Exposing the evolution theory. Part 2

But it doesn't have to be applied to designed things. A designer can just as easily choose not to force designs into a nested hierarchy. There is no necessity for a nested hierarchy in the design of life as shown by how organisms designed by humans easily violate a nested hierarchy. I am saying that a nested hierarchy is just one of billions of possible patterns that a designer can use. There is only one pattern that common ancestry and evolution can produce, and that is a nested hierarchy. Apparently, you didn't read my previous posts. Nowhere did I say that a designer could not use a nested hierarchy. What I have been saying from the start is that there is no reason a designer would choose a nested hierarchy out of the billions of possible patterns.Perhaps you should actually learn what arguments and logic I am using before criticizing them.

Here is George Romanes laying out the same logic and argument I am using, and doing so in a book published in 1882.

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For, be it observed, the exception in limine to the evidence which we are about to consider, does not question that natural selection may not be able to do all that Mr. Darwin ascribes to it: it merely objects to his interpretation of the facts, because it maintains that these facts might equally well be ascribed to intelligent design. And so undoubtedly they might, if we were all childish enough to rush into a supernatural explanation whenever a natural explanation is found sufficient to account for the facts. Once admit the glaringly illogical principle that we may assume the operation of higher causes where the operation of lower ones is sufficient to explain the observed phenomena, and all our science and all our philosophy are scattered to the winds. For the law of logic which Sir William Hamilton called the law of parsimony—or the law which forbids us to assume the operation of higher causes when lower ones are found sufficient to explain the observed effects—this law constitutes the only logical barrier between science and superstition. For it is manifest that it is always possible to give a hypothetical explanation of any phenomenon whatever, by referring it immediately to the intelligence of some supernatural agent; so that the only difference between the logic of science and the logic of superstition consists in science recognising a validity in the law of parsimony which superstition disregards.

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Now, since the days of Linnæus this principle has been carefully followed, and it is by its aid that the tree-like system of classification has been established. No one, even long before Darwin's days, ever dreamed of doubting that this system is in reality, what it always has been in name, a natural system. What, then, is the inference we are to draw from it? An evolutionist answers, that it is just such a system as his theory of descent would lead him to expect as a natural system. For this tree-like system is as clear an expression as anything could be of the fact that all species are bound together by the ties of genetic relationship. If all species were separately created, it is almost incredible that we should everywhere observe this progressive shading off of characters common to larger groups, into more and more specialized characters distinctive only of smaller and smaller groups. At any rate, to say the least, the law of parsimony forbids us to ascribe such effects to a supernatural cause, acting in so whimsical a manner, when the effects are precisely what we should expect to follow from the action of a highly probable natural cause.

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--George Romanes, "Scientific Evidences of Organic Evolution", 1882
The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Scientific Evidences of Organic Evolution, by George J. Romanes, M.A., LL.D., F.R.S.

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To use another example, we could say that God could decide to create swirly oil patterns on surfaces at a crime scene that just happen to look like fingerprints. Does this mean we have to throw out all fingerprint evidence?

No, what a designer could or could not do. It is objective science.

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For the law of logic which Sir William Hamilton called the law of parsimony—or the law which forbids us to assume the operation of higher causes when lower ones are found sufficient to explain the observed effects—this law constitutes the only logical barrier between science and superstition. For it is manifest that it is always possible to give a hypothetical explanation of any phenomenon whatever, by referring it immediately to the intelligence of some supernatural agent; so that the only difference between the logic of science and the logic of superstition consists in science recognising a validity in the law of parsimony which superstition disregards.
--George Romanes, "Scientific Evidences of Organic Evolution", 1882

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According to your logic, fingerprints are not accurate nor predictable because God could have created the fingerprint at the crime scene separate from any human finger.

No, you didn't. You are trying to claim that we should throw out natural explanations because a deity could produce the same observations through magic. That's the bad logic and poor reasoning.When the evidence is consistent with a natural process, like the nested hierarchy, we don't throw out that explanation because someone claims a supernatural deity could have produced the same pattern for no apparent reason.

What warped idea?Can you please explain what pattern of shared and derived features common ancestry and vertical inheritance should produce if it isn't a nested hierarchy?

Start with the nested hierarchy. You are not going to drag this thread off topic.Here it is again . . .Can you please explain what pattern of shared and derived features common ancestry and vertical inheritance should produce if it isn't a nested hierarchy?

I'm not the one deflecting.Can you please explain what pattern of shared and derived features common ancestry and vertical inheritance should produce if it isn't a nested hierarchy?

We are related to chimps in the same way you are related to your cousins. It's not that hard to figure out. That's false. If there was a species that had similarities both with birds and mammals this would violate a nested hierarchy. A nested hierarchy isn't just similarities. A nested hierarchy is a PATTERN of similarities. All of the differences are accounted for in a nested hierarchy. If you understood what a nested hierarchy is you would already know this. Then please tell us what pattern of similarities and differences common ancestry and vertical inheritance would produce if it isn't a nested hierarchy. If you think I am wrong then please show us what pattern it would produce.

Then you are saying that it is not reasoned nor logical that my cousins and I are related through common descent.You also failed to read this part:"That's false. If there was a species that had similarities both with birds and mammals this would violate a nested hierarchy. A nested hierarchy isn't just similarities. A nested hierarchy is a PATTERN of similarities." Mutation and natural selection, both of which we see operating in living populations. You have it backwards. The nested hierarchy is the observation, not the explanation. The explanation for the observation of a nested hierarchy is a combination of common ancestry, vertical inheritance, mutation, and natural selection. You get shared features from common ancestry, and you get lineage specific adaptations from mutations that stay within a lineage due to the lack of horizontal genetic transfer (i.e. vertical inheritance). Nested hierarchies are objective measurements.

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The degree to which a given phylogeny displays a unique, well-supported, objective nested hierarchy can be rigorously quantified. Several different statistical tests have been developed for determining whether a phylogeny has a subjective or objective nested hierarchy, or whether a given nested hierarchy could have been generated by a chance process instead of a genealogical process (Swofford 1996, p. 504). These tests measure the degree of "cladistic hierarchical structure" (also known as the "phylogenetic signal") in a phylogeny, and phylogenies based upon true genealogical processes give high values of hierarchical structure, whereas subjective phylogenies that have only apparent hierarchical structure (like a phylogeny of cars, for example) give low values (Archie 1989; Faith and Cranston 1991; Farris 1989; Felsenstein 1985; Hillis 1991; Hillis and Huelsenbeck 1992; Huelsenbeck et al. 2001; Klassen et al. 1991).
29+ Evidences for Macroevolution: Part 1

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The increased reproductive advantage is due to the mutations that humans have which chimps do not.

Natural selection of lineage specific mutations. If that is how you think common descent works in biology then you have a lot to learn. Then please tell me what patterns common ancestry, vertical inheritance, mutation, and natural selection would produce if it isn't a nested hierarchy. The same way we they do now. We can observe mutations happening in both lineages right now. They are the mutations that differ between the two species. The nested hierarchy is the observation, not the explanation. Please learn the difference between an observation and an explanation.

A cephalanalectomy wouldn't hurt, either.

Nope."You have it backwards. The nested hierarchy is the observation, not the explanation. The explanation for the observation of a nested hierarchy is a combination of common ancestry, vertical inheritance, mutation, and natural selection. You get shared features from common ancestry, and you get lineage specific adaptations from mutations that stay within a lineage due to the lack of horizontal genetic transfer (i.e. vertical inheritance)."

False.

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Mere similarity between organisms is not enough to support macroevolution; the nested classification pattern produced by a branching evolutionary process, such as common descent, is much more specific than simple similarity.
29+ Evidences for Macroevolution: Part 1

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We conclude that species are related by common ancestry and subsequent evolution because those processes will produce a nested hierarchy, and the observation of a nested hierarchy is evidence for those processes. False. They accumulate through mutation, natural selection, and vertical inheritance. Are you telling me that after all this time you don't know what mutations, natural selection, and vertical inheritance are? Seriously?You don't understand how your cousins and you have shared DNA?

Let's start with your great-grandfather. When your grandfather was born he would have had 50 to 100 new mutations. When your father was born, he would have had 50 to 100 mutations plus half (on average) of the mutations that your grandfather had. Those add up together. When you were born, you had 50 to 100 new mutations. You would have also inherited half of your father's mutations plus a quarter of your grandfather's mutations.Repeat with grandmother's on your father's side.Repeat with both grandfather and grandmother on your mother's side.Do you not see how this will accumulate mutations?