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Evolution being simply 'opinion' is simply your opinion
I didn't see anything new.
Basically you threw out a few more problems you have with evolution being called "fact".
You called out the scientific community again as being dishonest at times and called some "experts" out as just being sheeple, going with the flow.
You mentioned no specific names as to who exactly might be dishonest which is the definition of strawman.
I'll let you and z0sa in on another secret......I don't get into these debates strictly to change someone's mind. (The pwnage is just a fun sidebar to the debate). I really don't care enough about you to change your mind for the better or to try to chalk up a "win" to build up imaginary e-legendary status that nobody cares about.
I see if someone else can change my mind for my own benefit. I know, it can't be considered a hard fact either, but it's true. I'm open to new arguments and discoveries, but nothing you are saying is new including me getting called "godless". I'd love nothing more than to believe in the magic of God's omnipotent power mentioned in the Bible, but it's the same tired arguments I've heard over and over that do nothing but make me more jaded as time goes on.
I definitely have been around long enough to not allow posters to get under my skin. "Getting panties in a wad" is what happens to posters that use the ignore button like you and e-cry that I'm not giving them enough e-credit for using big intelligent sounding words and phrases. Frankly, I think you are doing yourself a disservice by dismissing evolution altogether because you believe God is the ABSOLUTE truth......whatever that means to you.
Last edited by Blake; 02-24-2010 at 10:13 PM.
Evolution being simply 'opinion' is simply your opinion
While I appreciate the thoughtful post, and can see where you're coming from, I agree that in the end, we won't agree, Phenom.
You say the theory has no predictive power, but I think using the theory, coupled with geology, to predict that we will find a transitional form between one animal and another in a certain stratum of earth -- then finding what was sought -- is compelling to me. By the same token, being able to predict that we will find a "Robertsonian translocation" in our genome that accounts for our having 2 fewer chromosomes than the great apes -- then finding it -- is, again, compelling. That we are able to originally base the theory on the morphology of bone structures in animals over time, then confirm those su ions genetically is very encouraging. These are just two examples from the lecture posted earlier.
As to what happens in laboratories... how many generations of e. coli to be able to develop the ability to metabolize citrate? How does this compare with the number of generations of fruitflies to manifest just morphological changes -- not metabolic adaptations? I don't have to be a scientist to say there's no comparison. Beyond this, I think that unless the fruitfly experiments you point to are trying to determine whether a strain of fruitfly can be bred that is genetically resistant to x-rays, just crassly trying to create genetic mutations with x-rays will almost certainly result in un-viable generations. Viable changes would occur as gradual adaptations, not spontaneous mutations into other forms for the fun of it. We see the same thing in the amphibian world, where toxic runoff causes amphibians to mutate into un-viable life forms. Given time, some amphibians may adapt to the catastrophically sudden change of their environment and thrive, but it hasn't happened... all the worse for us. The overall chemistry of the biosphere probably hasn't changed this drastically in millions of years.
Beyond all of this, I can only wonder at your thinking. The laboratory results force you to grant that bacteria can change over time -- to the extent that they can even completely change their metabolic chemistry -- but you argue that life-forms have limits to the extent that they can change? Excuse me if I say your reasoning for this is as "unintentionally misleading" as anything I've said in the past. After all, prior to Lenski's experiment, e. coli was presumed to have the limitation that it couldn't eat citrate. As to there being no experimental data of bacteria forming a nucleus, or a multicellular en y, I agree, that is an interesting problem to consider: how do we create a situation in which it would be advantageous to a bacterium to team up with others? Do I have any reason to not believe such an experiment can be created? You tell me. Does the absence of such data bring the whole theory crashing down? I expect we'll disagree on the answer.
We have no idea what the ultimate limits -- if any -- on change are for any organism. From this uncertainty you come away with what appears to be certainty that species are irreducible iden ies (or if not, your skepticism seems uncharacteristically determinate about what is and is not possible), and I come away with optimism that there are ways to investigate these things which we are only beginning to understand. As I don't really have a teleological dog in the race besides being a fan of thinking, I'll be happy whether the theory is overturned or not, but I can't say your reservations give me any reason to doubt evolution is probable, or even possible.
I disagree
it took you a while to think about it
This takes me back. z0sa and Blake. Tru3 lov3
lol creationism.
Lol lalakerism
I had to think about it
So much wrong, so little time.
Let's start with simple logical fallacies and work from there onto the stuff that is outright factually incorrect and/or generally misleading.
Ironically the first obvious logical fallacy involves a statement alluding to logical fallacy.
To paraphrase:
"You all assume that because evolution is widely believed, it must be true. This is a fallacy of consensus gentium".
I don't believe anybody has made the argument that evolutionary theory is correct simply because lots of people believe it.
If one distorts other's beliefs/ideas and then attempts to discredit the distortion, that is itself a strawman logical fallacy.
The argument is made that the people that study biology tend to think the theory is correct, and that is good enough to take them at their word as evolutionary theory being the most likely correct.
This is most definitely NOT a fallacy of consensus genitum.
One can't assume concretely that unanimity of opinion makes something true, but if an overwhelming majority of people who study something form a solid consensus, that would tend to logically indicate it is far more probable than not that theory is true and truly describes an aspect of our physical universe.
If 9 out of 10 doctors look at your test results, come to the THEORY that you have cancer, are you going to decide that since it is just a theory, you can safely not seek treatment?
If 9 out of 10 accountants have a theory that your treatment of expenses on your tax returns will be reversed by the IRS in an audit, do you keep filing that way?
At some point, one has to have some amount of deference to people who study something for a living when they come to a strong consensus about something.
While we can't 100% logically prove a theory simply based on a consensus, it is entirely logical to assign such theories a MUCH greater liklihood of being true.
Do scientists get stuff wrong? Yup.
Are scientists human with faults? Yup.
Are the vast majority of them either dumb or dishonest enough to push something without sufficient evidence? No.
Is that what you are saying? Are all those scientists unintelligent or dishonest?
----------------
Factually incorrect on a lot of counts.
First off:
There are a lot of different kinds of mutations, some more probable than others.
You seem to talk a lot here about "point" mutations.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutation
"point" mutations are only one kind of mutation out of about a dozen different do ented kinds of mutations.
Secondly, you imply, that genes "respond" to their environment, i.e. "the presence of lactose *induced* those mutations"
This is not what evolutionary theory says happens in this case.
Evolutionary theory says that genes which provide some benefit that increases reproductive success will become more common.
The presence of lactose no more induced mutations than the fact that the lab assistant being named Larry induced mutations.
What the presence of lactose did do, was provide a non-random environmental factor that allowed bacteria possessing the potential to digest lactose a chance at much greater reproductive success.
Studies into this have shown that it doesn't take much difference to make a vast difference over time.
If a population of groundhogs in an area of dark colored soil without predators has a mix of black and white fur, and genes for both are equally present in the population as a whole those genes will be fairly stable.
Add in a predator that can more easily see the white groundhogs against the dark soil, and you have introduced a non-random selection that will decrease the reproductive success of the white-colored rodents, making them more rare over time, eventually quite possibly eliminating that genotype.
Lastly, you make a pretty solid claim, without presenting any evidence whatsoever, that the "odds of these mutations happening" were "flat out zero".
Seems to me to be a case of circular reasoning.
"Because evolution doesn't occur, if we see beneficial mutations happening, the odds must be flat out zero".
The law of large numbers and basic probability would beg to differ.
Odds of a certain mutation happening: one in a trillion.
A moderate population of bacteria: one billion
30 minutes per generation
No bacteria in starting billion has mutation.
Since we are looking for the odds, over time, for the population not to have the mutation at all, we can look at each individual new bacteria to start with.
Probability that one bacteria will NOT have the mutation, in any successive generation:
0.999999999999
That is pretty good odds for one bacteria. The closer to one the number is, the more certain it is. So far so good for the "it would never happen" theory.
Chances that any *billion* bacteria not having this mutation
0.999000522
(.999999999999 to the billionth power)
Still pretty good, but that is only for ONE generation.
Let's see how that pans out over the course of a day.
Any population of a billion bacteria not having this muation after one day at 1/2 hour per generation
0.953134799
Still a 95% chance. So far so good.
Any population of a billion bacteria not having this mutation after one week at 1/2 per generation
0.714628417
Any population of a billion bacteria not having this mutation after 30 days.
0.236935306
Any population of a billion bacteria not having this mutation after a year.
0.0000000246
If you were to wait a year, it is mathmatically a virtual certainty to see this particular mutation with a billion little test subjects dutifully reproducing themselves.
Mutations generally are much more frequent than one in a trillion, from what I understand and have read on the subject. I was being generous. This would imply that "flat out zero" seems to be inaccurate.
Bringing up some memories...Look RG I don't want to get dragged in to another pointless clash of viewpoints (even though that inevitably happens for me around these parts)... my previous post had more than enough explanation as to why I felt that calling 'macro-evolution' an unquestionable fact is rather premature. That opinion still holds true – as nothing has significantly changed between then and now.
The reason is simple. And I’ve explained the differences between the different mutation mechanisms before (so how is that factually incorrect?). Most of those other mutations draw on mechanisms that re-arrange existing genetic information. Point mutations (along with insertions and deletions – or small scale mutations as your own Wiki-link calls them) are the only means that new genetic information can be created. And ummm… the creation of new genetic information, via chance gradualism, is the key to macro-evolution. Specifically the bit about NEW coded functions.
By that premise, the belief that the production of massive genomes, billions of base-pairs in length arose from shorter ones is kind of a ‘given’ for both macro and micro evolution to hold true. But consider this; the smallest known genome for a free-living organism comes from a bacterium named Nanoarchaeum equitans and even it is comprised of ~490,000 base-pairs.
Continuing into the past, if we are to believe that those genomes arose from 'less evolved' precursor genomes THEN at some point in the past, the length of genomes was much, much, shorter (and the number of genes was far fewer). So how did they grow, and accrue new and viable genetic information if not through small scale mutations (point mutations being the most common)?
That simplistic approach doesn’t even factor the C-value paradox where it should follow that genome length and complexity should be functions of each other – a premise which we know doesn’t hold; otherwise amphibians would be 30 times more complex than humans seeing that they possess 30 times more DNA code than we do. Or why a certain sponge species (still around today) would have over 18,000 genes well before the ‘pre-Cambrian’ explosion [one of two alternatives: either you can say that the genes needed for vertebrate evolution were present long before they were needed; or, you can say that the sponge, once evolved, continued to add genes to its genome without use of their function. I’d hate to have to choose between those two options – either way it’s a conundrum for evolutionists].
Also, that simple approach (genomes grow via mutations over time) doesn’t begin to factor the fact that most genes within a genome actually interact with each other for an increase in functional specificity [i.e. another level of codification - and one that would render mutations far more deleterious than originally thought]. Since, these regulatory networks (inter-gene interactions) function in a way similar to computer programming one would have to be pretty creative to suggest that the complexity of such code arose from purely naturalistic processes... As I have often said, Darwin would not be a Darwinist today given what we know about DNA.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0809142044.htm
Speaking of which, one has to think of the genetic code as a language to truly understand why changes alone [point mutations or other] don’t square with the dynamics we observe in nature. Darwinism should have died when we discovered that DNA is an informational molecule with highly complex, and most importantly, prescribed information that creates function (complex specified information, to use more popular terms). Funny how most people here believe the opposite to be true.
IMO prescribed information is formal and can never arise without intelligence. Often, posters here throw out the term “code” without fully understanding what that means (with reference to the genetic code). At its base definition, “code” is a symbolic convention for communicating information. Human language is such a "code". DNA is another. Neither simple encoded information nor specified codes like languages arise out of random processes and selection. They simply don’t, and one could set up ad nauseum experiments looking for the opposite to hold true… but they won’t yield a single instance where that premise can be validated.
Code implies intent; it implies syntax, semantics and pre-defined structure. There is no such thing as an abstract code without a ruling intelligence behind it. Furthermore, the "genetic sequences" are not analogous to code; they ARE code. The genetic code is mathematically identical to that used in human languages and computer code. That's why linguistic algorithms are so useful in DNA analysis.
The key principle being that said genetic information was pre-existing (dormant or other). The new function didn’t “evolve” from scratch. In this sense the organism does in fact respond to its environment.
That process is well understood. I'm not arguing against certain facets of "natural selection"... What I would point to, however, is the fact that the genes that code for fur color in your example are again pre-existing, not new.
Consider a more applicable example. IF the original population of groundhogs did not have the ability to code for say... PURPLE fur [no such code found anywhere in its original genome] and somehow managed to develop that feature [new code successfully expressed in a groundhog of a subsequent generation], then and only then, would one have a basis to suggest that mutations accounted for the new information. That statement could be made regardless of the predator / prey relationship and its effect on the transmission of the gene.
But that's not all; as responsible scientists we would need to compare the original genome to the 'evolved' one to show that the information was completely new, and that it had arisen from random changes to the code. That's how one would go about proving micro-evolution. To conclusively prove macro-evolution, however, one would have to observe many more of these functional changes to the tune of witnessing the emergence of a wholly new species. Each generation would require a complete genomic map so that all changes (successive or other) A --> B --> C etc... could be traced and accounted for (put some good ol' supercomputers to use
The reality is that many in your camp don't want to face the fact that the burden of proof for such a grand and an all-encompassing theory, like Darwinian evolution, would have to be ironclad no matter what our beliefs happened to be outside of the scientific arena. Anything less than that level of evidence, would be cons uted as mere hand-waving, smoke & mirror, theoretical speculation.
Fortunately, the study of bacterial populations [which reproduce indefinitely, and quickly] is showing just how painstakingly slow minor genetic shift actually occurs. I mean, we wouldn't want to wait 600,000 years or so for one of our genes to change function (Lenski's experiments showed a "change" to allow citrate tolerance in E. coli bacteria after roughly 31,500 generations). <-- And that was just one gene expression.
Guess what that would mean for humans, seeing that we have just over 20,000 genes; each having the regulated capability for encoding multiple proteins? Oh... and given that we don't reproduce through asexual means (haploid vs. diploid where mutations would have to target the gamete cells specifically)... You're the sta ician...
But you're looking at this particular example with the wrong set of lens [and nonspecific math]. The fact that the lactose tolerant E. coli bacteria even showed up after only a few generations was the crux of the argument [after 15 generations IIRC]. Point mutations couldn't have accounted for the same change in multiple petri-dishes... a different mechanism was clearly at play. Here's what I stated last year:
BTW, lactose intolerant bacteria wouldn’t reproduce at the clip you’ve assumed. Lack of food typically results in population death or highly diminished reproduction rates. But you’re missing the point altogether… the odds themselves are irrelevant if the result was nearly “spontaneous” in the context of genetic timescales. My comment (flat zero odds) was made in hyperbole to emphasize that context - it wasn't the central focus of my argument.
A dormant switch being activated by some other process is hardly proof of macro-evolution much less micro-evolution [especially when the genetic "know-how" - the sequencing - was there (in the genome) from the get-go].
No, that's called free will... I clearly said 'educated people' who believe that evolution is true simply because that's what 'educated people are supposed to believe in' fall under the umbrella of the consensus gentium fallacy.
Most people (I'm generously guessing greater than 90%) have never fully studied molecular genetics or taken advanced courses in biochemistry, organic chemstry in combination with any other in-depth course in the field of biology [and no, High School Biology doesn't really count - as that just simply scratches the surface]. They wouldn't know the intricate differences between lipase or oligoromerase, the triplet codes that produce the 20 amino acids we find in proteins, any real details concerning the translation/transcription process, protein function, etc...
But ah... they believe in evolution; specifically the naturalistic process that purports that all life on the planet descended from a common ancestor. When no real proof for that premise has ever been given to them.
Yeah, there are tons of articles wherein Darwinists set their own strategies of "proof," because the standards required by "simple reason" are clear evidence of the ability of random mutations + natural selection to produce all 13 million est. life forms on earth from some alleged first single cell common ancestor.
Have we seen this evidence? Of course not. We know that it is still missing. And that's an undisputed fact. Furthermore, where are the sequential mutational/selection pathways that lead from one single celled organism to ANY multi-celled one? If you know your stuff you know there are none. Zero. Just stories, speculations and conjecture ad infinitum, ad nauseum.
Darwinists claim that men and modern chimps (or orangutans these days) are both descendants of some common ancestor primate. Have we any proof of this after over 100 years of searching? No. Nothing but more stories, more alleged ancestors that can never be demonstrated to be true ancestors of man.
Lucy is a dead duck since the late 1990's. All of the other alleged links, though still highly touted by Darwinists to be ancestors of man, are still out of range of anything even close to proof or even just viable evidence. Lining up skulls, fragments of bone, or even a single tooth, on a work bench and claiming that they are linked by an evolutionary sequence is evidence of nothing but ones own imagination run wild.
Darwinists turn the other way when confronted by the problems that prescribed information and even meta information found in DNA poses to their inane theory. Of course NOTHING is sufficient evidence against macro evolution for Darwinian fundamentalists. In their befuddled minds evolution HAS to be TRUE because there is no god (and Richard Dawkins is his prophet)!
FYI, No fossil comes unearthed with its pedigree nor a list of its progeny. No fossil can tell who its ancestor was nor who its descendant was... and yet we like to think we have it all figured out. But enough of that rant.
But that's just it... not all biologists believe in macro-evolution. You're just assuming that the ones that believe like you do are correct, and that those that don't are not. So much so, that you all dismiss them from the get go. They number far greater than you would believe. Again, you must resort to the fallacy of consensus gentium to pick one group over the other in the absence of true evidence.
Biopsies are not theories. They are hard physical evidence that would reveal whether or not cancer was present. If a doctor, however, attempted to tell me I had cancer based on only my body temperature or some other triviality... well then his credibility would have to be questioned.
My personal "treatment of expenses" would never be filed as a "controversial theory". There are rules and laws that govern that realm. And accounting hardly classifies as a naturalistic conundrum.
Among the general scientific community, I would say that the issue is "ignorance" moreso than "dishonesty." But among the staunch athiests... either is possible.
You must admit, very few scientists are "fully versed" in all fields of study. So they choose to rely on the consensus of what the experts in those fields believe. IMO those in your camp have simply deluded the world with a slew of circular reasoning.
Last edited by Phenomanul; 01-18-2011 at 10:08 AM.
If I pm you will you sell me some of what your smoking?
Talk about circular reasoning...dude first off the "text books" in the "schools"
show man "Evolving" from "ape"
the text books have dates and fossils how can you say ....
not to mention the countless evolution topics here @ ST where many posters not only "believe" in evolution they say its a fact.
please tell me you posted that quote to bait someone. I really don't think you actually believe what you posted.
Most of your post comes down to either circular reasoning or bad logic.
That's ok.
One of your main claims is that known mechanisms of mutation really can't be responsible for "new" information or mechanisms in DNA.
Such a claim is only really possible if one doesn't really consider, or understand, other mechanisms of mutation.
Consider an abbreviated example.
Gene for enzyme A:
GAGA GAGA (oor rama ma)
Organism requires enzyme A to live. Mutations to this gene are therefore, always fatal.
Introduce a duplication error that adds an extra copy of this gene.
GAGA GAGA (stop/start sequence) GAGA GAGA (stop sequence)
The organism now has two copies of the gene coding for enzyme A, both functional. A bit more A is produced than otherwise would be the case, but a neutral permutation of the genome.
Gene for enzyme B:
GAGA GACA
One simply needs a subs ution error in the second copy of the gene to introduce the following gene sequence:
GAGA GAGA (stop/start sequence) GAGA GACA (stop sequence)
You now have an organism with two different enzymes A and B.
Additional information has been added, fully functional, to the genome.
This is not some secret, little-studied process.
Adding to this is that beneficial mutations can be spread by sexual reproduction in bacteria.
The creation of new genetic material happens, and has been observed in the lab and in the field.
Please don't mispresent that as either less than likely or impossible.
Not having seen the study, it is hard to say exactly what was taking place.BTW, lactose intolerant bacteria wouldn’t reproduce at the clip you’ve assumed. Lack of food typically results in population death or highly diminished reproduction rates.
You are entirely correct, but if the environment probably included nutrients for the existing bacteria and lactose.
The addition of an extra amount of available energy would simply allow any organism capable of utilizing the extra food a pretty large edge, even if that ability was fairly rudimentary. Once the ones capable of using the extra food started crowding out the others, a "race" gets on as new mutations that provide for better and better lactose digestion "solutions" allow their owners to outcompete previous versions.
Again, you are taking the results of this study and fitting them into your starting assumptions in a flawed.But you’re missing the point altogether… the odds themselves are irrelevant if the result was nearly “spontaneous” in the context of genetic timescales. My comment (flat zero odds) was made in hyperbole to emphasize that context - it wasn't the central focus of my argument.
A dormant switch being activated by some other process is hardly proof of macro-evolution much less micro-evolution [especially when the genetic "know-how" - the sequencing - was there (in the genome) from the get-go].
"Because lactose digestion arose so fast, the results show no new information was created " is an example of poor reasoning.
The ONLY thing that one can logically conclude is that the mutations involved must have been fairly common, because that is the only statement that the data as you presented it can reasonably support.
You can't really claim that no new information was created without sequencing the genome, which you didn't really get into at all.
The problem for your arugment is that is precisely what is being done in the study of these mutations and mutation methods.
Studies like this routinely do exactly this to show the exact nature of the gene changes, how it changed, and when.
These studies do occasionally show "dormant switches being activated", but they also show, despite your claims otherwise, the precise nature of how new things are created out of old ones, including new genetic sequences.
Again, an example of poor reasoning and factually inaccurate statements.
It is reasonable, that complex organisms will tend to have longer genomes.
This is implied by, but *not* one of the "given" assumptions of, evolution.
Essentially what you have is yet another permutation of the "God in the gaps" fallacy that creationists have been trying to hang their hat on for centuries.
The key word here is "known". We know about what is very likely a depressingly small proportion of all bacteria/single-celled organisms. Of this subset, there is an even smaller subset that represents those organisms with sequenced genomes.
The usefullness of evolution as a predictive theory comes into play here.
It is strongly implied by evolutionary theory that the simpler the genome or sequence of protiens/DNA/RNA the more likely that group of chemicals could happen by random chance given enough time.
Just as the intermdiary forms being discovered between modern creatures and known past fossils get discovered and become problems for creationsists who insist that if evolution were true we wouldn't find such things, organisms with smaller and smaller genomes will present a similar problem at the other end.
If we never do find something simpler than 490,000 base pairs that is indeed a problem for evolutionary theory. Given how recently we started looking, it shouldn't come as a shock that we haven't found something simpler just yet.
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, especially when you have only begun to start looking in the right places. I tell myself this daily when looking for my car keys.
Time will tell.
The in al self-replicating molecule is probably a pretty unlikely event. But as I have shown, even unlikely events become more and more probable given enough time.
Self-replication of a simple molecule is something that would take simple chemistry in the order of seconds. Given that there are 31million seconds in a year, and the earth has had billions of years for life to arise, that suggests that even that highly unlikely event was not only possible, but certain. Make of *that* what you will.
I have little doubt we will find simpler and simpler organisms to the point where that "smallest known" schtick will wear thin just like the "where is the intermediate form?" schtick has.
When will you abandon that bad logic? when it is 100,000? 1,000? 100?
Intellectually dishonest, and provably so.
Not all climates are created equal when it comes to fossil preservation.
Dry, dusty plains really suck for preserving complete fossilized skeletons that make for good evidence. For that you want wet places with a lot of flooding and sediment.
If a species arose in dry plains, would you expect it to be more or less difficult to construct lineages than a species that arose in an wetter climate with more sediment?
Last edited by RandomGuy; 01-18-2011 at 01:07 PM.
So basically what you are saying RandomGuy.............. is that since both believe bananas are scrumptious, man definitely came from monkey. Correct?
No actually, I am not assuming that the ones that believe like I do are correct simply because they believe the same thing.
I will give you the benefit of the doubt and say it is an honest misunderstanding rather than a deliberate distortion.
Acting on that stated assumption, I will state clearly what I believe.
My assumptions:
People who study something generally have more information about that topic than I do, especially if they hold somethign approaching a doctorate, the culmination of years of formal, rigorous study.
More information generally leads to more accurate theories.
If the overwhelming number of people with the most information on a topic form a consensus on a theory about that topic, that means that theory has a much greater chance of being correct.
The "much greater chance" here voids your contention that I believe it is true "because" some group of people believe the theory correct.
It allows for the possibility that the theory is indeed wrong, despite the number of people who believe it to be true.
The reasons I believe evolution to be true are the following:
What I have read seems to confirm what the theory posits. I have seen little to nothing that outright contradicts it, despite having spent no small amount of time reading creationist arguments attempting to poke holes in the theory.
This by itself isn't quite it. I allow for the possibility of my own confirmation bias.
What really puts it over the edge for me, is conversations like this one, and creationist arguments themselves.
I see a LOT of creationists doing intellectually dishonest things, or making claims based on ignorance of the science involved.
Occasionally, in all the creationist claims I see a good point. That rare occasion gets far outweighed by the logical mistakes, factual misstatements, and outright distortions put out in these conversations.
When given two conflicting versions of events or interpretations of evidence it is absolutely, positively, NOT a fallacy to attempt to decide which one is more probable.
The irony is that, in the same sentence criticizing people for a consensus gentium fallacy, you strongly imply that the number of doubters, being "greater than I would beleive" means that somehow evolution is more or less true because of the number of people that doubt it.
If the truth or falsity of evolution is not dependent on the number of people that BELIEVE in it, why do you bring up the number of people that doubt it?
Is a large number of people doubting a theory logical proof of its falsity?
Exactly. I couldn't have said it better myself.
That's not even remotely where I was going with that... I stated that only to enlighten (or remind) you that many biologists (many doctorates if that suits your liking better) don't believe in evolution because the evidence really doesn't support the leaps required by the theory. The fact that dissension exists doesn't mean that what they believe is any 'truer'.
But face it... many of you all repeatedly hide under the umbra of the prevailing 'scientific' notion... and attack others simply for believing otherwise. That's the dynamic I wanted you all to recognize.
Many posters here, including yourself at times, keep implying that to not believe in macro-evolution is illogically stupid. Were that the case 'learned' astrophycistis, biologists, geneticists, geologists, etc... wouldn't have made the conscious choice to reject the underlying premise in the theory. The problem is that you all also imply that if we've come to that rejection that somehow we're being intellectually dishonest. But why on earth would we want to lie to ourselves..??? I gain nothing from lying to myself. I simply believe what I do, and have shown the reasons why.
Not having an alternate theory that suits your naturalistic framework doesn't mean that belief in Darwinian-evolution is my only real choice.
Last edited by Phenomanul; 01-18-2011 at 04:10 PM.
The C-value paradox?
I stated as much... if you had simply read what was written instead of scoffing as you read...
I don't believe I've fallen back to my "belief in GOD" anywhere in this thread to substantiate any of my arguments. You know that I'm a believer because I've stated as much elsewhere on this forum. My rejection is based wholly on lack of true evidence that would support the claims purported by macro-evolution.
I just love how you just attach "bad logic" to whatever argument doesn't suit your viewpoint. Face it; we view the world with entirely different sets of lenses.
The recently discovered gene networks that I pointed out in the Science Weekly article ('a reputable source' according to you all) further wedges the possibility that changes to single gene expressions are responsible for Darwinian gradualism. Each gene interacts with as few as 10 other genes (and as many as 300) to "meet" other functions 'demanded' by the cell. Your examples (much like the prevailing ones) are far too linear in this context. Changing a triplet code (or offseting a chain) not only disturbs the production of one protein; it affects the production of those 10 other enzymes that rely on the replication fidelity of the source code. Why do you you think that we begin to age, and enter stages of cellular 'disrepair' as the years go by? Because cellular replication takes its toll on the fidelity of the code (telomerase aside). As that deteriorates so too does our cellular fitness.
So if random changes to a gene affect more than just the 'primary' expression. That poses a huge problem for your mechanisms... and that while neglecting the effect of introns and exons on gene expression, which further wedge those probabilities (here's the thing... any further complexity that we discover in genetic expression will do this to your precious odds).
Last edited by Phenomanul; 01-18-2011 at 04:52 PM.
Provably so...?
We've mapped out the genome of one of our alledged ancestors? When did this happen?
That is not generally the norm... more like the exception....
For that matter, why hasn't Lenski revealed the genomic changes from his experiments? He has all the necessary cultures?
That doesn't really answer my question as asked.Dry, dusty plains really suck for preserving complete fossilized skeletons that make for good evidence. For that you want wet places with a lot of flooding and sediment.
If a species arose in dry plains, would you expect it to be more or less difficult to construct lineages than a species that arose in an wetter climate with more sediment?
2nd time:
If a species arose in dry plains, would you expect it to be more or less difficult to construct lineages than a species that arose in an wetter climate with more sediment?
(given: full skeletal fossils are much more likely to form in wet climates than drier ones)
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