmful, but the fraction which are beneficial is higher than usually though. An experiment with E. coli found that about 1 in 150 newly arising mutations and 1 in 10 functional mutations are beneficial (Perfeito et al. 2007).
    The harmful mutations do not survive long, and the beneficial mutations survive much longer, so when you consider only surviving mutations, most are beneficial.
  2. Beneficial mutations are commonly observed. They are common enough to be problems in the cases of antibiotic resistance in disease-causing organisms and pesticide resistance in agricultural pests (e.g., Newcomb et al. 1997; these are not merely selection of pre-existing variation.) They can be repeatedly observed in laboratory populations (Wichman et al. 1999). Other examples include the following:
    • Mutations have given bacteria the ability to degrade nylon (Prijambada et al. 1995).
    • Plant breeders have used mutation breeding to induce mutations and select the beneficial ones (FAO/IAEA 1977).
    • Certain mutations in humans confer resistance to AIDS (Dean et al. 1996; Sullivan et al. 2001) or to heart disease (Long 1994; Weisgraber et al. 1983).
    • A mutation in humans makes bones strong (Boyden et al. 2002).
    • Transposons are common, especially in plants, and help to provide beneficial diversity (Moffat 2000).
    • In vitro mutation and selection can be used to evolve substantially improved function of RNA molecules, such as a ribozyme (Wright and Joyce 1997).
  3. Whether a mutation is beneficial or not depends on environment. A mutation that helps the organism in one circumstance could harm it in another. When the environment changes, variations that once were counteradaptive suddenly become favored. Since environments are constantly changing, variation helps populations survive, even if some of those variations do not do as well as others. When beneficial mutations occur in a changed environment, they generally sweep through the population rapidly (Elena et al. 1996).
  4. High mutation rates are advantageous in some environments. Hypermutable strains of Pseudomonas aeruginosa are found more commonly in the lungs of cystic fibrosis patients, where antibiotics and other stresses increase selection pressure and variability, than in patients without cystic fibrosis (Oliver et al. 2000).
  5. Note that the existence of any beneficial mutations is a falsification of the young-earth creationism model (Morris 1985, 13).
So since we see that most mutations are neutral and the only ones that survive are the neutral and beneficial ones, why would you have us lie and say that most mutations are harmful?
Duplication followed by mutation is "increase in information," yes or no?
How many times must I ask it before you answer?

Rrhain

Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 36 by Beretta, posted 11-28-2008 10:16 AM Beretta has not replied

  
Coyote
Member (Idle past 2106 days)
Posts: 6117
Joined: 01-12-2008


Message 67 of 217 (489752)
11-29-2008 6:17 PM
Reply to: Message 65 by Rrhain
11-29-2008 4:03 PM


Creationists and evidence; never the twain...
Rrhain, you wrote "We have presented the evidence to you over and over again here. The fact that you deny it doesn't change the fact that it exists."
Creationists have to deny the evidence.
Their belief is not based on evidence, but on scripture or revelation or the like, so no amount of evidence will persuade them that their belief is incorrect. Any evidence which appears to do so must be wrong and will be denied.
Creationists are frequently not sure why that evidence is wrong, as they don't study science as a rule, but if its not one reason its another. The details don't matter much anyway because they know that that evidence is wrong.
Because of this, debating these issues with them and presenting evidence as we do in science is generally pointless.

Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 65 by Rrhain, posted 11-29-2008 4:03 PM Rrhain has not replied

  
Fosdick 
Suspended Member (Idle past 5500 days)
Posts: 1793
From: Upper Slobovia
Joined: 12-11-2006


Message 68 of 217 (489763)
11-29-2008 8:15 PM
Reply to: Message 63 by Rrhain
11-29-2008 2:50 PM


Rrhain writes:
No, not really. Not literally "ate the late comers," but one of the observed actions of evolution is that only one organism can occupy a niche with any stability. Competition between species is no different from competition within a species. Take a look at Darwin's finches. They all descended from a single ancestor but they couldn't all occupy the same niche so they diversified.
No, but a different kind of "organism" could peacefully occupy the niche next door, which also happens in ecology. I know you are aware that your Darwin's finches were aliens to the islands and probably came in on a storm. There was an establish source of finches from the mainland. So, to make your analogy work for abiogensis, you have to invoke panspermia.
”FTF

I can see Lower Slobovia from my house.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 63 by Rrhain, posted 11-29-2008 2:50 PM Rrhain has not replied

  
Beretta
Member (Idle past 5597 days)
Posts: 422
From: South Africa
Joined: 10-29-2007


Message 69 of 217 (489785)
11-30-2008 1:01 AM
Reply to: Message 60 by fallacycop
11-29-2008 11:52 AM


Fables of evolution
Hi fallacycop,
Well, clearly "many thousands of generations" is still a very small number of generations.
Well not really that few. How many human generations are supposed to have occurred to take humans from apes or from australopithicines? Bacteria have been followed through 40000 generations + by Lenski at Michigan State U. The E.Coli he's studied are still very much E.Coli
It's all very well to assume that it'll take longer to get significant change but it is still an assumption taken by faith that macroevolution has happened.
Would you care to show us any REAL experimental evidence against evolution?
Well the build up of human mutations in the human genome is an indication of which way evolution is actually heading.
Are you suggesting that we should say that something we can't see definately did happen until we find evidence against it. Why shouldn't we wait before making statements of so-called 'fact' until we at least have some evidence to support it.
All mutational experiments and selective breeding ever achieves is a loss of information. Never anything new. We need lots of 'new' in order for 'evolution' to be feasible so why can't anybody show us some of this new information? Why is it that all we ever see is a loss or distortion of information. And in light of those facts why do we assume that 'evolution' has happened in contradiction to what we know to be true based on experimentation?
It's getting beyond a joke to blame it on 'time' constraints that we can't ever see anything to support our theory but we still need to insist on it being a fact in light of our lack of evidence for that 'fact'.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 60 by fallacycop, posted 11-29-2008 11:52 AM fallacycop has replied

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Coyote
Member (Idle past 2106 days)
Posts: 6117
Joined: 01-12-2008


Message 70 of 217 (489786)
11-30-2008 1:32 AM
Reply to: Message 69 by Beretta
11-30-2008 1:01 AM


Creationist talking points et al. ad nauseum
All mutational experiments and selective breeding ever achieves is a loss of information. Never anything new. We need lots of 'new' in order for 'evolution' to be feasible so why can't anybody show us some of this new information? Why is it that all we ever see is a loss or distortion of information.
This is not true; it is a standard creationist talking point based on the religious concepts of created kinds and devolution since "the curse." In other words, it has no scientific merit whatsoever.
I started a thread on "new" information, based on an article that presented both the evidence for new genes and mechanisms showing how those genes arose. But as I pointed out in post #67, above, creationists won't be able to see the evidence; they have to deny it because it contradicts their beliefs. They don't have a scientific reason why its wrong, just a bunch of talking points passed from creationist website to website--and refuted by scientific data over and over. But that's OK, they know its wrong anyway.
Now, this is off topic here. Go to the thread I started [New genes do arise in the genome] and present your talking points there and we can get into it in more depth.
Edited by Coyote, : Added thread title

Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 69 by Beretta, posted 11-30-2008 1:01 AM Beretta has not replied

  
Beretta
Member (Idle past 5597 days)
Posts: 422
From: South Africa
Joined: 10-29-2007


Message 71 of 217 (489787)
11-30-2008 1:51 AM
Reply to: Message 61 by Fosdick
11-29-2008 12:25 PM


Re: Bacterial facts and soulful beliefs
Hi Fosdick,
You want science to show you factually how bacteria could have evolved into humans.
Yes that's exactly what I want! They don't actually have to make it happen -but they do have to at least demonstrate to me that the train is going in the right direction. If I see a train heading to Perth from Sydney, it is at least conceivable that it may get there given that it is heading in the right direction BUT if it is not heading that way or if it is in fact heading for the ocean, then I must hold up on my theories on where it's headed until I get some evidence to back my contention that it may be heading for Perth.
The same with mutations and variation within different kinds of animals - I don't see something positive happening. Even super-resistant bacterial populations are actually superwimps when you put them out in the real world. They only thrive in hospitals because the others have been killed off. You're far better off leaving the hospital if you want to get rid of your superinfection because the mutated weaklings can't compete against the original parent populations in the outside world.
Poodles are mutant genetic weaklings with big problems. They have nothing new added to them in the breeding process -information they already possessed got selected by humans who wanted this or that and with it they got all sorts of inbreeding problems, a build up of mutations, nothing new and original, nothing improved.
The fossil record is good, but necessarily spotty.
The fossil record is no good until such time as it can be demonstrated that all this supposed change could have happened. Otherwise all we have is a bunch of dead things in sedimentary rock layers and we already know for sure (historically demonstrated) that thousands of sedimentary layers can be made in a day despite what evolutionists would have us believe about vast time being necessary. Rock forms very fast under the right conditions and fossils can be formed extremely rapidly under the correct temperature and pressure conditions. They know that. So why in the absence of some hard evidence should we believe that the macro type of evolution has happened at all?
As for spotty, spotty would be one thing but the fossil record is more than just spotty -it has large gaping chasms -if you'll excuse my mixed metaphor :rolleyes
How is it that you have chosen to reject what science says about Darwinian evolution in favor of what your religion says about God-endowed souls?
Well my faith that there is a God is far superior to man's inventiveness and better supported by the real experimental science.
You see the God I trust has said that He made the world perfect but that the world rejected His authority and decided to go it alone. Since man is so capable of so much evil (you must surely have noticed) this God took away his sustaining power and the world is cursed to decay in time. Now that may sound flaky to you but that's what we see in our mutational loads, everything is running down, not up as evolutionists would have us believe. They are living in a world of fantasy completely at odds with reality and since the Bible said that man would do that and that very few would believe in Him and follow Him and that everything would get more and more rotten and evil until the day came that we'd be forced to get a mark on our right hand or forehead or else have no money.So much history, so many amazing predictions coming true in our time -all in one book that coincides so much better with reality.
Of course you could go for the alien angle since everything is clearly designed not randomly assembled but even that would only move the original creator one step further away.
As for your soul, well I haven't seen mine either but my ability to think and be logical sure makes me think I am more than a randomly arranged hydrocarbon conglomeration. The material part of me is like the computer without the information component. I have a DNA based programme running for sure with the occasional glitch but the information carried is weightless and can be transferred like photos on a hard drive or on hard copy or on a cd. It's something else that is not a material component of us human beings. That sort of explanation is far more intellectually satisfying to me than to explain my thoughts and feelings in terms of random firing neurons -how would I be able to trust in anything I think if that was all it was?
Your Uncle Howard may have been slime but you have some moral compass that we all possess that tells you that -otherwise you'd just have to forgive Uncle Howard on the basis of his mutational glitches and random misfiring neuronal impulses. I'm sure you know that Uncle Howard always had a choice.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 61 by Fosdick, posted 11-29-2008 12:25 PM Fosdick has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 72 by Taz, posted 11-30-2008 1:57 AM Beretta has replied
 Message 77 by fallacycop, posted 11-30-2008 2:22 AM Beretta has replied
 Message 85 by Fosdick, posted 11-30-2008 12:03 PM Beretta has not replied

  
Taz
Member (Idle past 3291 days)
Posts: 5069
From: Zerus
Joined: 07-18-2006


Message 72 of 217 (489788)
11-30-2008 1:57 AM
Reply to: Message 71 by Beretta
11-30-2008 1:51 AM


Re: Bacterial facts and soulful beliefs
Beretta writes:
Well my faith that there is a God is far superior to man's inventiveness and better supported by the real experimental science.
So... why are you even here?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 71 by Beretta, posted 11-30-2008 1:51 AM Beretta has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 74 by Beretta, posted 11-30-2008 2:04 AM Taz has not replied

  
Beretta
Member (Idle past 5597 days)
Posts: 422
From: South Africa
Joined: 10-29-2007


Message 73 of 217 (489789)
11-30-2008 2:00 AM
Reply to: Message 62 by Straggler
11-29-2008 1:52 PM


On what grounds
Hi Straggler,
Fine. So you agree that evolution is change in allele frequency over time. You just assert that there are limits to this change.
What is this limit? On what grounds do you conclude that this limit exists?
On the grounds of experimentation that only ever demonstrates negative mutational change and no increase in information content. How is it that we can demonstrate lots of negative informational changes but no increase in information ever? Until I see that limit breached, I choose to stick with the evidence and curb my imagination.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 62 by Straggler, posted 11-29-2008 1:52 PM Straggler has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 78 by Coyote, posted 11-30-2008 2:33 AM Beretta has not replied
 Message 86 by Straggler, posted 11-30-2008 1:05 PM Beretta has not replied

  
Beretta
Member (Idle past 5597 days)
Posts: 422
From: South Africa
Joined: 10-29-2007


Message 74 of 217 (489790)
11-30-2008 2:04 AM
Reply to: Message 72 by Taz
11-30-2008 1:57 AM


Re: Bacterial facts and soulful beliefs
No need to shout Taz -sorry if I pressed your buttons!
Why am I here? Why are you here? I think Percy would certainly contend (with his beady eye) that we were in the wrong thread for that conversation!

This message is a reply to:
 Message 72 by Taz, posted 11-30-2008 1:57 AM Taz has not replied

  
fallacycop
Member (Idle past 5520 days)
Posts: 692
From: Fortaleza-CE Brazil
Joined: 02-18-2006


Message 75 of 217 (489792)
11-30-2008 2:06 AM
Reply to: Message 69 by Beretta
11-30-2008 1:01 AM


Re: Fables of evolution
How many human generations are supposed to have occurred to take humans from apes or from australopithicines?
Hundreds of thousands seems to be in the right ball park.
Bacteria have been followed through 40000 generations + by Lenski at Michigan State U. The E.Coli he's studied are still very much E.Coli
Mamals may have a much higher evolutive potential then bacteria, requiring fewer generations in order to aquire significant evolutionary change.
Well the build up of human mutations in the human genome is an indication of which way evolution is actually heading.
All you are giving here is enuendo. where's the evidence?
Are you suggesting that we should say that something we can't see definately did happen until we find evidence against it. Why shouldn't we wait before making statements of so-called 'fact' until we at least have some evidence to support it.
I can't see nuclear reactions in the center of the sun, but I definately believe that it does happen and I will continue to do so until I see some strong REAL evidence against it. Why? Because the evidence for nuclear reactions inside the sun is very strong. In fact, so strong that it is considered incontrovertable. That's why it's called a fact.
That's what we've been trying to tell you for several post now. There a lot of evidence for evolution. In fact, the evidence for evolution is strong enough to be considered incontrovertable. That's why evolution is considered afact. And the best theory put forward to explain evolution so far has been Darwin's theory of evolution.
Now, some people seem unable to accept evolution. That's their problem. The burden is on them to find evidence against evolution.
I'll ask it again.
Would you care to show us any REAL experimental evidence against evolution?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 69 by Beretta, posted 11-30-2008 1:01 AM Beretta has not replied

  
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