Evidence For And Against Evolution

[Wandering Monk]

The beauty of the anthropic principle is that I dont even have to support it

So do ships exist for the sake of barnacle?

Do low spots in the ground exist for the sake of lakes and ponds?

 

[leroy]

What are atheist/naturalists? Do Christian/naturalists also exist?

What hard questions are explained away by the anthropic principle? Who uses the anthropic principle to explain away hard questions?

What hard questions are explained away by multiverse theories? Who uses multiverse theories to explain away hard questions?

.

Richard dawkins for example uses the Abthropic Principle to explain away fine tunning arguments.

Dawkins claims, that no matter how improbable life or our planet is, because of the AP..... To that I respond (sarcastically) no matter how improbable a Nested Hierarchy is because of the AP.

 

[YoursTrue]

It means that, "groups of related organisms share suites of similar characteristics and the number of shared traits increases with relatedness" which demonstrates common ancestry.

I don't know what Jesus has to do with it.

Of course, Jesus used a symbolic description about stones talking. But what about the stones? What about the soil? And now -- going back to how evolution (or rather, life) got started, did that first unicell come from water? ?? Or soil. Any idea?

 

[Subduction Zone]

Richard dawkins for example uses the Abthropic Principle to explain away fine tunning arguments.

Dawkins claims, that no matter how improbable life or our planet is, because of the AP..... To that I respond (sarcastically) no matter how improbable a Nested Hierarchy is because of the AP.

Most fine tuning arguments that I have seen are arguments from ignorance. We have seen "fine tuned" constants explained in the past. Those are of course not used in fine tuning arguments. What makes you think that the "fine tuning" cannot be explained by future discoveries. Fine tuning arguments support neither for or against evolution or for or against a deity.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Because I would argue that all the evidence indicates that life can not come from none life naturally

Sounds like an argument from ignorance.

But I don’t what to talk about abiogenesis in this thread. If you want to talk about abiogenesis feel free to make a new thread, describe your favorite naturalistic model for abiogenesis, and exampling why is that model better than ID

The merrit of a model like ID isn't dependend on wheter or not I can come up with another model.
Sounds like it's indeed nothing but an argument from ignorance.


ps: ID as presented by the people that came up with it over at the discover institute, is indeed exactly that: an argument from ignorance.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

You don’t understand that we live in a multiverse (a set of infinite universes) some universes have life organized in something that looks like a nested hierarchy (NH), others have life organized in other patterns (or no pattern at all) we simply happene to live in a universe where we do have something that looks like a NH, if we wouldn’t live in such a universe we wouldn’t be wondering about the NH that we observe (this is the anthropic principle)

The anthropic principle: you're using it wrong.

Having said that, nothing you said is relevant to the point at hand.

Being that on the one hand we have an observable process that can ONLY result in NH.

And on the other hand, we have mere claims, fantastical claims at that, about an undemonstrable, unsupportable, indefensible, supernatural entity for which there is NO REASON AT ALL to think it would result in NH and in fact, many reasons to assume it wouldn't.

The first has extreme explanatory power and can be confirmed by testable predictions.
The second is simply ridiculous.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Yes I know, but if atheist can use multiverses to explain away the arguments for ID

Which atheist here did that?

It seems fare that YEC can also use the same fallacious logic to explain away difficult questions.

My question wasn't exactly difficult.

We have 2 options, one which is extremely likely and having a 1 in 1 chance of ending op in NH.

The other being a fantasticaly, undemonstrable, unsupportable entity for which we have no reason to think it would end up in NH and actually much reason to think it would NOT end up in NH.

And you "answer" that, by rambling about multiverses while misapplying the antropic principle.

It's quite asanine.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

There is when you claim they may disappear so that is why we have no evidence for them!

I said no such thing.

There also is when you claim that life on earth is wholly due to such a non evidenced series of events in the far past!

I said no such thing.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

You said this

"it's also possible that abiogenesis continuously happens - even today. There's actually a scientific idea I think about that... it states that this newly created life would almost immediatly be consumed by already existing life.."

I said that, nog @gnostic

Goes to show with how much attention you read posts.

So, in other words you claim it appears but suddenly disappears because it got eaten before you can detect it right?

No, *I* am not claiming that.
Read the sentence that you copy pasted again. I'm sure you can figure out how it's not a claim that *I* am making.

Irrelevant word games since both are fairy tales. One more be more elevated within the constraints of your religion/science but who really cares what you call it?

People with a shred of intellectual honesty, care.

We know that doesn't include you.

The original fairy tale diverged into two separate tales. So what?

See? It's with comments like that that you contiously expose your intellectual dishonesty.

We know, for those who have their head shoved so far up the fable factory that that fantasy seems important.

 

[leroy]

Most fine tuning arguments that I have seen are arguments from ignorance. We have seen "fine tuned" constants explained in the past. Those are of course not used in fine tuning arguments. What makes you think that the "fine tuning" cannot be explained by future discoveries. Fine tuning arguments support neither for or against evolution or for or against a deity.

Ok let’s use some “atheist logic”

We have seen fraudulent transitional fossils in the past too………what makes you think that future discoveries would not expose that current transitional fossils are also fraudulent?

And the argument form Nested Hierarchies is also an argument from ignorance, just because we currently don’t know of any other mechanism that would produce a NH (rather than common ancestry) that doesn’t mean that future discoveries would not provide another mechanism. Perhaps this mechanism is consistent with the YEC model

The point that I am making is that it is very easy to be a YEC if one is allowed to use atheist logic, all you have to do is avoid the burden proof, hide under the possibility that new discoveries will solve your problems, avoid direct answers and keep your position vague and ambiguous.

 

[leroy]

The first has extreme explanatory power and can be confirmed by testable predictions.
The second is simply ridiculous.

And which testable predictions are those?

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

And which testable predictions are those?

It's literally millions upon millions that naturally flow from the outcome of nested hierarchies alone.

Like chimps and humans will share more ERV's then humans and dogs.
Like no mammal will have feathers.
Like no non-mammal will have hair.
Etc.
You can do such predictions for pretty much any trait of a lineage, as well as for specific genetic markers or sequences.

You can also pull in other scientific fields like geology and geological history and state that you won't find any natural occurance of kangaroo's outside of australia, because that's where they evolved with no land bridges since then. So they are stuck on that continent. Finding a kangaroo fossil somewhere in the amazone, would raise quite a few questions, for example.


Each of such predictions has the potential to put evolution on thin ice if it doesn't check out. But they always check out.

So much so, that even fossil finds such as tiktaalik, were finds that happened by prediction.
Literally. They pinpointed the period in which the transition from sea to land life would have happened, hypothesized the type of environment such creatures would have to have lived in (shallow waters near coasts), listed the type of traits they expected it to have, then looked at geological maps where such rock is exposed, went there, started digging and then found tiktaalik - matching their prediction neatly.

Tiktaalik is furthermore far from the only one that was found this way.
Sometimes fossils are found by accident. Often times, they aren't. Paleontologists know where to look. And they know this, because of the predictions of evolution in combination with knowledge concerning geological history, fossilization processes, etc.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Ok let’s use some “atheist logic”

We have seen fraudulent transitional fossils in the past too………what makes you think that future discoveries would not expose that current transitional fossils are also fraudulent?

And the argument form Nested Hierarchies is also an argument from ignorance, just because we currently don’t know of any other mechanism that would produce a NH (rather than common ancestry) that doesn’t mean that future discoveries would not provide another mechanism. Perhaps this mechanism is consistent with the YEC model

The point that I am making is that it is very easy to be a YEC if one is allowed to use atheist logic, all you have to do is avoid the burden proof, hide under the possibility that new discoveries will solve your problems, avoid direct answers and keep your position vague and ambiguous.

Now you are proposing a massive conspiracy theory that includes Christians and in fact believers of all sorts of religions. You are making the typical gross creationist error of conflating evolution and atheism. Believe it or not Christians can accept reality too. One does not need to accept all of the myths of the Bible to be a Christian.

And no, nested hierarchies is not an argument from ignorance. It is a testable and refutable concept.

You are not using logic of any sort. You are using strawman arguments. Let's try to think rationally next time, okay?

 

[leroy]

It's literally millions upon millions that naturally flow from the outcome of nested hierarchies alone.

Like chimps and humans will share more ERV's then humans and dogs.
Like no mammal will have feathers.
Like no non-mammal will have hair.
Etc.
You can do such predictions for pretty much any trait of a lineage, as well as for specific genetic markers or sequences.

You can also pull in other scientific fields like geology and geological history and state that you won't find any natural occurance of kangaroo's outside of australia, because that's where they evolved with no land bridges since then. So they are stuck on that continent. Finding a kangaroo fossil somewhere in the amazone, would raise quite a few questions, for example.


Each of such predictions has the potential to put evolution on thin ice if it doesn't check out. But they always check out.

So much so, that even fossil finds such as tiktaalik, were finds that happened by prediction.
Literally. They pinpointed the period in which the transition from sea to land life would have happened, hypothesized the type of environment such creatures would have to have lived in (shallow waters near coasts), listed the type of traits they expected it to have, then looked at geological maps where such rock is exposed, went there, started digging and then found tiktaalik - matching their prediction neatly.

Tiktaalik is furthermore far from the only one that was found this way.
Sometimes fossils are found by accident. Often times, they aren't. Paleontologists know where to look. And they know this, because of the predictions of evolution in combination with knowledge concerning geological history, fossilization processes, etc.

To me they sound more like postdictions rather than predictions, we knew that mammals don’t have feathers long before evolution was ever proposed, if mammals would have had feathers, you would have simply said that feathers evolved before mammals and birds diverged, or that feathers evolved independently twice.

ERVs in dogs: well as far as I know nobody has looked at the dog genome searching for ERVs, so it is a good time to make predictions, what if we find orthologs ERVs in humans and dogs that are absent in other primates, would that be a problem for common descent?

Tiktaalik: It is not clear for me what you mean, are you saying that tiktaalik was found in strata dated before any other land tetrapod evolved? Implying that Tiktaalik is older than land tertapods and younger that fish………….would finding a land tetrapod older than tiktaalik nullify that supposed correct prediction?

 

[leroy]

Now you are proposing a massive conspiracy theory that includes Christians and in fact believers of all sorts of religions. You are making the typical gross creationist error of conflating evolution and atheism. Believe it or not Christians can accept reality too. One does not need to accept all of the myths of the Bible to be a Christian.

And no, nested hierarchies is not an argument from ignorance. It is a testable and refutable concept.

You are not using logic of any sort. You are using strawman arguments. Let's try to think rationally next time, okay?

My point is that it is fallacious to simply relax and assume that fine tuning problems will be solved with natural mechanisms just because some FT have been solved in the past, just as it is fallacious to relax and assume that all transitional fossils are fraudulent, just because some have been proven to be frauds in the past.

Yes the NH is not an argument from ignorance (but nether is the FT argument) in both arguments a complex and unlikely pattern is observed and an explanation for such a pattern is set to be required. Common ancestry and Intelligent design are proposed respectively as the best explanation for such a pattern. …. Anyone who disagrees is obligated to provide an alternative explanation and explain why is that alternative explanation better than the one that is being proposed.

It would be fallacious to simply relax and assume that future discoveries would provide an explanation for NH (and explanation that YEC would like) just as it is fallacious to simply relax and assume that future discoveries would provide an explanation for the FT of the universe (an explanation that atheist would like)……..I mean sure science can find something in the future but up to this point common asncestrry is the best explanation for the NH and ID is the best explanation for the FT of the universe, anyone who disagrees is obligated to provide an alternative explanation and explain/justify that his explanation a better explanation.

 

[SkepticThinker]

Of course, Jesus used a symbolic description about stones talking. But what about the stones? What about the soil? And now -- going back to how evolution (or rather, life) got started, did that first unicell come from water? ?? Or soil. Any idea?

What does Jesus talking about stones and soil have anything to do with nested hierarchies? Why won't you address that evidence?

Again, evolution is not about how life "got started." It's about how life developed once it was already here.

 

[SkepticThinker]

Ok let’s use some “atheist logic”

We have seen fraudulent transitional fossils in the past too………what makes you think that future discoveries would not expose that current transitional fossils are also fraudulent?

And the argument form Nested Hierarchies is also an argument from ignorance, just because we currently don’t know of any other mechanism that would produce a NH (rather than common ancestry) that doesn’t mean that future discoveries would not provide another mechanism. Perhaps this mechanism is consistent with the YEC model

The point that I am making is that it is very easy to be a YEC if one is allowed to use atheist logic, all you have to do is avoid the burden proof, hide under the possibility that new discoveries will solve your problems, avoid direct answers and keep your position vague and ambiguous.

There is no "atheist logic."
There is only logic.

All existing evidence from multiple fields of science, collected over 150+ years by multiple independent groups of scientists around the world, points to evolution as a fact of life. Nested hierarchies are some of that evidence, and no, the existence of nested hierarchies is not an argument from ignorance. It's an argument from the actual facts at hand.

If you have something that would falsify the theory of evolution, go ahead and present it to the scientific community. You will become rich and famous.

 

[SkepticThinker]

And which testable predictions are those?

Scientists knew where to find tiktaalik:

https://tiktaalik.uchicago.edu/searching4Tik.html

 

[leroy]

Scientists knew where to find tiktaalik:

https://tiktaalik.uchicago.edu/searching4Tik.html

from your source

The first tetrapods appear around 363 million years ago. Common sense tells us that the transitional form must have arisen 380-363 million years ago.

However the truth is that later that original prediction was proven to be wrong because we have land tetrpods that predate tiktaalik. So that supposed prediction end up being a false positive.

This also proves that Tiktaalik had nothing to do with the evolution of land tetrapods,

Dozens of the 395-million-year-old fossil footprints were recently discovered on a former marine tidal flat or lagoon in southeastern Poland (prehistoric time line).

The prints were made by tetrapods—animals with backbones and four limbs—
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/...est-footprints-nature-evolution-walking-land/

 

[SkepticThinker]

from your source


However the truth is that later that original prediction was proven to be wrong because we have land tetrpods that predate tiktaalik. So that supposed prediction end up being a false positive.

This also proves that Tiktaalik had nothing to do with the evolution of land tetrapods,

Did they find tiktaalik where they thought it should be, based on the available evidence, or not?

**They did.**