Denial of Evolution VI.

[Trippy]

all i really wanted was answers to the science article, and i'm not so sure it has been adequately answered.

The news editorial to which you are presumably referring has been adressed repeatedly and in depth.

the process of speciation happens, it's a fact, science uses microevolution to differentiate from the larger scale process of accumulating changes of macroevolution.

You really should have stopped typing here.

to my knowledge science hasn't proved there isn't some kind of barrier that prevents macroevolution.

shaking up the status quo, it's healthy for a vigorous debate and it could lead to disparately needed answers.

Science has demonstrated repeatedly that macroevolution has occure - you yourself have specifically acknowledged this.

 

[Aqueous Id]

all i really wanted was answers to the science article, and i'm not so sure it has been adequately answered.
the process of speciation happens, it's a fact, science uses microevolution to differentiate from the larger scale process of accumulating changes of macroevolution.

I think that is all covered in the Berkeley site under Mechanisms.

the article says these are probably the same process but with different time scales.

It's just a reference to the vantage point of the person studying the evidence; they are relative terms and have no bearing on the physical process, which is continuously acting as we've described throughout this thread. That is, there is not a physical process called 'macroevolution'; it's simply the accumulation of any number of gradual changes over some arbitrary period of time. And those gradual changes over some arbitrarily small time interval we choose are called 'microevolution'. But there is only one process - evolution. It's strictly the process by which all speciation occurs, regardless of all the different genetic causes for modification, and the countless ways natural selection acts on organisms.

note the word probably.

The physical process is evolution, period. There is no 'probably'.

to my knowledge science hasn't proved there isn't some kind of barrier that prevents macroevolution.

This makes no sense. There is merely evolution nothing more, not some special process called 'macroevolution'. Again, it's a vantage point, nothing more. You are overly concerned that something is wrong with science, whereas you seem unaware that your beliefs about the meanings of words is mistaken.

shaking up the status quo, it's healthy for a vigorous debate and it could lead to disparately needed answers.

No such thing is happening. This is a wild goose chase, evidently coming from nothing more than your misunderstanding of terminology.

 

[iceaura]

[quote="wellwisher”] Fossil data is bits and pieces of data and not all the possible data. By default this plot will be discontinuous. You can never make a continuous curve with bits and pieces of data, even it was originally continuous. There is a plotting illusion. [/quote] It was you who specified that the selection of points was to be random – given enough randomly chosen points, statistically, you can establish a continuous curve to any degree of confidence you want – you only need the assumption of continuity itself. (With a mechanism for the continuity, as well as the data, you would need only a few points for great confidence.)
The randomness gets rid of the plotting illusion, with sufficient data. The fossil record provides enough for that. Real scientists, however, actually employing Darwinian theory in their work and analysis, do not settle for such glib assumptions – for one they recognize, and deal with, the fact that fossilization is not random as you assume. In that respect (and many others) they are far more careful and rigorous in their criticism of their Darwinian theory employments than you are.
[quote="leopold”] some event happens that turns this rat into a dog. [/quote] Not according to Darwin.

whatever this event {sic} is, it doesn't seem to affect some species.

According to Darwin, the species are the effect – all of them, not just some of them.
[quote="leopold”] the complaint i voiced about fruitflies was they haven't shown macroevolution
- - - -
- the reply above was to my oservation that fruitflies haven't demonstrated macroevolution.
[/quote] You have yet to post a suitable definition of macroevolution for these claims - you now need one that classifies all the deescendants of fruit flies in Hawaii as products of microevolution (by the scientist's definition you posted, they are examples of macroevolution).
[quote="leopold”] what is the word for the concept of a whale turning into a, say, crocodile? [/quote] Miracle, wizardry, something like that. Darwin said that kind of event never happens – that species evolve, instead, step by step.
[quote="leopold”] it HAS to.
since it's a naturally occurring process then it must follow natures laws. [/quote] The laws of nature do not allow that kind of prediction.

 

[Zeno]

Originally posted by rjpenner
LISTEN and SILENT have the same constituents but convey different information. So too does the arrangement of genetic information affect its expression in the phenotype. The recombination process can splice LISTEN and SILENT alleles on paired chromosomes to produce SILTEN or LILEEN which are alleles the parent never had.

That is interesting. What examples do we have of this? Were the new alleles created as a result of something going wrong during the recombination process? Or were they created by some kind of intelligent mechanism for creating new alleles?
I tried to find some information about this and I found in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Genetic_recombination

I would challenge Dr. Elsberry to produce experimental evidence supporting his idea that "recombination can produce novel alleles." To my knowledge, there have been no experiments confirming this.

Given the fantastic complexity of living organisms, it is difficult to believe that random mistakes are going to produce new alleles.

I would just like to point out the impossibility of the evolution of birds from land-dwelling organisms. The wings of birds are evolved from the two front legs of land-dwelling organisms. However, while the two front legs were in the intermediate stage between legs and wings, they were neither legs for running nor wings for flying. So the organism had to flop around helplessly for millions of years until it finally had wings to fly. So the organism in the intermediate stage would have been immediately eliminated by natural selection.

 

[Grumpy]

Zeno

I would just like to point out the impossibility of the evolution of birds from land-dwelling organisms. The wings of birds are evolved from the two front legs of land-dwelling organisms. However, while the two front legs were in the intermediate stage between legs and wings, they were neither legs for running nor wings for flying. So the organism had to flop around helplessly for millions of years until it finally had wings to fly. So the organism in the intermediate stage would have been immediately eliminated by natural selection.

Really? Forearms are highly overrated.

The Theropods got along nicely without front feet/paws from the beginning(when they split from the Sauropods), we have many fossils of creatures whose forearms were not being used to hold the body up, or as wings, yet still functional(except in the case of the Tyrannosaurs, their forearms were completely useless).

Grumpy

 

[leopold]

well one thing can be said.
the scientists at the conference discussed various mechanisms that would account for what they were looking at.
i seriously doubt if the reason was "because the gradualist explanation worked so well".

 

[Grumpy]

leopold

well one thing can be said.
the scientists at the conference discussed various mechanisms that would account for what they were looking at.
i seriously doubt if the reason was "because the gradualist explanation worked so well".

That is an argument on the order of whether it is better to put the wax on your cars with a buffer or doing it by hand, both are about getting the wax on the car, one is much quicker than the other, opinions vary about which is the best method(mechanism), arguments abound, both give the same outcome(evolution), both happen every day(some buffer, some hand, depending on circumstances)and both are valid explanations of why your cars shine. Recent microscopic examination has determined that both are the exact same process, just at different speeds(as has happened in evolutionary theory about PE vs. Gradualism, they are not two, different processes). And ALL evolution starts in the microscopic DNA molecule in the sexual gametes(copying errors, mutations, new combinations, whatever), the smallest changes can have massive effects at the macro level(and vice versa), so the terms Microevolution and Macroevolution are basically meaningless except as descriptions of the effects, the process is micro, the effects are both micro and macro. And many microscopic changes in the DNA leads to different organisms, it's just a fact. Man and Monkey share over 98% of our DNA today, but the changes that first separated our lineages(about 8 million years ago)was much smaller than that, the 2% represents 8 million years of accumulating small differences(on both sides), some important, some trivial, but cumulatively significant. And we are significantly different from all the apes currently living(as they are different from each other). But 8 million years ago we shared a common ancestor, we were the same creature as some of the apes alive today, we are great, great,...great grandchildren of the same group of creatures. That's evolution, crocoducks are not.

Grumpy

 

[Stanley]

I can accept evolution, but people have a right to their beliefs and opinions, and how else are we to learn?

Would be funny if we were to find out the Earth and solar system has only been around for a few thousand years.

 

[Rav]

I can accept heliocentrism, but people have a right to their beliefs and opinions, and how else are we to learn?

Would be funny if we were to find out that the geocentric model was correct the whole time.
:itold:

 

[rpenner]

That is interesting. What examples do we have of this?

At the cell level, it is the basic mechanism for generation of novel antibodies. At the organism level, a survey of the literature suggests that "intragenic recombination" plays an important role in host-specificity genes of parasites. Thus shuffling the deck to create novelty is part of the arms race between host and pathogen.

Were the new alleles created as a result of something going wrong during the recombination process? Or were they created by some kind of intelligent mechanism for creating new alleles?

You are committing and error of false dilemma -- those are not the only two possibilities: Misfortune and Plan. "Going wrong" implies a value judgement on a physical process. It is better to say "rare occurrence" in that recombination happens throughout all life and happens in eukaryotes in an ordered manner consistent between flies, humans and yeast. The fecundity of life means that in a real way life "bets" on such rare occurrences to save the populations (if not individuals) when conditions change.

I tried to find some information about this and I found in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Genetic_recombination

I would challenge Dr. Elsberry to produce experimental evidence supporting his idea that "recombination can produce novel alleles." To my knowledge, there have been no experiments confirming this.

Such atrocious errors of argument from personal incredulity (argument from ignorance) is unworthy. The literature has many laboratory studies of "intragenic recombination" and an older term before sequencing was common, "intracistronic recombination". Naturally, the smaller the section of chromosome one studies, the more individuals needed before crossovers in the targeted section are found. (Millions of flies in just one experiment to find a handful of crossovers in the tiny target.) But also the literature has many arguments for historical intragenic recombination as the most likely reason why an allele looks like a recombination of two alleles. (Much more likely than random mutation creating by chance exactly the point mutations to simulate the appearance of recombination.)

Given the fantastic complexity of living organisms, it is difficult to believe that random mistakes are going to produce new alleles.

Now you commit the error of argument from personal incredulity when anyone can see that in a universe where the alleles that exist are a small percentage of all possible alleles, random failures of perfect fidelity in DNA sequence reproduction must introduce novel sequences. You also mischaracterize recombination as a mistake when your immune system depends upon it to respond to new pathogens.

I would just like to point out the impossibility of the evolution of birds from land-dwelling organisms. The wings of birds are evolved from the two front legs of land-dwelling organisms. However, while the two front legs were in the intermediate stage between legs and wings, they were neither legs for running nor wings for flying. So the organism had to flop around helplessly for millions of years until it finally had wings to fly. So the organism in the intermediate stage would have been immediately eliminated by natural selection.

This also is an argument from personal incredulity. It has no value as Grumpy explains above.

Also:
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB921_2.html
https://www.uwgb.edu/dutchs/PSEUDOSC/HalfaWing.HTM
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn13683-evolution-myths-half-a-wing-is-no-use.html

 

[origin]

I can accept evolution, but people have a right to their beliefs and opinions, and how else are we to learn?

Gee what a great idea! I think they should teach math using your idea, on MWF 2 + 2 = 4 an on TTH 2 + 2 = 0, that will surely help the kids learn.

 

[Rav]

More info on geocentrism for those who have been indoctrinated by the current scientific dogma:

[video=youtube;EMr8lb2tYvo]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMr8lb2tYvo[/video]

"...what occupies the centre of mass? It's the Earth. So what we're doing is using modern science, but we're using it for a completely different system. Did you ever learn in your textbooks in science in 4th grade that that might be a possibility? High school? No, it's not even taught, 'cause there's an agenda: you teach the Copernican principle. Any data that comes through the telescope, or the microscope, or whatever "scope" you have, you interpret only one way: the heliocentric way. And nobody is ever taught the other side of the story."

Further, I highly recommend that those who still have doubts after watching this excellent video make a point of purchasing the following fabulous book: Galileo Was Wrong: The Church Was Right, by Robert A. Sungenis & Robert J. Bennett

"Galileo Was Wrong is a detailed and comprehensive treatise that demonstrates from the scientific evidence that heliocentrism (the concept that the Earth rotates on its axis and revolves around the sun) is an unproven scientific theory; and that geocentrism (the view that the Earth is in the center of the universe and does not move by either rotation or revolution) is not only supported by the scientific evidence but is admitted to be a logical and viable cosmology by many of the world's top scientists, including Albert Einstein, Ernst Mach, Edwin Hubble, Fred Hoyle and many more."

 

[Stanley]

Interesting video, i will need some time to finish it.

Origin, your example would indicate delusion and the tone is not conducive to learning. Let me ask you a question, why do you believe the earth is older than say 10,000 years? Do not refer me to "'cause so an so said\says so" give me something concrete and with substance, something we can really sink our teeth into.

 

[rpenner]

I can accept evolution, but people have a right to their beliefs and opinions, and how else are we to learn?

Would be funny if we were to find out the Earth and solar system has only been around for a few thousand years.

You argue that people have a right to believe your expressed opinion is worthy of mockery. Mockery such as this:

I can accept heliocentrism, but people have a right to their beliefs and opinions, and how else are we to learn?

Would be funny if we were to find out that the geocentric model was correct the whole time.
:itold:

Thank you, Rav.
Ignorant people have no natural right to communicate opinions and hold that they have the same weight as the opinions of those that investigate. Moreover while man necessarily operates with limited information, in the cases where opinions matter some opinions must be better than others. Science is the process of testing opinions that matter and discarding those opinions that are unworthy.

The opinion that the Earth is less than 10,000 years old is based on nothing. (The bible, for example, does not date the creation of the Earth. Even if you ignore the contradiction between the Earth-centric story mostly in Genesis chapter one and the Man-centric story starting a few verses into chapter two, it could have been quadrillions of years in the garden of Eden before the fall and create no additional contradictions in the narrative.) The opinion that the Earth is less than 10,000 years old also explains nothing in that the most basic prediction of the opinion is that nothing on Earth should be more than 10,000 years old and this is wildly contradicted by all sorts of continuous processes that we see that have the self-consistent appearance of continuity to a past that is more than 10,000 years ago. Indeed even our human art-making, tool using past is more than 20,000 years old and thus cannot be a natural coincidence of looking old, but a meticulously planned forgery. Thus, this opinion that is based on nothing and explains nothing is an opinion that matters in the sense that it states that appearance of continuity of physical law applicability is unreliable. If accepted as a general principle, then no scientific test can prove that you ever existed because all evidence that you exist only exists in my past -- a past that your stated opinion tells me is not just a coincidence but actually a malicious forgery. Thus the opinion that the Earth is less than 10,000 years old is the opinion that all the evidence of the senses and instruments may be an undetectable lie, therefore an opinion that any external source of truth may be an undetectable lie, and indistinguishable from the assumptions that the opinion that the universe came into existence Last Thursday or indeed that I just think I am human and am actually a brain in a jar with all my sensory inputs being elaborate forgeries. Thus the opinion that the Earth is less than 10,000 years old is an opinion that matters in that it so contradicts the physical record the only way to behave sensibly is to relate this opinion to the scrapheap of meta-physical crap and completely ignore it while constructing working theories of the so-called apparent self-consistentcy of physical law. All people who publicly hold that opinion as relevant are therefore ignorant people who insist on speaking outside of their area of expertise and demonstrably wasting everyone's time.

The question "how else are we to learn" has past been answered in that: (1) people who know communicate to the ignorant and (2) when no person knows, some people make it their job to find out. That's science. It's completely unclear how one is supposed to imagine us "finding out" the Earth is young when we can count past 10,000 in varves or tree rings.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varve

 

[Stanley]

rpenner, we both simultaneously posted at 11:15 so in that case i will pose the question I asked of Origin to you as well. The question is:

Why do you believe the earth is older than say 10,000 years?

*Do not refer me to "'cause so an so said\says so" give me something concrete and with substance, something we can really sink our teeth into.

 

[Rav]

Let me ask you a question, why do you believe the earth is older than say 10,000 years?

If you can read this article, and still come back and ask that question with a straight face, you are truly lost.

As for tangible everyday stuff, go put some petrol in your car. Or visit the Grand Canyon, or any other landform that exposes sedimentary layers.

Either the world is really really old, or God went to extraordinary lengths to make it look that way.

 

[Stanley]

Rav, just to be clear, the Varve dating is MUCH closer to my statement. Edit: Also I found it interesting that the tree rings in you article go to around 10-11 thousand years old, is that right?

Let me ask you a question regarding your statement: "Either the world is really really old, or God went to extraordinary lengths to make it look that way."

First i did not mention God, interestingly enough it was yourself and rpenner who mentioned religion.

The main thing i want to get across to you is how would you know the difference between 10 thousand years old and 5 million based off of appearance?

Before we go further and examine this i have come to wonder why these statement based off of instinct alone are made. Are you seriously going to tell us that you can see a difference between a 10K yo rock and 5 mill. yo rock?

Thats really supernatural of you. I wish i could do that.

And before you go on about the dating methods, it does work but accuracy beyond thousands of years is mainly guess work.

What i am asking for is THE solid proof, in your opinions, that the Earth is older than say a 5 to 20 thousand years.

 

[Rav]

Are you seriously going to tell us that you can see a difference between a 10K yo rock and 5 mill. yo rock?

Given that you've characterized yourself as a person who likes to get right down to it, I trust you wont mind if we examine what we've actually got here. To that end, I'd simply like to know where you're coming from, and what you'd like to achieve in this discussion, before I devote any time to conversing with you.

I'll start with a simple question: do you dispute the legitimacy of the evidence provided in the link I gave you?

 

[Stanley]

To that end, I'd simply like to know where you're coming from, and what you'd like to achieve in this discussion, before I devote any time to conversing with you.

See, that is what i was referring to in the earlier post. Peoples opinions should not be mocked or stifled because we miss out on so much, not to mention tyranny, bias, ridicule etc.

I am asking a question, not looking to achieve anything except undeniable TRUTH.

I'll start with a simple question: do you dispute the legitimacy of the evidence provided in the link I gave you?

Depends on specifically what part you are referring to.

 

[billvon]

it HAS to.
since it's a naturally occurring process then it must follow natures laws.

"Nature's laws" are not always predictable. You cannot, for example, predict when an atom will decay. You can predict what will happen to all the atoms of a radioisotope on average; the term for that is half life.

Likewise, you cannot predict what will happen with any one molecule when exposed to any other molecule. You can, however, predict what will happen to a lot of them on average. This is called chemistry.

You cannot predict what will happen to any one organism. But over time you can predict what trends you will see caused by evolution.