Coffee House Musings on Creationist Topic Proposals

Knowledge and fact are not the same thing. Knowledge is made up of facts and theories. Facts aren't much good without an explanation.And nobody but you is equating fact with theory.

See Message 120. Stop lying. Discuss.

For the most part, "Darwinists" went extinct by the middle of the 20th Century having been replaced by neo-Darwinists via the Modern Evolutionary Synthesis of Darwinism and Mendelian genetics (et alia) -- it's a bit more involved than that summary, so follow the link.Darwin was never able to solve the problem of inheritance, which was solved by Mendel -- ironically (and perhaps anecdotally) a copy of Mendel's monograph was in Darwin's library, but he had apparently never gotten around to reading it. Darwin had tried to solve that problem with his pangenetic theory which basically amounted to a revival of Lamarckian ideas of acquired traits. When biologists rediscovered Mendelian genetics and started to study and experiment with mutation around 1900, they considered Darwinism as having been disproven. In reality, it was Darwin's pangenetics that had been disproven, but not the other aspects of his theory of evolution such as natural selection. One outcome of that early period of genetics is a wealth of quotes from actual scientists stating that "Darwin had been disproven" because just that one of his ideas (ie, pangenetics) was wrong. Of course, that source has been thoroughly quote-mined by creationists.So in the first half of the 20th Century scientists developed a synthesis of Darwinism and Mendelian genetics which resulted in neo-Darwinism which employs population genetics, a rigorous mathematical study of the genetics of populations (for Dredge's edification, populations evolve, not individuals).So anyone who is not a neo-Darwinist but rather instead a Darwinist is several decades out of date (rapidly approaching a century out of date). Yet again, we see creationists failing to keep up as they remain mired in old ideas and superseded sources.

And yet here you are being flagrantly anti-science. Flaming, even. As ringo replies in his Message 299: Of course, it's biological evolution. That's what we have been talking about all this time and have been explaining to you over and over again. So what are you talking about? What do you think evolution is? Please describe it as completely as you can.

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How to you think that evolution works or is supposed to work? Please include what you would consider to be the results or consequences of evolution and explain completely why those would be the results or consequences.

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What do you think is the evolutionary explanation of how speciation (the formation of a new species) works and happens? Do try to be as specific as you can be.Of course, you will never answer any of those questions. In the past four decades I have never seen any creationist even attempt it, but rather all they ever do is avoid those questions.Why won't any creationist ever answer those basic questions? In part because they have no clue what they are talking about, but rather just mindlessly repeat creationist claims and "arguments" (read "cheap rhetorical tricks") they have heard but do not understand. Although that is obviously true, there's also the simple fact that actual discussion, exchanging of ideas, and learning would be directly counter-productive to their mission:

I'm not disputing the evidence for "what happened in the past" - my argument is that no one can know HOW it happened. Which evolutionary transition in the fossil record can you describe step-by-step? ... the mutations involved and how natural selection acted on beneficial mutations? I'm not a YEC. I accept the scientific evidence that suggests life on earth began eith simple forms perhaps nillions of years ago. I accept that those original life-forms were followed by more complex and diverse forms as time went by ... a process which could be called "evolution".

Edited by Dredge, .

Sure, that's exactly what we see when we employ Darwinist methodology - ie, cherry-pick the data, ignoring anything contradictory.You failed to mention the times morpholgy "trees" and DNA "trees" don't match and even produce contradictory results:“Incongruence between phylogenies derived from morphological versus molecular analyses, and between trees based on different subsets of molecular sequences has become pervasive as datasets have expanded rapidly in both characters and species ...
phylogenetic conflict is common, and frequently the norm rather than the exception.” (Liliana M., D�valos, Andrea L. Cirranello, Jonathan H. Geisler, and Nancy B. Simmons, “Understanding phylogenetic incongruence: lessons from phyllostomid bats ..."Biological Reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society, 87:991-1024)."[T]he mitochondrial cytochrome b gene implied . . . an absurd phylogeny of mammals, regardless of the method of tree construction. Cats and whales fell within primates, grouping with simians (monkeys and apes) and strepsirhines (lemurs, bush-babies and lorises) to the exclusion of tarsiers. Cytochrome b is probably the most commonly sequenced gene in vertebrates, making this surprising result even more disconcerting." (Michael S. Y. Lee, “Molecular Phylogenies Become Functional,” Trends in Ecology and Evolution, 14: 177 (1999)).“disparities between molecular and morphological trees” lead to “evolution wars” because “[e]volutionary trees constructed by studying biological molecules often don’t resemble those drawn up from morphology.” (Trisha Gura, “Bones, Molecules or Both?,” Nature, 406 (July 20, 2000): 230-233.).“Evolutionary trees constructed by studying biological molecules often don't resemble those drawn up from morphology" ("Bones, Molecules ... or Both", Nature, 2000)."This assumption (of Pauling and Zuckerkandl, that the degree of similarity indicates the degree of evolutionary relatedness) derives from interpreting molecular similarity (or dissimilarity) between taxa in the context of a Darwinian model of continuous and gradual change. Review of the history of molecular systemics and its claims in the context of molecular biology reveals that there is no basis for the 'molecular assumption'" (Schwartz andMaresca, "Do Molecular Clocks Run At All?", p.357).

So, do you have anything newer than 22 years ago?As sequencing has gotten cheaper and faster we have seen much better protocols and standards for specific regions of the genome to be compared to give useful phylogenetic trees. At the same time there have been ongoing revisions in morphological based taxonomy and this has been a continuous process for as long as people have been doing taxonomy.I don't know if the papers you quote-mined had any part, but critiques and reviews of existing processes in molecular and morphological phylogeny descriptions and comparisons as they developed helped refine and improve this field.Today, in 2022, sequencing has advanced so far that whole genome sequencing is becoming routine and the software algorithms for comparing genomes is keeping pace. Contrary to what you are implying, modern morphology and genetics has evolved into a mature science and our understanding of the evolutionary relationships of living and recently extinct species on this planet is expanding at an increasing rate. It turns out that the genetic history of a species is written in their genome.This is a paper in my field as an example of morphology and genetics working together to produce a new refined phylogeny: Phylogenetic relationships of North American Gomphidae and their close relatives, Syst Entomol. 2017 April ; 42(2): 347–358. doi:10.1111/syen.12218.
JESSICA L. WARE, ERIK PILGRIM, MICHAEL L. MAY, THOMAS W. DONNELLY, and KENNETH TENNESSEN.Meanwhile you ID creationists have shown us absolutely nothing, not a single shred of evidence to support intentional design in biology.ABE: the 1st two authors are geneticists and the last three are morphological taxonomists.

Edited by Tanypteryx, .

If by "HOW it happened" you mean the specific DNA sequences of all the involved breeding individuals as well as which individuals bred with which and the specific environmental influences, then we keep saying we don't know, that we can't possibly know evolutionary history at that level of detail. Little evidence was left behind. What we do have is the DNA of their modern descendants and relatives, and quite a bit can be deduced from that.What was the DNA of the specific sperm and egg that came together to create you? We don't know. Would you conclude from that lack of knowledge that we don't know how evolution works?You must somehow imagine that when we're not looking that biology works in some completely different manner. Wouldn't there be copious evidence of this? Wouldn't life that lived and reproduced in a manner biologically different than modern forms have left behind life very different from the actual life we see all around us? You're just repeating the same claim, that somehow when we're not looking that something different happens than when we are looking. You'r claiming that when we're looking then we see mutations causing modifications that contribute to the next generation, but when we're not looking, which is the vast majority of the time, something else happens. Can you point to any evidence for this? Can you do anything other than repeat the same argument over and over and over again? Evolution doesn't guarantee increasing complexity and diversity. Evolution guarantees change because of the lack of 100% fidelity in the genetic copying process and because of epigenetic factors.If you think something else was going on in the ancient past to cause evolution, what evidence is driving your thinking process?--PercyAbE: I missed the "artificial selection" part. Did you actually mean natural selection, or is this an argument for intelligent perhaps divine intervention?

Edited by Percy, : AbE.

Edited by Percy, : Grammar.

Artificial selection? What the hell are you talking about?Natural selection acts on beneficial and deleterious mutations.

Yep, the science of genetics was so primitive and unreliable 22 years ago that about 35 years ago, law courts worldwide began sending criminals to jail based on DNA evidence.

You don't know anything about Darwin, do you?

I'm talking about natural selection.

Thank you for the correction and the eloquent way you expressed it.

"A theory of operation is a description of how a device or system should work. It is often included in documentation, especially maintenance/service documentation, or a user manual. It aids troubleshooting by providing the troubleshooter with a mental model of how the system is supposed to work." (Wikipedia)

... which has caused confusion in my fragile, eggshell mind.A dictionary says a theory can also be "a set of principles on which the practice of an activity is based."

Edited by Dredge, .

Edited by Dredge, .