Why the Theory of Evolution is True. Part 1: What is Science?

[Deeje]

Here it is, the place where you demonstrate the simple thing that you do not and cannot grasp! And it is simply this: one small adaptation, one little change -- yeah, you're right, doesn't transform any organism by much at all.

There would be no argument at all if it could be proven that a single-celled organism (no matter how it arrived) came fully equipped with the capacity to change itself over millions of years and transform into every form of life that has ever existed......

”Adaptation” has been observed, but only within a single family of creatures. It is suggested that small changes over time can lead to entirely different creatures. You only have to look at the diagrams to see those lines, but there is always a “phantom common ancestor” that is never identified but assumed to have existed because evolution cannot survive without them. And there is always that little line at the beginning that leads nowhere.....it has no beginning. It speaks volumes to those not indoctrinated.

But do it hundreds, thousands and millions of time -- one change, not on the original, but on the already changed -- adds up to immense change.

You do understand that this is assumed.....it has never been observed.
All adaptation would produce is more varieties of the same family. The comical part comes in when the theory demands that a creature stays within its clade.....which leads to the absurd claim that pakicetus is a “whale”. You can believe that if you wish. I see it as unsubstantiated nonsense.

You can add a grain of sand to an anthill on the sidewalk, and it means squat. Go ahead, do it again -- still nothing. And again -- and then again and again and again and...and when you hit a million or 10 million and more, then compare that pile to the original and it's different by an order of magnitude.

Wow...a sand dune. Sorry but that was a rather pointless analogy.

Every experiment, even with rapidly reproducing bacteria and viruses never shows that they became anything but a new variety of the same organism. Science has nothing but suggestion and assumption and pressure to stick to its theory, to arrive at its conclusions. I think that you guys are as indoctrinated as you believe we are.

You are exhibiting what I always find on this topic -- a complete failure of imagination, and the ability to distinguish a change here and a change there from continuous, cumulative change. When you learn to do that, you'll be a lot further ahead.

And you demonstrate a great failure to identify “imagination” from “fact” in this particular area of science. It isn’t science that is on trial here...it is macro-evolution.....one section of biological science. Even other branches that accept it as a given, cannot substantiate it. It requires interpretation, which IMO is always skewed to make it fit the evolutionary model. Fossils are a classic example. They have no voice except what biased scientist want to give them. They are great ventriloquists.

(By the way, that kind of cumulative change is what makes compound interest so very lucrative, for those who use it properly, and what makes the rest of us poorer as a consequence.)

Really? You think this is a good analogy....?

Sorry mate, but from my viewpoint your arguments are old and full of holes. But they are your choices as mine are my choices.

If this is a debate, then let the readers take all the information on board and come to their own conclusions.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

There would be no argument at all if it could be proven that a single-celled organism (no matter how it arrived) came fully equipped with the capacity to change itself over millions of years and transform into every form of life that has ever existed......

I won't even bother with the rest of your post, because you demonstrate in this very first bit that you really cannot conceive of the reality.

Nothing has to come "fully equipped with the capacity to change itself over millions of years and transform into every form of life that has ever existed." All it needs is the ability not to transform itself but to engender offspring that are slightly transformed -- and those offspring need only that same ability. Then the environment in which those offspring find themselves makes some succeed (and procreate) and some not to do so. And it doesn't even have to be all or nothing -- all it takes is for some modifications to do better than others.

And then it also takes, as you mentioned, all those millions of years. And those, we most certainly have had. We've had millions of years thousands of times over! And that's the part you simply cannot conceive of -- your mind being too constrained by the stuff you are not permitted to let go of.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

I have one question I'd love to ask of all the evolution doubters here, and I'd love to have a really honest answer. The question is this:

Why do the vast majority of people who have actually studied the subject, doing the hard work, the investigation, the tests and so on, find that evolution is almost certainly true, while the vast majority of those who don't think it's true also refuse to the the actual study, hard work, investigation and test?

I look forward to the erudite answers from both sides.

 

[McBell]

I have one question I'd love to ask of all the evolution doubters here, and I'd love to have a really honest answer. The question is this:

Why do the vast majority of people who have actually studied the subject, doing the hard work, the investigation, the tests and so on, find that evolution is almost certainly true, while the vast majority of those who don't think it's true also refuse to the the actual study, hard work, investigation and test?

I look forward to the erudite answers from both sides.

I asked a very similar question once back in the day and the reply was something along the lines of:

If scientists were to spend one tenth of the time I have spent with the Bible with the Bible then they too would deny evolution.​

 

[McBell]

I won't even bother with the rest of your post, because you demonstrate in this very first bit that you really cannot conceive of the reality.

Nothing has to come "fully equipped with the capacity to change itself over millions of years and transform into every form of life that has ever existed." All it needs is the ability not to transform itself but to engender offspring that are slightly transformed -- and those offspring need only that same ability. Then the environment in which those offspring find themselves makes some succeed (and procreate) and some not to do so. And it doesn't even have to be all or nothing -- all it takes is for some modifications to do better than others.

And then it also takes, as you mentioned, all those millions of years. And those, we most certainly have had. We've had millions of years thousands of times over! And that's the part you simply cannot conceive of -- your mind being too constrained by the stuff you are not permitted to let go of.

It is sad how Pokemon has done so much damage to evolution....

The number of people who claim to have studied evolution and still think this is how it works:

 

[osgart]

I have one question I'd love to ask of all the evolution doubters here, and I'd love to have a really honest answer. The question is this:

Why do the vast majority of people who have actually studied the subject, doing the hard work, the investigation, the tests and so on, find that evolution is almost certainly true, while the vast majority of those who don't think it's true also refuse to the the actual study, hard work, investigation and test?

I look forward to the erudite answers from both sides.

Time, energy, opportunity, and readily available resources keep me from the hard work. It's something I would have to see to believe. I went through a time of believing it, and doubting it also.

For evolution on its face value seems beyond extraordinary, and it seems fantastical. It's far more believable then YEC, and OEC.

I'm inclined to believe in some sort of naturalistic intelligence.

Deeje argues against it pretty well. And the pro evolution arguments are pretty good as well.

It's not on my radar to investigate. I see it as an open question.

I have a natural disposition not to get carried away with what people consider truth. Peer review is not persuasively foolproof to me.

Scientific method is very reliable. But it's my conviction that people don't follow it stringently enough. And I'm wary of the fact that people who doubt it are not allowed to question it.

Humanity is also prone to error. The greatest breakthroughs in science are exceptional; not the normal. Genius and fortunate circumstances have made science what it is today. I simply do not buy into the idea that breakthrough blockbuster discoveries happen all the time.

Science is riding a wave of success mainly in the shadow of amazing geniuses.

Evolution is not something I'm naturally married to.

There's no doubt that many people are becoming smarter and smarter from generation to generation.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

I asked a very similar question once back in the day and the reply was something along the lines of:

If scientists were to spend one tenth of the time I have spent with the Bible with the Bible then they too would deny evolution.​

I assume you recognize how depressing that really is. To "spend time with the Bible" is to wallow in "received wisdom," but to ignore anything learned outside of it.

I suppose if one is porcine, wallowing can be comfortable -- but there's nothing to learn in it.

 

[Deeje]

Nothing has to come "fully equipped with the capacity to change itself over millions of years and transform into every form of life that has ever existed." All it needs is the ability not to transform itself but to engender offspring that are slightly transformed -- and those offspring need only that same ability. Then the environment in which those offspring find themselves makes some succeed (and procreate) and some not to do so. And it doesn't even have to be all or nothing -- all it takes is for some modifications to do better than others.

But don't you see? Those small adaptive changes NEVER take things out of their taxonomic families....so you are suggesting that amoebas are related to dinosaurs in an unbroken line of evolution.....if that is the case, where is the evidence? Science can suggest what "might have" happened to fit into its theory, but it has no actual proof that it ever did...or even that it ever could.

You are suggesting random mutations that were beneficial.....tell me how many mutations we ever see in nature that are beneficial? Yet you claim that there had to be billions upon billions of them.The evidence suggests otherwise.

These are the kinds of mutations that we are familiar with......

The vast majority of mutations are not beneficial and most of them are benign or not relevant in changing anything about the organism. The beneficial ones are so rare that you really have to search for them.
Google beneficial mutations and see what comes up....if you want to base your faith on beneficial mutations then that is your fantasy....

And then it also takes, as you mentioned, all those millions of years. And those, we most certainly have had. We've had millions of years thousands of times over! And that's the part you simply cannot conceive of -- your mind being too constrained by the stuff you are not permitted to let go of.

You are misinformed...I am not a YEC, but a believer in an Intelligent Creator who took those millions of years to craft his universe and this earth and all its creatures, and to evaluate his work along the way, even eliminating some who were not needed anymore......that is not Christendom's version of YEC creationism, with which I disagree completely.

I am permitted to exercise my free will as much as anyone else.....fear does not drive my beliefs in any way......but perhaps fear drives your own. Life experiences can create deep wounds and harmful prejudices that can last a lifetime. Where is this passion coming from in the desperate evolutionists, I wonder? Its like a "religion". It has its gods, its scripture and its temples.....it requires sacrifice, faith....and "belief".

I want the truth......but science cannot provide what I need.....there is no future and no hope of anything getting better.....why would I swap one beneficial belief that lifts my spirits and gives me hope, for the hopeless, cold and unsubstantiated "suggestions" of evolutionary science? Tell me please, what is the advantage? How will it enhance my life in any way?

The ToE is empty.....devoid of anything that is remotely beneficial to anyone. All it does is satisfy some need in some people to divorce themselves from God and religion. Bad science has the same effect as bad religion IMO...neither creates good in the world.

My Creator does not require "religion" to define his existence. He simply is, and his work is all around us inspiring awe as we contemplate its wonders. The design in nature is not the work of blind chance.....it is illogical to me to even contemplate that.

I don't believe that the universe is an accident as it came equipped with laws....so it needed an intelligent mind to formulate those laws and put in place the means to implement them.

The earth is not an accident either....all the Eco-systems, habitats and the symbiosis that is seen everywhere in nature is no co-incidence, but you can be led to believe that they are...IF YOU WANT TO. That is the key element that is overlooked in this thread IMO.

 

[Yerda]

Leading people to conclude things that may not be true accomplishes what?

In the material that you pasted the reader was nudged to acknowledge possibilities and consider challenging questions from a particular angle. I think that's what teaching has to involve.

Sometimes people, especially on forums on the internet, are guilty of jumping from the thought, "this makes sense and I can't see another explanation" to the thought, "this must be true". We're only human. But my own experience of learning about evolution was that I was presented with the ideas and told what was considered evidence for them. I found it compelling. You might not.

How is science trustworthy when it could all change tomorrow?

Ha. Well, that's a good question. We expect that the rules don't arbitrarily change and our experience has mostly agreed with that expectation. We can only go with the results we have today, sadly.

I'm personally inclined towards the idea that none of our theories will last forever without major alteration. Who knows, we might discover something next week that makes the whole idea of evolution silly or meaningless.

Other branches of science do not impact on human behavior more strongly than the theory of evolution. This area of science alone is under challenge here because we can see in the world that eliminating a “need” for an Intelligent Designer”, eliminates accountability and removes morality from the world. An immoral world is not a nice place to live......but a world filled with hypocritical religion isn’t either. Both are destructive.

I see. If you think about morality through the lens of a designer I guess that anything that undermines the designer is a problem.

I don't happen to think that evolution or any other idea from science needs to be a threat to belief in a designer. If you start with the premise that some special agent intended for us to be here it seems natural, for me at least, to suppose that the designer has to have some means of getting us here. Why not evolution?

I would argue that when a scientist has his own views clouded by an all invasive theory, which remains unproven to this day, then popular opinion overrides anything science can actually prove.

All experimentation is conducted to see how closely it fits with conditioned expectations. They are actually looking for anything that will perpetuate their theory. What doesn’t is often dismissed. That will then stifle any conclusions that fall outside of that ‘box’.

All I ask is an honest approach. Science in this branch is not honest IMO. What is said, compared to what is “believed” seems to be poles apart.

Maybe. Those are strong words.

In my experience people will generally go to some length to preserve the notion that they are right. I do it, you do it. All of us. We all do groupthink. We all fall for all sorts of cognitive biases. I don't think the people conducting studies that have some bearing on evolution are more or less prone to these things than other scientists. Maybe that's my bias but I don't see it.

We can see how aggressively some argue for evolution as if their life depends on it.....I can only wonder why it offends them so much when their precious theory is threatened......it’s almost like we have attacked their mother.

But they have attacked my Father.....

We all get our hackles up a bit when challenged. It's weird because I used to be exactly one of those people who aggressively argued about evolution and I wasn't above mocking or mud slinging. I can't exactly say why but I think it must've had something to do with needing to validate myself or convince others I was clever (here's a theory, you can judge how sharp someone is by how long it takes them to realise that they're stupid - sadly for me it was a while).

Anyway, I hope you're having a nice day. All the best.

 

[Deeje]

I don't happen to think that evolution or any other idea from science needs to be a threat to belief in a designer. If you start with the premise that some special agent intended for us to be here it seems natural, for me at least, to suppose that the designer has to have some means of getting us here. Why not evolution?

This idea is postulated by those who want to 'hedge their bets' IMO....to 'have a foot in both camps' as it were. I see that as a kind of 'insurance' where you remain within the "evolution" camp, (maintaining some credibility with the science buffs) but somehow still hanging onto a belief in God, as if that is all he requires of us. But it doesn't work, because I believe that we have a purpose in being here. The Bible tells us what that purpose is, and why evolution is completely contrary to that purpose.

We all do groupthink. We all fall for all sorts of cognitive biases. I don't think the people conducting studies that have some bearing on evolution are more or less prone to these things than other scientists. Maybe that's my bias but I don't see it.

I have never been one to run with the mob....I have 'marched to the beat of my own drum', pretty much all my life. I was a truth seeker from my youth and I evaluated everything I had been taught by my parents, my church, my teachers and my peers.....and if I didn't 'click', I abandoned it.

Evolution was taught to me in high school but the more I studied nature, the more I saw deliberate and clever design. My own sense of logic would not allow me to throw God away (as a purposeful Creator) along with the religion of my parents. I knew God was there, but I knew he was not in the church system.....so I looked for him elsewhere.

I am basically a pragmatic sort of person but also spiritually minded. I sought a spiritual home that sat well with my pragmatism.....and in my early twenties, I found it in Jehovah's Witnesses.

For the first time, I saw God as a real Being, not some distant Wizard/Policeman in the sky "poofing" things into existence with a wave of his wand....or waiting to send me to jail (hell) for some failure or other misdemeanor. I discovered that he is nothing like that.

This is why I am so passionate about creation....I have taken the time to read and study the Bible and understand it.....it is so full of information about who we are and why we are here....I would never feel the same way about science because all my questions are answered with God.....there are no gaps with missing information. Evolution is so frustratingly full of holes, I could never accommodate it. It's not enough to fill those holes with useless imaginings....I wanted the truth and "the truth set me free".....

I can look to the future with confidence because I don't have to rely on science to provide it.

Thanks for your input.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

This area of science alone is under challenge here because we can see in the world that eliminating a “need” for an Intelligent Designer”,

If evolution theory is disproven tomorrow, the case for an "intelligent designer" wouldn't have been advanced for even an inch.

You need to demonstrate this "need" - not just assert it.

eliminates accountability and removes morality from the world

Evolution theory addresses biological diversity. It has exactly nothing to say about morality.

And I have no problem with that either

Clearly you do, as you use exactly that as if it is a proper argument against the science every other post.

, provided that young and impressionable minds are not led to believe that something is absolute truth

No scientific theory is ever presented as if it is absolute truth.
If you ever encounter a science teacher or anyone else who does present it as being absolute truth, you should call them out and explain to them that
1. there's no such thing as absolute truth in science (not even "facts" are considered absolute truth)
2. theories are never considered proven, only supported

, when it isn’t. No one wants to be a “sheeple” where thinking is done for them and conclusions are reached and preached that cannot be substantiated, yet there is pressure for acceptance.

Maybe you should reflect on that and see how it applies to your own dogmatic religious beliefs.

I would argue that when a scientist has his own views clouded by an all invasive theory, which remains unproven to this day

THEORIES ARE NEVER CONSIDERED "PROVEN". BY DEFINITION, A SCIENTIFIC THEORY CAN NOT BE PROVEN.

How many times must it be repeated?
Pointing out that any specific scientific theory is "unproven" is stating the obvious and not at all an argument against said theory.

EVERY theory is unproven by definition.
Evolution, germs, heliocentrism, atoms, plate tectonics, relativity,...

All theories. All unproven. All very well supported by evidence. All testable and verifiable.
All with the potential to be shown wrong / incomplete with future discoveries.

All experimentation is conducted to see how closely it fits with conditioned expectations. They are actually looking for anything that will perpetuate their theory. What doesn’t is often dismissed. That will then stifle any conclusions that fall outside of that ‘box’.

False. When tests are designed for any given theory / hypothesis, more often then not, the test isn't designed to try and confirm the idea. Rather, the test is designed to try and disprove the idea.

Failing to disprove an idea is immensly more usefull and telling as opposed to specifically trying to find evidence that confirms it.

When you test an idea, you don't try to show it accurate. Instead, you try to show it WRONG. You go out of your way to find conditions where the idea does NOT work. Continued failure to disprove an idea, gives the idea a lot more credibility.

All I ask is an honest approach. Science in this branch is not honest IMO. What is said, compared to what is “believed” seems to be poles apart.

Likely this is so because
1. you don't understand the science (as you keep demonstrated)
2. you get your intel from cretiionists

We can see how aggressively some argue for evolution as if their life depends on it.

It's actually funny, because YOU are the one who literaly said that your "spiritual" life depends on it. Remember? I have no investments in any particular explanation - I just follow the evidence. But you DO have investments in a particular explanation. As per your own acknowledgement. Do you want me to link the post again where you said exactly that?

....I can only wonder why it offends them so much when their precious theory is threatened....

Please.... not a single creationist has ever "threatened" the theory.
Also, if you would actually have something real against the theory, the scientific world, as well as myself, would actually be excited. This is the kind of stuff scientists live for: showing all their peers to be incorrect. This is what brings them fame and glory and nobel prizes.

What people instead get worked up about, is misrepresentation, misinformation and willfull ignorance while being proud about it. It has nothing to do with evolution itself.

..it’s almost like we have attacked their mother.
But they have attacked my Father.....

Note the projection...............................
Also note how the dogma and the investment in the dogma shows up in that last sentence.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

There would be no argument at all if it could be proven that a single-celled organism (no matter how it arrived) came fully equipped with the capacity to change itself over millions of years and transform into every form of life that has ever existed......

It's called DNA. It mutates.

And whenever you have systems that replicate with variation and which are in competition over limited resources, evolution of those systems is inevitable.

”Adaptation” has been observed, but only within a single family of creatures. It is suggested that small changes over time can lead to entirely different creatures.

No.

Ever heared of the law of monophy?
It's a law of evolution. It means that no creature can ever outgrow its ancestry.

So no, evolution does not change creatures into "entirely different creatures".
Instead, it changes species into sub-species.

We are all descendents from single-celled eukaryotes. We are still eukaryotes.
We are all descendents from vertebrates. We are still vertebrates.
We are all descendents from mammals. We are still mammals.

We never outgrew our ancestry.

If we would observe a creature evolving into an "entirely different creature", it would be a violation of that law and evolution would be in trouble.

You only have to look at the diagrams to see those lines, but there is always a “phantom common ancestor” that is never identified but assumed to have existed because evolution cannot survive without them. And there is always that little line at the beginning that leads nowhere.....it has no beginning. It speaks volumes to those not indoctrinated.

It rather speaks volumes to those not educated.

All adaptation would produce is more varieties of the same family.

Yes. As per the law of monophy.

The comical part comes in when the theory demands that a creature stays within its clade.....which leads to the absurd claim that pakicetus is a “whale”.

Pakicetus is not a whale. It is a cetacean. Just like whales are...
So yes, they do belong to the same "family". The "family" known as cetacean.

Wow...a sand dune. Sorry but that was a rather pointless analogy.

It's a perfectly fine analogy for the purpose that it serves.
That purpose being: 1+1+1+1+1+.....+1+1 = big number

Every experiment, even with rapidly reproducing bacteria and viruses never shows that they became anything but a new variety of the same organism

Which is consistent with the law of monophy.
If they would become "something else entirely", then evolution theory would be falsified.

I think that you guys are as indoctrinated as you believe we are.

It think (in fact, i KNOW) you guys are too willfully ignorant to realise that what you argue against is not the theory of evolution, but a misrepresentation of it.

And you demonstrate this with every post, including this one.
Like the quote above... you imply that every experiment doesn't support evolution, because species only ever produce new varieties of the original population. As if evolution would be demonstrated if they would produce something else. In reality, if they would produce something else, evolution would actually be falsified...

See? This is how bad your misrepresentation is... the evidence you expect to see that you think would demonstrate the theory, would actually falsify it.

In all seriousness now... doesn't that bother you? Doesn't that make you reflect on a couple of things?
Doesn't that provide you with a at least a small hint that your understanding of evolution isn't all that accurate?

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

But don't you see? Those small adaptive changes NEVER take things out of their taxonomic families...

If they did, EVOLUTION WOULD BE DISPROVEN

Every time you say things like this, you demonstrated that you don't actually know what evolution theory actually says. It's nothing but a strawman.

These are the kinds of mutations that we are familiar with......

No. Those are the kinds of mutations that YOU are familiar with. This is what happens when you refuse to inform yourself and study up on the subject.

The vast majority of mutations are not beneficial and most of them are benign or not relevant in changing anything about the organism. The beneficial ones are so rare that you really have to search for them.

Ever heared of the law of large numbers?
Suppose 1 in 50 million mutations is beneficial.

Consider species X with an average mutations rate of 50 per newborn (about the mutation rate of humans).
Let's say its population size is 100 million. Now do the math.

It means plenty of beneficial mutations will happen every generation.

I am permitted to exercise my free will as much as anyone else.....fear does not drive my beliefs in any way......but perhaps fear drives your own. Life experiences can create deep wounds and harmful prejudices that can last a lifetime. Where is this passion coming from in the desperate evolutionists, I wonder? Its like a "religion". It has its gods, its scripture and its temples.....it requires sacrifice, faith....and "belief".

Projection.

I want the truth

No, you don't.

You want religion. As you have acknowledged in post 18 of that other thread. You want god. You don't want evolution. And you will not allow science to contradict your religious beliefs. "there's no way", were your exact words.

......but science cannot provide what I need.....there is no future and no hope of anything getting better.....why would I swap one beneficial belief that lifts my spirits and gives me hope, for the hopeless, cold and unsubstantiated "suggestions" of evolutionary science? Tell me please, what is the advantage? How will it enhance my life in any way?

See? It's just an emotional argument. You are too emotionally invested in your religious beliefs to allow anything to contradict those beliefs.

This is also why you consistently refuse to correct your mistakes and misunderstandings. Like the first quote in this post. I can't even count the amount of times that I correct you on this misunderstanding and explained the law of monophy to you. Yet you keep coming back with that same strawman.

Why?

The ToE is empty.....

Only because you refuse to inform yourself.

devoid of anything that is remotely beneficial to anyone

Evolution theory is meant to explain biodiversity. Not to lift your spirits or whatever.
As is the case with every other scientific theory in the natural sciences....

Atomic theory is meant to explain how atoms work. Not to lift your spirtis or whatever.
Same with plate tectonics, relativity, germs, heliocentrism, etc etc etc etc.

All it does is satisfy some need in some people to divorce themselves from God and religion.

Demonstrably false, as demonstrated by every single theist biologist, as well as by the VAST majority of believing christians who have no problems at all with mainstream biology.

Clearly evolution doesn't make all those people atheists. So why would you say that?

Bad science has the same effect as bad religion IMO...neither creates good in the world.

lol, whut?
The entire technological society you live in today, is build by science.
How on earth can you say it doesn't create good in the world???

Your life expectancy has trippled, infant mortality is at an all time low, you no longer have to die from diarrea,... all thanks to scientific advancements. We wouldn't even be having this conversation on the interwebs if it wasn't for science.

Imagine a world without science. I'm sure you wouldn't want to live there.



Clearly you should think things through a bit more and reflect on what you are doing and ask yourself why you insist on being wrong about so many things, just so you can protect your dogmatic beliefs.

 

[Yerda]

Ever heared of the law of monophy?
It's a law of evolution. It means that no creature can ever outgrow its ancestry.

So no, evolution does not change creatures into "entirely different creatures".
Instead, it changes species into sub-species.

We are all descendents from single-celled eukaryotes. We are still eukaryotes.
We are all descendents from vertebrates. We are still vertebrates.
We are all descendents from mammals. We are still mammals.

We never outgrew our ancestry.

If we would observe a creature evolving into an "entirely different creature", it would be a violation of that law and evolution would be in trouble.

Hi.

That sounds like it has to be wrong. Go back far enough and we should arrive at the last universal common ancestor which wasn't a mammal or a vertebrate or even a eukaryote.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Hi.

That sounds like it has to be wrong. Go back far enough and we should arrive at the last universal common ancestor which wasn't a mammal or a vertebrate or even a eukaryote.

Idd it won't be.
Instead it would be the ancestor of all of those.

Evolution produces branching patters.
Species can't jump branches. They can only split in subbranches.

The root of the tree is the LUCA.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

If evolution theory is disproven tomorrow, the case for an "intelligent designer" wouldn't have been advanced for even an inch.

I have to disagree. Suppose a falsifying discovery was made tomorrow, maybe a dog giving birth to a cat, or a human being in Cambrian strata. We've still got all of the evidence that led us to believe that naturalistic evolution had occurred.

What then? How can we reinterpret the evidence now in the light of this new finding? I can only think of one possibility - intelligent deception by a supernatural god or powerful extraterrestrial society capable of setting the world up to look like evolution had occurred, but accidentally or deliberately left a clue that it hadn't that was eventually found.

Wouldn't we need to assume that all of those strata in the geologic column were planted, with forms that look less like extant forms being found deeper than those more closely resembling what we see today, including setting up the radioisotopes to give ratios suggesting that the deepest form were the oldest, since this is how it appears absent the falsifying discovery. But now we know that that did not happen.

Anyway, evolution will almost certainly never be falsified, since that would leave only this second scenario as a possibility, an idea that iis presently a sever violation of Occam's call for parsimony.

But add that falsifying finding, and this powerful deceiver hypothesis jumps to the top of the list as the only narrative that accounts for all findings.

Unless you can think of an alternate, competing narrative.

What I would like to remind the Christian creationists is that the god of the Christian Bible is already irretrievable ruled out by the current evidence with or without the falsifying evidence, and showing that the scientific theory is false does nothing to restore that god. Nor does it establish that a supernatural agent exist or was the deceptive intelligent designer, since a naturalistic explanation still remains in which on some distant planet or moon, abiogenesis, evolution, and deep time combined to give us naturally derived intelligent designers.

So you labor in vain attacking evolution, especially in so inarticulate and uninformed a fashion. Nothing can bring your god back at this point - the loving god that wants to be known, believed, loved, obeyed, and worshiped. Those of you that still haven't forgot how to reason willl have to settle for Loki now. Or maybe Satan - a god that would deceive you, that wants to remain unknown and in the shadows, and one that doesn't love you.

But how many of those that will apply reason rather than to keep insisting that this god is still a viable possibility are there? Would Deeje come over, or just keep going on about assumptions, suggestions, "might of could have," "You have no proof," "You didn't see it happen," "Your evaluation of the evidence is wrong and deformed by a faith-based assumption that evolution occurred" (talk about projecting). There is no hope there. Such a person has divorced themselves from the proper application of reason to evidence, and therefore there is no way to reach them.

In fact there is no burden of proof with such people, since that only applies when dealing with a person capable of dispassionate critical analysis. What can you prove to a person who decides what is true about the world by faith if all you have is reason applied to evidence, and they don't care about that?

What can you prove to a person who has a huge stake in not understanding what you are trying to demonstrate, and who will not participate in the process cooperatively or in good faith with an open mind willing to consider your argument? Was it this thread where a poster wrote for others to go ahead and give their best arguments so he could punch holes in them? He's not interested in evaluating these arguments in good faith, but in repelling them away.

The only reasons to write to these people is to teach others that can and do use reason and evidence, or to practice your writing skills or refine your arguments. Or entertainment, but I find no pleasure in this activity any longer. Reading them is like listening to Trump. It's not interesting or useful.

Your thoughts?

 

[Kenny]

I have not once said you are wrong.
I said and am saying that you have not shown you are right.

When you shut down the first of many doctor sponsored investigations on the effect of spiritual pentecostals prayers with verified results... you haven't said I am wrong... you just don't want to explore the science investigation of it.

In effect saying "I'm not interested".

 

[Yerda]

Idd it won't be.
Instead it would be the ancestor of all of those.


View attachment 42190


Evolution produces branching patters.
Species can't jump branches. They can only split in subbranches.

The root of the tree is the LUCA.

I see. I misunderstood what you were saying. Thanks.

 

[Secret Chief]

Soin a nutshell, you ask for something to be shown true, then refuse to even listen to it?

I didn't and no.

 

[Secret Chief]

A human mind, specifically, do you think? Just figured I'd put on display that any of us can play at this game.

I wasn't playing any "game."