Explaining the terminology used in Evolutionary Sciences

Deeje said:

No, no, no....if you are going to start....start at the very beginning because that is where the major problem lies. The very foundation of your theory is based on an idea...supposition....not on any real evidence.

You tell me with substantive proof that life is an accident and then show me how science "knows" that a single celled organism gradually morphed itself into all the living things on this earth.

When you can do that we can talk about natural selection, which I have no problem with at all.

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You seriously can't answer one, simple question?

All I'm trying to is gauge your actual understanding of what evolutionary theory claims. Why is it so hard for you to just answer one question about a basic principle of evolutionary theory?

Deeje said:

Then we see another couple of classifications because Canines are "carnivores" and they are also "mammals".
But is this because all carnivores and mammals are somehow related as the diagram implies?

What are the carnivores then...?

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Just a little nitpick, but one that shows that you didn't pay attention in evolutionary biology class:
Your example shows carnivores, meat-eating animals but what you should have searched for were carnivora (Carnivora - Wikipedia), the order to which only 3 of the displayed 8 animals belong.

ratiocinator said:

Yes the first sentence is obviously true but then you collapse into school level misunderstanding again - "macro-evolution's basic principles" are identical to micro-evolution's basic principles. Macro-evolution is nothing more than lots of micro-evolution.

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Who said? Isn't this just another case of "if a little is good, a lot must be better"? You don't seem to realize that basing macro-evolution on adaptation proves absolutely nothing. Not one experiment in speciation took any creature out of its taxonomic family. They may have produced varieties of the same creature, but none crossed a boundary and became anything other than a close relative of the original.

What did Darwin see? He saw finches...different varieties of finches but they were still finches, adapted to island life. Same with the tortoises and the iguanas.....which were still recognizable as varieties of the same family of creatures that were seen on the mainland. It wouldn't matter how much time you gave them, that would not change. So are you going to tell me that single celled organisms, that supposedly popped into life for no apparent reason, in some primordial soup that just happened to contain the right ingredients for life to "appear" as if by magic.....how these figured out how to make themselves into all the lifeforms that have ever existed on this planet.....? And this without a shred of substantiated evidence that it ever happened except in the imagination of the scientists? Can you will something to be true just because you want it to be? Isn't that what we get accused of? Your version of events requires more faith and belief than ours IMO.

Again, if you can't or won't grasp the basics of the subject you are trying to criticise, why should anybody take you seriously when you are accusing almost all the world's experts in the field of missing something that you can see clearly? It's just comically absurd.

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I see your own scenario as comically absurd really.

I grasp the basics just fine....it seems though that the science buffs among us don't really care how life began because they want to concentrate on how life changed.....when you can tell us how life began (which I see as the more important question)....then we might discuss how things can adapt to a changed environment or food source. And we might examine the real evidence for macro-evolution and see how much can be substantiated instead of just insinuated.....you guys can't seem to be able to tell the difference.

You are so busy pointing fingers at us for how 'indoctrinated' we are....but you don't see that you are just as indoctrinated as you think we are. This is what happens when you can't prove anything but act as if you can.

ImmortalFlame said:

You seriously can't answer one, simple question?

All I'm trying to is gauge your actual understanding of what evolutionary theory claims. Why is it so hard for you to just answer one question about a basic principle of evolutionary theory?

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Its not hard to answer at all.....but the question that comes before it sets the scene for what follows. You want to take something that I have no problem with (natural selection is clearly part of the natural design in the preservation of any species) when I ask you to substantiate the original premise upon which your whole theory is based. If you can't provide proof for the validity of your first premise, then everything else is moot.

You are dodging the more important issue.

Deeje said:

These are the kinds of responses that reinforce everything I've said.

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It's also the kind of responses you can expect when you expose a vast ignorance concerning scientific topics.

I am obviously not a scientist

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obviously idd

, but I know enough to see that macro-evolution's basic principles are underpinned by mere speculation, not solid evidence.......

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See, this is the kind of ignorance I'm talking about.
The fact is that the principles that underpin macro-evolution are the exact same as those that underpin micro-evolution.

Do you know why? Because the evolution process, is the exact same for both. These aren't different processes at all. One is just the accumulation of the other. It's an arbitrary contextual distinction.

when I see an elaborate mansion that keeps getting decorated to improve the ambience, but it is supported by matchsticks, I don't need to have an engineering degree to see that complete collapse is inevitable.

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The problem here is that while you believe it's mere matchsticks, in reality it's solid concrete on an extremely stable foundation.

You see from the responses in this this and many other threads on this topic, that no one has provided any evidence for that basic premise.

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Ignoring the evidence when it is given, does not make it go away.

They can't provide real substantiated evidence because none exists. The major flaw is at the very beginning. Regardless on what you build on that premise, I believe that this flaw cancels out everything else.

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And so as an alternative to the strawman of "matchstick foundations", you present a religious belief with a foundation that is invisible and undetectable and "just believed" on faith that it is there.

Heyo said:

Just a little nitpick, but one that shows that you didn't pay attention in evolutionary biology class:
Your example shows carnivores, meat-eating animals but what you should have searched for were carnivora (Carnivora - Wikipedia), the order to which only 3 of the displayed 8 animals belong.

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Nit picking.....we all know what carnivores are.

Deeje said:

No, no, no....if you are going to start....start at the very beginning because that is where the major problem lies. The very foundation of your theory is based on an idea...supposition....not on any real evidence.

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False. Assuming that by this foundation, you mean the idea of all life sharing a common ancestor, then that is not at all a premise of evolution theory.

Evolution theory would apply just as well for an eco-system with multiple ancestral populations.

It just so happens that on this planet, the data, the actual evidence, points towards all life sharing common ancestry.

You tell me with substantive proof that life is an accident

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Are you shifting the goalpost to the origins of life itself now?
If you are, then you're moving out of the scope of evolution theory.

and then show me how science "knows" that a single celled organism gradually morphed itself into all the living things on this earth.

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Here's one way:

Phylogenetic tree - Wikipedia

When you can do that we can talk about natural selection, which I have no problem with at all.

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Cool. Can you define/summarize what you understand by the words "natural selection"?

Deeje said:

Its not hard to answer at all.

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Then answer it.

What is natural selection, according to evolutionary theory?

TagliatelliMonster said:

False. Assuming that by this foundation, you mean the idea of all life sharing a common ancestor, then that is not at all a premise of evolution theory.

Evolution theory would apply just as well for an eco-system with multiple ancestral populations.

It just so happens that on this planet, the data, the actual evidence, points towards all life sharing common ancestry.



Are you shifting the goalpost to the origins of life itself now?
If you are, then you're moving out of the scope of evolution theory.



Here's one way:

Phylogenetic tree - Wikipedia




Cool. Can you define/summarize what you understand by the words "natural selection"?

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Don't allow her to distract you. I want her to answer my question to demonstrate that she actually understands evolutionary theory, and I feel this complete change of subject by her is an attempt to avoid doing that.

Deeje said:

LOL.....we keep asking the hard questions about the validity of the basic premise upon which your whole theory stands...

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And we keep explaining to you that the theory doesn't stand on what you think it stands at all.
But it's one ear in and out the other.

.and we keep getting told we don't understand science..

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Because you don't, as you demonstrate with every post you make on the subject.

..but I have yet to see any explanation of our 'mistakes' that has any real science to substantiate it......so give us the real evidence for how it all happened. Not how you *believe* it happened......science doesn't do *beliefs*...or does it? We need more than assumptions to put God in a box...OK?

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If you think I'm going to give you a crashcourse in evolutionary biology, paleontology, comparative anatomy, genetics,... etc in a forum post, you are mistaken.

I could give you a couple of examples, like how using evolution theory lead to the succesfull prediction of fossils like tiktaalik, or how the process of evolution is used in practical applications throughout engineering departments as powerful optimization modules and search heuristics, about phylogenetics and how everything matches up from multiple independent lines of inquiry etc....

But the problem is that you'll still be stuck with your a priori religious bias and your strawman idea of evolutionary biology and how all this data was obtained and scrutinized.

We've presented plenty of such examples to you and your friends in past threads. I know, because I was one of them. It's all useless. You just handwave it away with strawmen and a priori beliefs.

I see no point in again putting in the effort of going through such points and zooming in on certain examples. So I'll just advice you to get an actual good book on the topic and read it. There's many good ones. Make sure you take one authored by an actual published evolutionary biologist and not one by apologists like discovery institute shenannigans etc.

I'ld recommend Dawkins' books like The Greatest Show on Earth, which would actually be EXCELLENT for you, as it is primarily literally written to address an audience such as yourself. But chances are that you'll think he's the devil or something. So perhaps you can look at theistic evolutionary biologists like Ken Miller and alike.

I don't think you will though. I think you're quite content being in the position you are in... trying to play pidgeon chess against "evilutionists".

The things provided to date are not remotely convincing.....in fact, I believe it takes more *faith* to believe in the accidents of evolution (especially in the early musings about microscopic life) than it does to see real intelligent design in nature. Amoebas to dinosaurs in obviously not a stretch for you?

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No faith was required to predict and then find tiktaalik.

Instead of the mindless insults, give us the proof......oh I forgot...you don't have any....and apparently you don't need any either. Well then, where does that leave us? At an impasse I fear. You have your beliefs and we have ours.

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No. You have your faith based beliefs and fallacious strawmen concerning science.
We on the other hand, have intellectual honesty, evidence and models of reality with great explanatory power.

ImmortalFlame said:

"There is definitely a gold bar in the garage. But I won't show you, you'll have to take my word for it. But there absolutely, definitely is."

Or

"There may be a gold bar in the garage. I've done some research which presents evidence of this, though my work is incomplete."

Tell me honestly, Deeje.

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"There is definitely evidence for Intelligent Design Creationism.. But I won't show you, you'll have to take my word for it because you have to already believe in it to understand it. But there absolutely, definitely is."

TagliatelliMonster said:

See, this is the kind of ignorance I'm talking about.
The fact is that the principles that underpin macro-evolution are the exact same as those that underpin micro-evolution.

Do you know why? Because the evolution process, is the exact same for both. These aren't different processes at all. One is just the accumulation of the other. It's an arbitrary contextual distinction.

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LOL....so you guys keep telling me...but there is no proof for that assumption. If there was you would have provided it by now.....but all we see is the usual distraction of complaints instead of real evidence. Give us the proof that adaptation and macro-evolution are one and the same process. Provide substantiated evidence that uses no assertions...only proof that amoebas can morph into dinosaurs given enough time. Not how you *think* it *might have* happened...but real evidence for how it did.

TagliatelliMonster said:

The problem here is that while you believe it's mere matchsticks, in reality it's solid concrete on an extremely stable foundation.

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You have been convinced that it is concrete.....I can see that there is nothing of any substance holding this theory up. Its guesswork, plain and simple.....you can see it clearly in any article on evolution. You can shroud the topic in jargon and make suggestions about it all until the cows come home....but at the end of the day, when you strip it down to its bare bones....its like the Emperor's new clothes.

TagliatelliMonster said:

Ignoring the evidence when it is given, does not make it go away.

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There is no real evidence for your first premise...not a single shred. If there is, stop whining and produce it.

TagliatelliMonster said:

And so as an alternative to the strawman of "matchstick foundations", you present a religious belief with a foundation that is invisible and undetectable and "just believed" on faith that it is there.

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"Invisible"? Creation is not invisible. You think life got 'poofed' into existence by Mr Nobody....and we think that it was created by a superior being whose existence you deny. The proof is all around you.....beautifully designed.

"Undetectable"? The Creator is not undetectable at all....you just have to have your vision corrected and undergo a heart transplant. He performs these operations every day.....painlessly and for free.

ImmortalFlame said:

Don't allow her to distract you. I want her to answer my question to demonstrate that she actually understands evolutionary theory, and I feel this complete change of subject by her is an attempt to avoid doing that.

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I was just having some fun while i got some time to kill. sorry

But I know...

You can put your gears into neutral.....I am tired and need to hit the hay.....I will be back tomorrow to address your nonsense.

Deeje said:

Nit picking.....we all know what carnivores are.

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We do. But you don't know that there is a difference between carnivores and carnivora.

Deeje said:

Who said?

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The theory you're criticising from near complete ignorance and a stubborn refusal, so it would seem, to learn anything about it.

Deeje said:

You don't seem to realize that basing macro-evolution on adaptation proves absolutely nothing.

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There you go again with mistakes that would make a school kid embarrassed. Adaption is just what evolution produces (both micro and macro). The relationship doesn't prove anything and once again science doesn't do proof.

The copious evidence for evolution is in the public record and your pointless repetition of creationist incredulity does nothing to diminish it.

You then go off at a tangent about abiogenesis which is a separate subject. We don't have a theory of abiogenesis but that in no way impacts on evolution and the evidence for that. Even if abiogenesis was magic, the theory of evolution would not change and neither would the evidence for it.

Deeje said:

I grasp the basics just fine....

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This is obviously untrue.

Hockeycowboy said:

Uh...that’s what those words imply.

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Only to the agenada-driven.

So, you prefer confident language to be used - like the sort creationists use - even when they are totally wrong. Got it. It is that authoritarian mindset.

Deeje said:

LOL....so you guys keep telling me...but there is no proof for that assumption.[ If there was you would have provided it by now.....but all we see is the usual distraction of complaints instead of real evidence. Give us the proof that adaptation and macro-evolution are one and the same process.

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See, this is a great example of what I meant when I said that your a priori bias and strawmen prevent you from properly understanding what you are being told.

Here, the issue is that macro and micro evolution are arbitrary contextual distinction. The underlying processes are the exact same.

Consider the process of "walking". "micro walking" would be taking a couple steps. "macro walking" would be micro-walking times a certain factor. Like taking 30, 40,... 1000 steps.

The underlying process? WALKING.
The only difference between micro walking vs macro walking, is the amount of time that passes while engaging in the process of WALKING. And the more time that passes, the greater the distance covered.

What more do you want me to tell you?
What about this confuses you? With what aspect are you disagreeing?

Provide substantiated evidence that uses no assertions...only proof that amoebas can morph into dinosaurs given enough time

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Shifting the goalpost again.

The process of evolution provides a pathway for dna to gradually change over time.
The difference between a dino and its ancestral one-cellular organism, is essentially the composition of the dna molecule. If we look at dna samples and compare them, of any and all organisms, they look exactly like they should look, if the are the result of a gradual accumulation of changes over the generations, starting from a single common ancestral genepool.

The pattern that is predicted by such a process, is the nested hierarchy. And that is exactly the pattern that we find in comparative genomics. It's even the pattern we find in comparative anatomy. And when we cross reference both with geographic distribution of species in context of geological history and plate tectonics (constant reshaping of continents and seas), it all matches up neatly.


Once more, being unaware of what evolutionary biology is actually all about, and what the evidence actually is, is not going to help you in your argumentation. In fact, it will only makes sure you demonstrate your ignorance of the topic in every post you make.

You have been convinced that it is concrete.....

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Yes. By evidence. Not by religious bias.

I can see that there is nothing of any substance holding this theory up. Its guesswork, plain ans simple.....you can see it clearly in any article on evolution. You can shroud the topic in jargon and make suggestions about it all until the cows come home....but at the end of the day, when you strip it down to its bare bones....its like the Emperor's new clothes.

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Right, right...
+300.000 peer review papers in heavily scrutinized scientific journals, yet all of them "guess work" and no detailing of any evidence, observations, experiments, etc at all.

Uhu.



It's really hard to take you seriously when you spout nonsense like that.

"Invisible"? Creation is not invisible

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Calling the universe "creation" is not going to lend credence to your beliefs..

You think life got' 'poofed' into existence by Mr Nobody....

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I don't know how life got started, but I idd think a "mr" is unlikely - seeing as how "misters" are living things and in abiogenesis research we try to explain how living things came to be so....

and we think that it was created by a superior being whose existence you deny.

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I idd don't accept your claim about such a being, because I have no reason to.

The proof is all around you.....beautifully designed.

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Your claim that the world is designed, requires evidence. Got any?

"Undetectable"? The Creator is not undetectable at all...

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Cool.
So what objective test can be performed to demonstrate this creator exists?

.you just have to have your vision corrected and undergo a heart transplant. He performs these operations every day.....painlessly and for free.

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Is this your way of saying that one must first believe in this creator before one can believe in this creator?
Sure sounds like it.

Deeje said:

You can shroud the topic in jargon

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Been on this forum 10 years, has claimed to understand science and to have been debating evolution for at least as long as she's been on this forum, and she STILL does not understand even basic biology terminology?

That is the action of some that does not want to learn it... Or perhaps cannot .

"Invisible"? Creation is not invisible. You think life got' 'poofed' into existence by Mr Nobody

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Genesis 1
1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

Genesis 2
7 Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

Somebody accepts "poofed"...

But is isn't us.

Deeje said:

Who said? Isn't this just another case of "if a little is good, a lot must be better"? You don't seem to realize that basing macro-evolution on adaptation proves absolutely nothing. Not one experiment in speciation took any creature out of its taxonomic family. They may have produced varieties of the same creature, but none crossed a boundary and became anything other than a close relative of the original.

What did Darwin see? He saw finches...different varieties of finches but they were still finches, adapted to island life. Same with the tortoises and the iguanas.....which were still recognizable as varieties of the same family of creatures that were seen on the mainland. It wouldn't matter how much time you gave them, that would not change. So are you going to tell me that single celled organisms, that supposedly popped into life for no apparent reason, in some primordial soup that just happened to contain the right ingredients for life to "appear" as if by magic.....how these figured out how to make themselves into all the lifeforms that have ever existed on this planet.....? And this without a shred of substantiated evidence that it ever happened except in the imagination of the scientists? Can you will something to be true just because you want it to be? Isn't that what we get accused of? Your version of events requires more faith and belief than ours IMO.

I see your own scenario as comically absurd really.

I grasp the basics just fine....it seems though that the science buffs among us don't really care how life began because they want to concentrate on how life changed.....when you can tell us how life began (which I see as the more important question)....then we might discuss how things can adapt to a changed environment or food source. And we might examine the real evidence for macro-evolution and see how much can be substantiated instead of just insinuated.....you guys can't seem to be able to tell the difference.

You are so busy pointing fingers at us for how 'indoctrinated' we are....but you don't see that you are just as indoctrinated as you think we are. This is what happens when you can't prove anything but act as if you can.

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Deeje, you are still repeating points that have been addressed ad nauseum. I mean, you're still talking about creatures leaving their taxonomic families.

This is why people suggest that you don't know what you're talking about, and don't actually want to.
You've been given so much evidence over the years you have been posting here, and yet you're still posting the same things you posted on your very first day here.
That is why people are suggesting that explaining things to somebody who clearly doesn't want to understand them is a waste of time. You do not "grasp the basics fine." And that is evident in every one of your posts.

If you want to talk about how life began, go start a thread about abiogenesis, which is a separate field of study. Of course, you've already been told this umpteen times by now and yet here you are repeating it again.