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Author Topic:   A question for Evolutionists
robertleva
Member (Idle past 1085 days)
Posts: 35
From: Seminole
Joined: 04-23-2021


Message 1 of 17 (886044)
04-25-2021 7:54 AM


I created an account here with the sole purpose of seeing how evolutionists can resolve the following problem with their theory:
My issue: ​Selection (either natural selection or human breeding programs) produces a life form that is more adapted or specialized, but is genetically less complex than the original.
-Example: You can take a population of wolves and through breeding recreate all the dog breeds we see today. You can never take dogs and breed them back into wolves. The genetic data has been lost in favor of specializations.
​Dogs are Genetically less complex than wolves in that they only have the data for their particular breed and do not contain the data for all dog breeds the way the wolf does.
So if all species are undergoing selection, how can anything be said to be "evolving"? Seems to me that everything is in a state of genetic decay. Now it's decay with a good purpose, to continue the species in an environment that is constantly changing, but the end result is a loss of genetic information.
Can evolutionists provide ANY examples of natural selection creating a genetically more complex life form than the original? If not, how can you say that selection leads to evolution and not devolution?

Replies to this message:
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Message 2 of 17 (886046)
05-03-2021 12:40 PM


Thread Copied from Proposed New Topics Forum
Thread copied here from the A question for Evolutionists thread in the Proposed New Topics forum.

  
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Message 3 of 17 (886047)
05-03-2021 12:42 PM


Apologies for Later Promotion
Somehow this thread proposal from RobertLeva got lost in the shuffle. I don't think Robert is still around, but I'm belatedly promoting this anyway.

--Percy
EvC Forum Director

  
Tangle
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Posts: 9504
From: UK
Joined: 10-07-2011
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(2)
Message 4 of 17 (886049)
05-03-2021 1:21 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by robertleva
04-25-2021 7:54 AM


robert writes:
So if all species are undergoing selection, how can anything be said to be "evolving"? Seems to me that everything is in a state of genetic decay. Now it's decay with a good purpose, to continue the species in an environment that is constantly changing, but the end result is a loss of genetic information.
Thought game: take a population of 100 organisms, doesn't matter what they are. There's an earthquake, 50 of each find themselves on opposite sides of an impassible fissure. The terrains on each side are different.
You could say that each population has lost genetic diversity, though the total genetic diversity has not changed.
Both groups then spend the next million years going their separate ways.
The ToE predicts (and this is observed irl) that the two populations will evolve and diverge over time through different evolutionary pressures and mechanisms such that eventually there will be two totally different species which can no longer interbreed.
If you then examine their genomes you'll find more genetic diversity than in the original group of 100. Is that an increase in genetic complexity?
Can evolutionists provide ANY examples of natural selection creating a genetically more complex life form than the original? If not, how can you say that selection leads to evolution and not devolution?
I suggest you look at the case study of the peppered moth. It's a fascinating study in its own right but you'll see there that a genetic mutation changed the colour of the moth which helped it survive the change in its environment. Is that an increase in genetic complexity?
If not, I think you'll have to tell us what you think genetic complexity is.
EvC Forum: Iconic Peppered Moth - gene mutation found

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This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by robertleva, posted 04-25-2021 7:54 AM robertleva has not replied

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dwise1
Member
Posts: 5948
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.5


Message 5 of 17 (886055)
05-03-2021 5:26 PM
Reply to: Message 4 by Tangle
05-03-2021 1:21 PM


I suggest you look at the case study of the peppered moth. It's a fascinating study in its own right but you'll see there that a genetic mutation changed the colour of the moth which helped it survive the change in its environment. Is that an increase in genetic complexity?
First, robertleva will just shout out as he had been taught to: "That is not evolution because THEY ARE STILL MOTHS!"
Second and more importantly, robertleva excluded from his question any mechanism that would increase genetic variability:
robertleva writes:
So if all species are undergoing selection, how can anything be said to be "evolving"? Seems to me that everything is in a state of genetic decay. Now it's decay with a good purpose, to continue the species in an environment that is constantly changing, but the end result is a loss of genetic information.
In the original:
robertleva writes:
My issue: ​Selection (either natural selection or human breeding programs) produces a life form that is more adapted or specialized, but is genetically less complex than the original.
You have to remember that, as a creationist, robertleva does not understand evolution but rather misunderstands it as he has been trained to do. Creationism claims to attack evolution, but in reality it attacks their misrepresentations of evolution while keeping well away from actual evolution.
Your reply uses actual evolution, which he will not understand since he's misrepresenting evolution.
To illustrate his fundamental error, here is a description of a generic single-objective genetic algorithm (which is based on how evolution works):
quote:
Step One: Generate the initial population of individuals randomly. (First generation)
Step Two: Repeat the following regenerational steps until termination:
  1. Evaluate the fitness of each individual in the population (time limit, sufficient fitness achieved, etc.)
  2. Select the fittest individuals for reproduction. (Parents)
  3. Breed new individuals through crossover and mutation operations to give birth to offspring.
  4. Replace the least-fit individuals of the population with new individuals.

Instead, robertleva removes sources of increases in genetic variability, " ... through crossover and mutation operations ... ", reducing sub-step 3 to:
quote:
3. Breed new individuals to give birth to offspring.
Evolution works because of both increases in genetic variability and natural selection. Remove either one and it's no longer evolution but something entirely different. What he is trying to "disprove" is not evolution and really has next to nothing to do with evolution.
A possible analogy to make that more clear might be efforts to "prove" that heavier-than-air flight is impossible. A 737 is supposed to be able to fly great distances. So your test builds a 737 airframe minus the engines and you try to fly it. Gee look! It can't even take off, leave the ground. Doesn't work!
When they point out to you that it needs engines to work, you set up an engine separate from the airframe and start it up. At best it careens off out of control. Well! That's certainly not flight! It still doesn't work!
Even when they mount the engines properly onto the airframe and have you watch as they take off in controlled flight, you still don't believe them since you "already proved it couldn't possibly work."
 
BTW, even though robertleva has posted a lie, I have no doubt that he doesn't realize that it's a lie. That's just what he's been taught and he has made the mistake of believing and trusting them (as I'm sure that his immediate handlers have also done).

This message is a reply to:
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jar
Member (Idle past 415 days)
Posts: 34026
From: Texas!!
Joined: 04-20-2004


Message 6 of 17 (886058)
05-03-2021 7:25 PM


Even if what robert posted in the OP were true it would still have absolutely no impact on the fact of evolution.
Evolving only required increased complexity when there was only single cell organisms. A critter can evolve by becoming less complex or less genetically complex (whatever that means).
robert like all the other deprived kids that were educated in the Christian Cult of Ignorance simply grew up in an environment of total dishonesty and complete disconnection from reality.

My Website: My Website

  
Barry Deaborough
Junior Member (Idle past 825 days)
Posts: 6
From: LAVIT
Joined: 05-31-2021


Message 7 of 17 (887357)
08-01-2021 8:34 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by robertleva
04-25-2021 7:54 AM


Post and run?
"Evolutionist" is defined as someone who "believes" in evolution. Virtually nobody "believes" in evolution. They conclude it by applying reasoning to the evidence.
Re. dogs and wolves, what is it thet prevents the genetic changes that led wolfishness to doggyness being reversed?
Oh. I forgot. Post and run.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by robertleva, posted 04-25-2021 7:54 AM robertleva has not replied

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dwise1
Member
Posts: 5948
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.5


Message 8 of 17 (887430)
08-03-2021 8:18 AM
Reply to: Message 7 by Barry Deaborough
08-01-2021 8:34 AM


Post and run?
Looking at the record (click on his name as a link), this OP was the first thing he had posted (25 Apr 2021) , but it didn't get promoted until 03 May 2021, a week later. While he did participate a bit in four other topics, his last message listed was on 28 Apr 2021, about 5 days before this topic was belatedly promoted. That might suggest that he had not intended this to be a post-and-run, but rather he had already decided to brush the dust off his sandals and forget about us (New Testament reference for writing off a community you fail to convert).
This OP was the only time I recall seeing him even mention evolution. As I recall, in all his other messages he affirmed his belief in demons, tried to convert us while pulling the typical proselytizing BS (including denying the Cheeto dust of proselytizing all over his face and hands), and generally engaged in typical fundamentalist nonsense.
I suspected he was yet another case of what we'd seen before. In a number of fundamentalist schools students will be given an assignment in which they find an "atheist" forum ("evolutionist" means the same thing to them) and troll it with "challenges to evolutionists", reporting back to the class for credit.
There was even a "grassroots" campaign a decade ago (04 May 2011) organized by one ministry (so much for "grassroots") with its own webpage: Just a moment... . The idea was to arm creationist students with a set of questions to raise in class. The purpose was to put the teacher on the spot with "unanswerable questions" that would show that what the teacher was saying wasn't true and so to cast doubt on evolution -- BTW, slamming your victim with "unanswerable questions" is a common proselytizing tactic. That page lists their list of 15 questions which of course are nothing but PRATTs ("Points Refuted A Thousand Times"). A few other sites added to that list with even worse questions. My personal was "Looky at all these compounds! What did they all come from?" to which the obvious answer was, "Start paying attention in chemistry class and you'll learn where they come from, and so much more!"
It used to be very common to get some of those students doing that homework assignment here, but it's been a while now. The pattern would be for them to post an OP with one or some (or even all) of those questions, maybe offer a few weak responses, and then abruptly disappear to go collect their class credits.
This OP certainly smelled like one of those, however his email suggests that he is at least a young adult who is either a service member or a veteran (MacDill AFB is near him and it does have a Navy Reserve presence). At one point he mentioned not being very well received in the gaming community, which I assume to be on-line gaming, so I assume him to be rather young still (old gamers tend to do more table-top gaming). Maybe his adult RE class handed out those same assignments.
"Evolutionist" is defined as someone who "believes" in evolution. Virtually nobody "believes" in evolution. They conclude it by applying reasoning to the evidence.
My senior English teacher taught us that words have both denotations and connotations. The denotation is the factual definition, basically what's in the dictionary. But the connotation is the set of emotions and prejudices that are associated with that word.
"Evolutionist" has both denotations and connotations. Every time you ask someone, especially a creationist (also loaded with connotations), what "evolutionist" means and he'll always give you a somewhat neutral denotation: someone who "believes in", ie accepts, evolution.
But that creationist never ever offers any of the connotations they have for that word, virtually all of them negative. To them, an "evolutionist" is not only an atheist, but also outright anti-God and wanting to destroy religion. Furthermore, they deem by definition "evolutionism" and creationism to be mutually exclusive, therefore an evolutionist cannot be a creationist nor can a creationist be an evolutionist (not by their narrow definitions; see below).
This works as a trap for their opponents, especially in any kind of discussion or debate format before an audience of believers. Especially in the earlier debates (ie, before we figured out this trick) the creationist was introduced as a creationist and his opponent was introduced as an "evolutionist". The opponent would usually accept that label ("OK, this is creation/evolution, so since I'm on the opposite side I guess that label makes sense.") without knowing about the very negative connotations that he was signing on for. So as a "self-admitted" "evolutionist", the audience immediately saw him as the most vile form of enemy and he lost the audience and the debate before either of them even spoke the first word.
That is why I keep asking creationists what an "evolutionist" is supposed to be, just as I keep asking them what they think that evolution is (clearly that's not what we normals know it to be), and they never ever give me a straight answer, if they even bother to answer (which is very rare).
Edited by dwise1, : he referred to the gaming community

This message is a reply to:
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ChemEngineer
Member
Posts: 18
From: Irvine CA 92606
Joined: 03-10-2024


Message 9 of 17 (917403)
04-05-2024 1:29 PM


Evolution is NOT a "fact"
No matter how many times you shrilly shriek "fact, fact, fact," Darwin's tautology does NOT become factual. There are far too many scientists, statisticians, biologists, biochemists, and paleontologists who dispute his archaic nonsense from 1859.
Shortly thereafter, Ernst Haeckel fabricated his drawings to support Darwinian nonsense. Haeckel's fraud has been repeated up through the 21st Century in biology books.
Revolting. Ignorant.
Let's look at the insuperable statistics of original protein synthesis by any natural means.
The oldest and biggest error in all of science is Darwinian evolution, insistently claimed as "fact, fact, fact." "Proven."
Repeating the same error loudly, insistently, authoritatively, does not make it so. The most compelling scientific evidence against Neo-Darwinism (and there is surely a very great deal) is the Insuperable Statistics of Original Polypeptide Synthesis.
Once the organic machine gets going, yes we can all see adaptation, i.e. "change in allele frequency." That is assuredly not the same as all extant life originating from the Last Universal Common Ancestor, as biologists teach everywhere. Here is why.
Titin is the largest protein in the human body. It consists of 38,138 amino acid residues in a precise sequence. [Omin]
The first, original synthesis, whether stepwise or in one single, continuous process, consisted of "selecting" 1 out of 20 amino acids making up humans, one at a time, 38,138 times, or 1/20 to the 38,138th power or 10-49,618. The pretense of claiming that "sections" of any protein were "assembled" overlooks the unassailable fact that any "section," however small, had to be assembled under the same statistical constraints. Whether one does the computations in one step or 1,000 steps, the figures are beyond dispute. They get a great deal worse, in fact.
Only Levorotary amino acids were used, so 10 to the -49,618 has to be multiplied by 1/2 to the 38,138th power or 10 to the -11,480. One more time for all consecutive peptide bonds, which are equally probable as the random formation of non-peptide bonds, thus 1/2 to the 38,138th power. The product of these three essential elements of original Titin synthesis is 1 chance in 10 to the 72,578th power (not counting whatever calculation is appropriate for the precise folding of the chain.)
Titin is one of at least 20,000 different polypeptides in humans. [NCBI] These general calculations apply to each of them regarding any naturalistic synthesis, using of course the appropriate power.
[Omin] - Entry - *188840 - TITIN; TTN - OMIM \
NCBI.- The Size of the Human Proteome: The Width and Depth - PMC
If the "sections" were taken from many other functions, as many argue, it further complicates the process by necessitating new and separate advantageous Darwinian "selections" for each intermediary, and there would have to be many thousands of them to reduce the impossibility down below the 10-40 threshold Richard Dawkins concedes as being "impossible."
In fact, to avoid Dawkins' impossible hurdle of 10-40, you have to restrict original polypeptide synthesis to a scant 21 amino acid residues, calculating chirality and peptide bonding.
TRH, or thyroid reducing hormone, is the smallest protein in the human body at 243 amino acids in length. Even this is statistically insuperable by any naturalistic mechanism.
An authority on statistics, Emile Borel, has stated that any event with a probability of 1 in 10 to the 50 or less is impossible. It can never happen.
To provide some statistical perspective, 10to the 50 marbles one cm in diameter would fill 92 trillion spheres the size of earth.
Now imagine a hypothetical spaceship capable of navigating through marbles and you choose one of 92 trillion spheres the size of earth and then single out the one unique marble of sand, identifiable only under a microscope, on your first and only attempt. You do not get an infinite number of tries.
The definition is "1 chance in 10 to the 50", not an infinite number of chances in 10 to the50.
You cannot get around this impregnable wall with simple "A>B>C>D." That is alphabetization, not science.
"But what will we teach biology students without Darwinian evolution?"
You're all scholars. Teach science as it is known and confirmed, not as it was hypothesized by an uneducated, mediocre young man, living on his father's wealth, whose wishful thinking propounded deadly racism that produced Adolph Hitler's designs to follow *evolution* and produce the Master Race, murdering millions of "inferiors".
These biologists and scientists had this to say, for you to repeat, with sincerity:
“And let us dispose of a common misconception. The complete transmutation of even one animal species into a different species has never been directly observed either in the laboratory or in the field.” Dean H. Kenyon (Professor of Biology, San Francisco State University), affidavit presented to the U.S. Supreme Court, No. 85-1513, Brief of Appellants, prepared under the direction of William J. Guste, Jr., Attorney General of the State of Louisiana, October 1985, p. A-16.
“I believe that one day the Darwinian myth will be ranked the greatest deceit in the history of science. When that happens, many people will pose the question, ‘How did that happen?’ – (Dr Soren Luthrip, Swedish embryologist)
“My attempts to demonstrate evolution by an experiment carried on for more than 40 years have completely failed…..It is not even possible to make a caricature of an evolution out of paleobiological facts…The idea of an evolution rests on pure belief.”(Dr. Nils Heribert-Nilsson, noted Swedish botanist and geneticist, of Lund University)
“It is prima facie highly implausible that life as we know it is the result of sequence of physical accidents together with the mechanism of natural selection…. I find this view antecedently unbelievable – heroic triumph of ideological theory over common sense. The empirical evidence can be interpreted to accommodate different comprehensive theories but in this case the cost in conceptual and probabilistic contortions is prohibitive.” – Atheist professor Thomas Nagel
“250,000 species of plants and animals recorded and deposited in museums throughout the world did not support the gradual unfolding hoped for by Darwin.” (Dr. David Raup, curator of geology at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, “Conflicts Between Darwinism and Paleontology”)
“The explanation value of the evolutionary hypothesis of common origin is nil! Evolution not only conveys no knowledge, it seems to convey anti-knowledge. How could I work on evolution ten years and learn nothing from it? Most of you in this room will have to admit that in the last ten years we have seen the basis of evolution go from fact to faith! It does seem that the level of knowledge about evolution is remarkably shallow. We know it ought not be taught in high school, and that’s all we know about it.” (Dr. Colin Patterson, evolutionist and senior Paleontologist at the British Museum of Natural History, which houses 60 million fossils)

Replies to this message:
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Percy
Member
Posts: 22480
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 4.8


Message 10 of 17 (917404)
04-05-2024 2:07 PM
Reply to: Message 9 by ChemEngineer
04-05-2024 1:29 PM


Re: Evolution is NOT a "fact"
Just focusing at first on one small portion:
ChemEngineer in Message 9 writes:
The first, original synthesis, whether stepwise or in one single, continuous process, consisted of "selecting" 1 out of 20 amino acids making up humans, one at a time, 38,138 times, or 1/20 to the 38,138th power or 10-49,618.
What was "the first, original synthesis"?
--Percy

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Taq
Member
Posts: 10038
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.3


(1)
Message 11 of 17 (917405)
04-05-2024 5:37 PM
Reply to: Message 10 by Percy
04-05-2024 2:07 PM


Re: Evolution is NOT a "fact"
Percy writes:
What was "the first, original synthesis"?
From what I can tell, evolution is the least of ChemEngineer's problem. He seems to be arguing against protein translation in cells. He seems to think that it can't happen naturally, so I guess every protein in our bodies is the product of a supernatural act?

This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
 Message 12 by dwise1, posted 04-05-2024 7:44 PM Taq has replied
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dwise1
Member
Posts: 5948
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.5


(3)
Message 12 of 17 (917406)
04-05-2024 7:44 PM
Reply to: Message 11 by Taq
04-05-2024 5:37 PM


Re: Evolution is NOT a "fact"
From what I can tell, evolution is the least of ChemEngineer's problem.
That's assuming that we are dealing with an actual person and not some seriously defective AI being foisted upon us by some script kiddie. So far all "he" has done here as been to repost nonsense lifted from elsewhere. Has anyone located where this latest deposit came from?
But for sake of argument, let's allow that "he" is an actual person. In that case, his primary problem is that he is not even wrong. What he is babbling about has nothing to do with evolution, nor with anything in biology. It's just the usual creationist stupid nonsense.
This latest seems to be a continuation of his Message 81 where he "tries" to "disprove" Dawkins' cumulative selection, except his attempt consists of mentioning it and then attacking the other option, single-step selection, thus proving what Dawkins was also demonstrating, that single-step selection doesn't work.
His rehash here of that tired old false creationist nonsensical claim of "evolution requires all complex modern proteins to have magically fallen together by pure chance" makes all the same tired old mistakes such as (list far from comprehensive, since I'm in a rush to prepare for duty tonight):
  1. All modern proteins had to have self-assembled into existence instantaneously out of nothing, like Hoyle's tired old "tornado in a junkyard randomly assembling a 747" nonsense. And as such, the probability model would have to be through single-step selection.
    Instead, modern proteins would have evolved through cumulative selection.
  2. He assumes that every modern protein must be specified exactly, for which other creationists describe having even one single "wrong" amino acid anywhere in that protein would make it useless.
    In reality, many amino acids in a protein can be replaced with a different one. Roughly speaking, generally nearly half of a protein's loci are purely structural and could be filled with any amino acid; it's primarily the protein's active sites that need to be highly specified. Indeed, when we compare the same protein across species, we find differences in the amino acid sequence which we are able to use to map out how the different species are related to each other through common descent; ie, that is a powerful tool for constructing phylogenetic trees. And ironically, false claims about how closely related species are to each other based on protein comparisons used to be a hot creationist topic (refer to my The Bullfrog Affair).
Running out of time. Gotta run.
But one last. "He" calls "evolution" (whatever "he" means by that) a tautology and calls it false on that basis. The thing is that a tautology is always true; it's just trivially true (ie, offers no actual explanation) and hence not useful. But it's still true.
So "he" led in by stating that evolution is true. Nice start.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 11 by Taq, posted 04-05-2024 5:37 PM Taq has replied

Replies to this message:
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Tanypteryx
Member
Posts: 4411
From: Oregon, USA
Joined: 08-27-2006
Member Rating: 5.4


Message 13 of 17 (917413)
04-06-2024 8:21 AM
Reply to: Message 11 by Taq
04-05-2024 5:37 PM


Re: Evolution is NOT a "fact"
He seems to be arguing against protein translation in cells.
I don't think he's arguing anything, it's all just cut and paste from someone else's screed. He has no clue what a protein actually is and certainly cannot and will not actually engage in discussion.

Stop Tzar Vladimir the Condemned!
What if Eleanor Roosevelt had wings? -- Monty Python
One important characteristic of a theory is that it has survived repeated attempts to falsify it. Contrary to your understanding, all available evidence confirms it. --Subbie
If evolution is shown to be false, it will be at the hands of things that are true, not made up. --Percy
The reason that we have the scientific method is because common sense isn't reliable. -- Taq
Why should anyone debate someone who doesn't know the subject? -- AZPaul3

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Theodoric
Member
Posts: 9142
From: Northwest, WI, USA
Joined: 08-15-2005
Member Rating: 3.3


Message 14 of 17 (917418)
04-06-2024 10:13 AM
Reply to: Message 12 by dwise1
04-05-2024 7:44 PM


Re: Evolution is NOT a "fact"
He is a real person. He fancies himself as some sort of intellectual.

What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence. -Christopher Hitchens

Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

"God did it" is not an argument. It is an excuse for intellectual laziness.

If your viewpoint has merits and facts to back it up, why would you have to lie?


This message is a reply to:
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Taq
Member
Posts: 10038
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 15 of 17 (917455)
04-08-2024 1:20 PM
Reply to: Message 12 by dwise1
04-05-2024 7:44 PM


Re: Evolution is NOT a "fact"
dwise1 writes:
But one last. "He" calls "evolution" (whatever "he" means by that) a tautology and calls it false on that basis. The thing is that a tautology is always true; it's just trivially true (ie, offers no actual explanation) and hence not useful. But it's still true.
The most popular target for the claims of tautology is natural selection. It is trivially true that those who have more grandchildren will have more of their genes in that generation. It is also trivially true that certain alleles increase the chances of having more grandchildren compared to those in the population who don't have that allele.
So yes, it may be a tautology. That also makes it true.
What isn't a tautology is the evidence demonstrating that the morphology and genomes of living species are a product of this mechanism, in addition to other mechanisms such as constructive neutral evolution.

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