Does Common Descent Follow Logically From Darwin's Four Postulates?

billvon said:
We share the same basic DNA structure and many of the same DNA sequences as plants (like bananas.)

Further observations reveal a great many organisms that share characteristics of both kingdoms (like euglena, which exhibits both chorophyll-based food synthesis and self-propulsion via flagella.)
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That's no argument proving that an oak tree could evolve into a human in slow, sure steps such that each iteration is viable.
 
Eugene Shubert said:
That's no argument that an oak tree could evolve into a human in slow, sure steps such that each iteration is viable.
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I didn't claim that could happen. I claimed that over billions of years an oak tree could evolve into something LIKE a human. You just don't understand the concept.
 
Eugene Shubert said:
As a quantum creationist, I'm not ashamed of fantastically improbable events. It's simply believing in modern science. As I see it, there is nothing more shameful than willful ignorance.
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Then you should be ashamed of yourself

:)
 
billvon said:
I didn't claim that could happen. I claimed that over billions of years an oak tree could evolve into something LIKE a human.
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So in which post did you identify the law that prevents an oak tree from evolving into an unthinking loathsome creature with exactly your DNA as it exists at this very moment? Post # please?
 
Eugene Shubert said:
So in which post did you identify the law that prevents an oak tree from evolving into an unthinking loathsome creature with exactly your DNA as it exists at this very moment? Post # please?
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An oak tree cannot evolve from an oak tree into ANYTHING at this very moment. Neither evolution nor physics works like that.

If you need a law, the second law of thermodynamics is merely one of a great many that will prevent anything like that from happening.
 
billvon said:
An oak tree cannot evolve from an oak tree into ANYTHING at this very moment.
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That's not a problem. Assume inheritable, maximally-magical molecules that have charmed lives and thus acquire all the external, maximally-favorable environmental conditions necessary.
 
Eugene Shubert said:
So in which post did you identify the law that prevents an oak tree from evolving into an unthinking loathsome creature with exactly your DNA as it exists at this very moment? Post # please?
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Well to be truthful and to contradict billvon there is no law

In fact the process you discribe is happening right now

Follow the yellow brick road to La La Land and ask for Dr Woo Woo

He's the one who with the magic of electrical stimulation created life from dead bits

Last heard of working with oak trees

:)
 
Eugene Shubert said:
Natural selection is the pea in a shell game. I have yet to see anyone refute Dr. John Sanford's fifth axiom, which is obviously an inescapably true universal principle.
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Sanford's theorizing conflicts with observation and evidence. So it's not useful in scientific inquiry.
Eugene Shubert said:
So what law prevents an oak tree from evolving into an unthinking loathsome creature with exactly your DNA as it exists at this very moment?
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The laws of probability.
The same laws that "prevent" all the electrons in your keyboard from responding to your posts by forming a small bolt of lightning and hitting you between the eyes with it.
 
Eugene Shubert said:
Assume inheritable, maximally-magical molecules that have charmed lives and thus acquire all the external, maximally-favorable environmental conditions necessary.
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You could also assume that tiny magic unicorns are pooping out cells and building human beings. Or that Star Trek like transporters are de-materializing trees and materializing people. But none of those three are real. Evolution is.
 
billvon said:
You could also assume that tiny magic unicorns are pooping out cells and building human beings. Or that Star Trek like transporters are de-materializing trees and materializing people. But none of those three are real. Evolution is.
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Your response indicates that you feel threatened because I'm destroying your most cherished religious beliefs. How many times must I confess that I accept Darwin's four postulates?
 
Eugene Shubert said:
Your response indicates that you feel threatened because I'm destroying your most cherished religious beliefs. How many times must I confess that I accept Darwin's four postulates?
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I don't really care what you imagine about me or what you accept or don't accept. None of that changes reality.

You seem to do this when you are losing the argument - start with the "you must feel threatened" nonsense to try to derail the conversation. Why is that?

The premise of evolution is simple, and that premise has stood the test of time. We can trace our origins back through common ancestors as we split off from chimpanzees and bonobos, then the gorilla, then the orangutan, then the monkeys, then the mammals, all the way back to the ancient eukaryotic ancestor we share with modern plants that lived about 1.6 billion years ago. No magic molecules, no quantum creation, no impossible steps - just chemistry, biology and evolution.
 
Eugene Shubert said:
Mathematically speaking, there are possible events having zero probability of occurring.
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Or negligible, you mean. Yes. That's one reason we do science by research and so forth, instead of sitting in a room and thinking really hard the way we do mathematics.
Eugene Shubert said:
You're not a scientist. Dr. John Sanford's fifth axiom is obviously an inescapably true universal principle.
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It doesn't matter whether I am a scientist. Sanford's theorizing conflicts with observation and evidence, research and reasoning, the ugly facts all around. So we change it or discard it, if we are doing science. Are we?
 
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