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

Eugene Shubert said:
I'm still waiting for a link to the compelling schoolchild proof of the human ancestor to yellow banana conjecture
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Humans and bananas share the same DNA code translation, eukaryotic cell structure, and cellular reproduction sequence. That is an enormous pile of evidence almost impossible to explain except via a common ancestral lineage of some kind.

And if none of that were true, your modification and fifth postulate handwaving would still not rise to the level of scientific theory - because lack of evidence for some other theory is not evidence for yours, and you don't have any. You don't have a valid theory, no matter what anybody else has. (You don't even have a theory in the first place - just some abstract "postulates".)
 
iceaura said:
Humans and bananas share the same DNA code translation, eukaryotic cell structure, and cellular reproduction sequence. That is an enormous pile of evidence almost impossible to explain except via a common ancestral lineage of some kind.
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What's so impossible about a Creator choosing to use a common design strategy for the creation of all the various forms of life on earth? And how do you propose proving that there's no probability amplitude that could allow for the spontaneous creation of a vast array of extraordinarily complex living things having similar design structures?
 
Eugene Shubert said:
That's not a respectable argument to prove you have an ancestor whose descendants eventually evolved into yellow bananas.
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It's a perfectly respectable argument. Showing that bananas and humans share many of the fundamental structures of life is a good argument that we shared an ancestor - just as finding large identical sections of text in two different books is a good argument that they shared material from a common source at some point.
 
Eugene Shubert said:
What's so impossible about a Creator choosing to use a common design strategy for the creation of all the various forms of life on earth?
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Nothing at all. You could postulate an arbitrarily devious creator who deceives everyone to any level you like - just as you could postulate that we all live in the Matrix, or that I am the only living person and you are all figments of my imagination. Those are all potentially possible explanations; all fantastically unlikely, of course.
 
billvon said:
You could postulate an arbitrarily devious creator who deceives everyone to any level you like -
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Do you believe that there's something especially devious when an extraordinarily versatile writer decides to write many books in one preferred language? If many fundamentally distinct life-languages that could define self-replicating molecular forms of life are possible, then how is one language in nature not an argument for a single Creator?

How many fundamentally distinct life-languages are there?
 
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Eugene Shubert said:
I stand corrected. Darwin’s four postulates are thought to represent a scientific theory; consequently, adjoining Darwin’s four postulates to the negation of the common descent postulate should only be taken as representing a debatable scientific theory, unless you can prove by logical reasoning or otherwise demonstrate conclusively that you have an ancestor whose descendants eventually evolved into bananas.

I believe that Seventh-day Millerites, circa 2017, have a very powerful understanding of the Christian faith. http://everythingimportant.org/God

Furthermore, I agree with your claim of being very religious. I also believe that you have lost this debate royally since (I think it’s clear) most sentient beings are honest enough to overwhelmingly agree that no schoolchild can present a compelling argument to prove that they have an ancestor whose descendants eventually evolved into bananas.
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Proof plays no part in establishing a scientific theory.

You have no idea what you are talking about.

And you are quite clearly an obsessive nutter with whom it is pointless to converse.

I have made my initial reply for the sake of other readers and I will now pop you on Ignore, along with the other cranks and halfwits I have identified over the years.
 
Eugene Shubert said:
What's so impossible about a Creator choosing to use a common design strategy for the creation of all the various forms of life on earth?
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Nothing's impossible - you need evidence, is all.
Eugene Shubert said:
And how do you propose proving that there's no probability amplitude that could allow for the spontaneous creation of a vast array of extraordinarily complex living things having similar design structures?
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I don't. I just point out that you have presented no evidence that any such thing has been going on, and until you do you have no scientific theory.
 
Eugene Shubert said:
All the physical evidence summarized in Darwin's four postulates haven't disappeared with the observation that there is no credible argument proving the human ancestor to yellow banana conjecture.
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I read up a little about bananas

Are you aware bananas are
  • a botanical berry
  • the modern banana has been modified from the wild variety
  • (you MIGHT make a case while bananas are NOT descended from humans - humans acted as midwives)
  • is seedless so
  • they are are propagated asexually from offshoots
Wikipedia

There are fuzzy bananas whose skins are bubblegum pink; green-and-white striped bananas with pulp the color of orange sherbet; bananas that, when cooked, taste like strawberries. The Double Mahoi plant can produce two bunches at once. The Chinese name of the aromatic Go San Heong banana means 'You can smell it from the next mountain.' The fingers on one banana plant grow fused; another produces bunches of a thousand fingers, each only an inch long.

— Mike Peed, The New Yorker

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana

:)
 
iceaura said:
Nothing's impossible - you need evidence, is all.
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The existence of a probability amplitude that could allow for the spontaneous creation of a vast array of extraordinarily complex living things having similar design structures completely invalidates your religious belief that common descent is the only possible conclusion. There is no evidence that common descent is even possible. As Sir Arthur Conan Doyle said in the character of Sherlock Holmes, "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."

You have overlooked an obvious flaw in your religious belief. Where is your evidence that common descent is possible?

Do you even understand what is required to prove that common descent is possible?

At the very least, you need to come up with instructions on how to build a self-replicating molecular machine that may be modified in slow steps to produce a viable series of molecular machines, the last one in the series being a beautiful, healthy and intelligent woman. So, other than by arm-waving, how do you propose proving that each molecular machine in an evolutionary sequence will be viable?
 
Eugene Shubert said:
The existence of a probability amplitude that could allow for the spontaneous creation of a vast array of extraordinarily complex living things having similar design structures completely invalidates your religious belief that common descent is the only possible conclusion.
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Strawman alert!
Please show where anyone has claimed that common descent is the only possible conclusion.

There is no evidence that common descent is even possible.
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Absolutely correct.
Unless you look at the evidence of course.

You have overlooked an obvious flaw in your religious belief.
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Alternatively you're just making sh*t up for the sake of it.

Where is your evidence that common descent is possible?
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Have you taken any classes in evolutionary biology?

Do you even understand what is required to prove that common descent is possible?
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Oh do tell, please.

So, other than by arm-waving, how do you propose proving that each molecular machine in an evolutionary sequence will be viable?
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Um, because the non-viable ones die off.

At the very least, you need to come up with instructions on how to build a self-replicating molecular machine that may be modified in slow steps to produce a viable series of molecular machines, the last one in the series being a beautiful, healthy and intelligent woman.
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No.
There are no "instructions on how to ...". You seem to be assuming that the aforementioned woman is a goal: she's not. She's a result of various alterations that proved viable. If the whole thing is run again from the start it may very be that she won't eventuate at all.
Nor is "the last one in the series" a "beautiful healthy woman". She's just the latest.
 
Eugene Shubert said:
Do you believe that there's something especially devious when an extraordinarily versatile writer decides to write many books in one preferred language? If many fundamentally distinct life-languages that could define self-replicating molecular forms of life are possible, then how is one language in nature not an argument for a single Creator?

How many fundamentally distinct life-languages are there?
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Do you believe that there's something especially devious when an extraordinarily versatile writer decides to write many books in one preferred language?

No. Not if it is the only language the writer knows, nothing devious

If many fundamentally distinct life-languages that could define self-replicating molecular forms of life are possible, then how is one language in nature not an argument for a single Creator?

How is it a not a argument for evolution?

How many fundamentally distinct life-languages are there?

Currently we know of one

So it appears your almighty creationist god

like the writer

knows only one language

:)
 
Michael 345 said:
How many fundamentally distinct life-languages are there?

Currently we know of one

So it appears your almighty creationist god

like the writer

knows only one language
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Isn’t the famous linguist Noam Chomsky well-known for concluding that there’s a universal grammar that controls all human languages?
 
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