If Intelligent Design is a scientific theory...

[siti]

You are correct Siti- sorry, wrong article/ link!

Scientists: Bird's Ancestors Likely Not Dinosaurs




Yes, it is interesting, and I understand that the new studies do not refute evolution in themselves, but they do, yet again, push the missing link back into the shadowy speculative past. As I said before, 'confirmed' transitional examples seem to be disappearing faster than they are being 'found'



Again, fine, we can speculate about a new common ancestor we haven't found yet, but you see the trend here. Not so long ago - daring to question the evidence for dogs from wolves, birds from dinos, man from apes, was met with utter contempt in certain niche academic circles. And these were things I accepted as immutable fact when I was younger also. When you see enough artistic impressions of intermediates you believe they can't all be made up, but they can and are.

Guy - you have f***ed up your interpretation of every one of these - the scansoriopteryx one is one researcher's opinion that this species, known from fossilized juvenile specimens, belongs to a clade that actually predates the dinosaurs and suggesting that it, and not the theropod dinosaurs, might be the true ancestor of modern birds. The standard classification, however, has this species as a theropod dinosaur in the clade Avialae, along with the rest of the dinosaurs with bird-like features.

There is absolutely no question that wolves and dogs are related - there is no controversy about "transitional" examples - it is just not relevant in this case - whether or not wolves and dogs diverged before domestication is an interesting question but there is no question that modern wolves and modern dogs are descended from common ancestry. No question at all.

WTF are you talking about "new common ancestor" - the idea that humans and other modern apes share common ancestry is not new and the reality of the fact is as ancient as biology - every living thing on earth shares common biological ancestry at some point - always has and probably always will (unless life does somehow emerge again - which it could given the right conditions). You and me share common human ancestry at some point and we all share common ancestry with everything alive from blue whales to cabbages. And in some cases, it shows.

 

[Valjean]

Not in this case, but it's an argument that keeps on ticking yes!

But you're comparing apples and air conditioners. Natural selection doesn't apply to manufactured items.

You'd have to have argued that with Hoyle and most other atheists at the time, they explicitly rejected the Big Bang for it's overt theistic implications

Silly Hoyle. A scientist should follow the evidence, wherever it leads.

No, you are quite right sorry, I can't think of a single prominent evolutionist who tries to disprove God, ever, no idea where I got that from!

Dawkins' scientific and religious works are separate issues. The God delusion is not a science book.
Many scientists are atheists, but their views on God don't enter into their scientific work. Their scientific papers are not commentaries on theology.

That depends entirely on what scientists want to find

Scientists want to find and test evidence. If it's not observable, testable or falsifiable it's not something science can deal with.

Yet a vast array of functional mathematical algorithms permeating all space/time matter/energy- can safely be assumed by default, to have spontaneously blundered into existence for no particular reason
tiny bit of a double standard?

No. Till there's evidence of a mechanism or intentional design, the reasonable assumption is that they're just there; that 2+2=4 or the inverse square law are just how the Universe works.
What would be irrational would be to posit a magical personage poofing them into existence.

according to Toe significant design improvements are created purely by blind chance alone, random mutations.

Most of the chance is in reproductive variation, but mutations figure in, as well. These are readily observable. Most are insignificant, some are harmful, a few are beneficial. Natural selection weeds out the harmful and selectively breeds the helpful. No magic needed.
You know this.

ID theory has no need to banish chance altogether, both can and do work in harmony, as I think we referenced earlier in design software

ID's major premise is an unsupported non sequitur. There's neither evidence for nor need of 'design'.

IT predicted a creation event for the universe, deeper guiding forces existing beneath classical physics, that the gaps in the fossil record were real, to name a few biggies
lucky guesses perhaps

Science isn't disputing a "creation event." It does dispute intentionality, for which there is no evidence, nor is there evidence for any magical "guiding force."
Fossil record gaps? I don't know what you're getting at, here.

 

[Valjean]

Humans did not evolve from apes, gorillas or chimps
Why Haven't All Primates Evolved into Humans?

This article is ambiguous and doesn't say much. It begins: "Humans did not evolve from apes," then, in the next sentence: "Humans share a common ancestor with some primates, such as African apes."
You need better sources.
We are great apes. We did not evolve from modern apes. We evolved with other modern apes from previous apes.

Yes, it is interesting, and I understand that the new studies do not refute evolution in themselves, but they do, yet again, push the missing link back into the shadowy speculative past. As I said before, 'confirmed' transitional examples seem to be disappearing faster than they are being 'found'

Tell me more about this "missing link." I understood this to be a 19th century concept.
What point are you trying to make here? If you question human evolution, is there some alternative you find more palatable? Magic poofing, maybe....

Again, fine, we can speculate about a new common ancestor we haven't found yet, but you see the trend here. Not so long ago - daring to question the evidence for dogs from wolves, birds from dinos, man from apes, was met with utter contempt in certain niche academic circles. And these were things I accepted as immutable fact when I was younger also. When you see enough artistic impressions of intermediates you believe they can't all be made up, but they can and are.

What was this "proto dog?" What made it a dog and not just another species of wolf?
Science is in a constant state of flux. Hypothesis are always being proposed and argued about, till further research clarifies the situation.
What do artistic impressions have to do with scientific research?
You seem to find these ordinary controversies troubling -- why?

[/QUOTE]

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

'confirmed' transitional examples seem to be disappearing faster than they are being 'found

"Confirmed"? If they are fossils of extinct forms, they are either the end of an evolutionary branch that failed,or transitional forms leading to descendants that were significantly different

They're accumulating faster than I can keep up with them.

Take a gander at this: List of transitional fossils - Wikipedia How many of these would have made this list 50 years ago?

Also,

When you see enough artistic impressions of intermediates you believe they can't all be made up, but they can and are.

Aren't all artistic impressions made up?

But the fossils that inspire the artists' renditions are not. Except Piltdown man.

You mentioned earlier how much you love and appreciate science. I love and appreciate science. Why are we so often on different sides of these discussions if we both love and appreciate science?

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

We're curious beings, most of us are interested in knowing the truth

I should care that Hoyle and Lemaitre disagreed because I'm a curious being and want to know the truth? What truth? That Hoyle called the big bang "religious pseudoscience"? I still don't see the relevance of that. Hoyle is famous for the junkyard tornado fallacy: Hoyle's fallacy - RationalWiki

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

That quote was from PBS, not exactly a skeptical source

I didn't quote anybody.

Humans did not evolve from apes, gorillas or chimps

That is correct. They all descended from a common ancestral great ape

Why Haven't All Primates Evolved into Humans?

Why would they? If they did, that would likely falsify Darwinian evolution. What reason could there possibly be for every primate genome to mutate in the same way? It's a blind process.

And what would select for those mutations if they did? Bipedalism isn't an asset if you are a primate living in trees.

It's hardly a controversial assertion nowadays, point being, we can only speculate of this common ancestor now, we don't have any empirical evidence of it as we once thought, And this pattern is emerging across the board, in stark contrast to the original 19th C Darwinian predictions. It's not only intelligent design scientists that are looking for a better explanation.

The former existence of a now extinct last common ancestral great ape is not controversial in the scientific community.

And there is no need for a better explanation of what evolutionary science unifies and accounts for than the theory of evolution.

Only one other explanation is even logically possible, and it is pretty out there: That some intelligent designer capable of creating the earth and the life on it went out of its way to deceive us into believing that life here evolved by leaving mountain ranges of evidence for it. No other explanation is even possible, and that one has very little going for it.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

Guy - you have f***ed up your interpretation of every one of these - the scansoriopteryx one is one researcher's opinion that this species, known from fossilized juvenile specimens, belongs to a clade that actually predates the dinosaurs and suggesting that it, and not the theropod dinosaurs, might be the true ancestor of modern birds. The standard classification, however, has this species as a theropod dinosaur in the clade Avialae, along with the rest of the dinosaurs with bird-like features.

Alan Feduccia, biology professor at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill:

"It’s just not a dinosaur. In other words, there’s not anything about this creature that allows classifying it as a dinosaur," he said.

You'd need to get in touch with the biology prof. and point out to him where he 'f***ed up' Siti, I'm sure he'd be glad of your superior understanding!

And if he doesn't believe you, I'm sure some expletives will help, they are always a sure sign of cool level headed dispassionate thinking.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

This article is ambiguous and doesn't say much. It begins: "Humans did not evolve from apes," then, in the next sentence: "Humans share a common ancestor with some primates, such as African apes."
You need better sources.
We are great apes. We did not evolve from modern apes. We evolved with other modern apes from previous apes.

Correct, it concludes that humans did not evolve from apes.. pretty definitive, cut and dry, not a lot of grey area.

My point being that this was considered as heretical as denying global cooling not so long ago. The evidence against this once 'immutable fact' is what creationists have been presenting for years, credit where it is due

I don't think Darwinism is a terrible theory, or that it's proponents are stupid or insane as Dawkins calls skeptics. it's entirely intuitive, logical, elegant and comprehensive theory- superficially at least. But you run into chronic problems when you start to dig a little deeper.

So it's in the best interest of science to examine these problems, and every possible solution, rather than pretend they don't exist just because they might appear to undermine a certain philosophical preference, that's fine, that's just how real science works

 

[Guy Threepwood]

"Confirmed"? If they are fossils of extinct forms, they are either the end of an evolutionary branch that failed,or transitional forms leading to descendants that were significantly different

They're accumulating faster than I can keep up with them.

Take a gander at this: List of transitional fossils - Wikipedia How many of these would have made this list 50 years ago?

Also,



Aren't all artistic impressions made up?

But the fossils that inspire the artists' renditions are not. Except Piltdown man.

You mentioned earlier how much you love and appreciate science. I love and appreciate science. Why are we so often on different sides of these discussions if we both love and appreciate science?

I make a distinction between science; the method we all know and love, and science: the human, academic, political, institutionalized opinion, historically they have so often been diametrically opposed to each other.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

I should care that Hoyle and Lemaitre disagreed because I'm a curious being and want to know the truth? What truth? That Hoyle called the big bang "religious pseudoscience"? I still don't see the relevance of that. Hoyle is famous for the junkyard tornado fallacy: Hoyle's fallacy - RationalWiki

Hoyle didn't just call the Big Bang names, he coined the name itself as a pejorative term for Lemaitre's primeval atom theory, a far more appropriate term

As above, if we are interested in truth, we are interested in the difference between scientific method and popular academic opinion.

Remind me if you would; in what year was it, that Lemaitre won his Nobel prize, for clearly one of the, if not the greatest scientific discovery of all time?

 

[Valjean]

Correct, it concludes that humans did not evolve from apes.. pretty definitive, cut and dry, not a lot of grey area.

Where did it conclude this? Where do you believe we came from?

My point being that this was considered as heretical as denying global cooling not so long ago. The evidence against this once 'immutable fact' is what creationists have been presenting for years, credit where it is due

Aren't all new ideas heretical? Science, unlike politics or religion, is not wedded to the status quo. Its opinions change as evidence accumulates.

I don't think Darwinism is a terrible theory, or that it's proponents are stupid or insane as Dawkins calls skeptics. it's entirely intuitive, logical, elegant and comprehensive theory- superficially at least. But you run into chronic problems when you start to dig a little deeper.

What problems. Examples, please.

I make a distinction between science; the method we all know and love, and science: the human, academic, political, institutionalized opinion, historically they have so often been diametrically opposed to each other.

I don't see that opposition.
Scientists make hypothetical interpretations of evidence, and these often disagree, but the disagreement is just part of the process. When sufficient evidence accumulates the correct interpretation becomes clear and there is general agreement.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

Where did it conclude this? Where do you believe we came from?

? you even quoted it yourself earlier

[QUOTE="Valjean] It begins: "Humans did not evolve from apes

Scientists make hypothetical interpretations of evidence, and these often disagree, but the disagreement is just part of the process. When sufficient evidence accumulates the correct interpretation becomes clear and there is general agreement.

Just as there was on Piltodown man, global cooling, canals on Mars, classical physics, steady state, Brontosauruses, Lucy, dogs from wolves, Birds from Dinos, Man from apes etc etc etc


Scientists are human beings after all, just distinct from other human beings by having less practical applicable knowledge of anything real than most other human beings.

 

[Jose Fly]

Correct, it concludes that humans did not evolve from apes.. pretty definitive, cut and dry, not a lot of grey area.

My point being that this was considered as heretical as denying global cooling not so long ago. The evidence against this once 'immutable fact' is what creationists have been presenting for years, credit where it is due

Oh brother.

The conclusion is that humans are apes, share a common ancestry with other apes, and are evolving along with our ape cousins. The creationist position has always been that humans are not apes, have never been apes, have no relation at all to apes, and were supernaturally created completely distinct from apes.

The way you try and spin the former as being consistent with the latter is just plain dishonest.

 

[Jose Fly]

Alan Feduccia, biology professor at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill:

"It’s just not a dinosaur. In other words, there’s not anything about this creature that allows classifying it as a dinosaur," he said.

You'd need to get in touch with the biology prof. and point out to him where he 'f***ed up' Siti, I'm sure he'd be glad of your superior understanding!

And if he doesn't believe you, I'm sure some expletives will help, they are always a sure sign of cool level headed dispassionate thinking.

Several of us covered this with you before. Feduccia, who's an outlier among his colleagues, believes that birds and dinosaurs share a common basal ancestor, whereas most of the rest of the relevant scientific community holds that birds are descendants of a group of dinosaurs.

But you refused to acknowledge this simple fact and choose to continue on repeating this silly creationist talking point, as if no one had ever said anything.

 

[Valjean]

It begins: "Humans did not evolve from apes

The statement is wrong. We did evolve from apes, as did chimps and gorillas. We just didn't evolve from "modern" apes.

Just as there was on Piltodown man, global cooling, canals on Mars, classical physics, steady state, Brontosauruses, Lucy, dogs from wolves, Birds from Dinos, Man from apes etc etc etc

If I'm following you correctly, yes, false interpretations happen, especially when the evidence is misinterpreted or faked. But science isn't dogmatic like religion. As soon as evidence is corrected or more accumulates, standard interpretations change. Science follows the weight of evidence.

Just for fun:
Piltdown: Shameless hoax, but didn't stop evidence accumulating till it became an anomaly, was re-examined and debunked.
Global cooling: Like nuclear Winter or the year without a Summer? Still real, as far as I know.
Canals on Mars: Fantasy born of Lowell's over-active imagination. The scientific community remained skeptical.
Classical Physics: What's wrong with classical (Newtonian?) physics? Works well, for most purposes. As more evidence accumulated, more detailed views developed.
Steady state: A legitimate hypothesis, given the evidence at the time. As more accumulated a different hypothesis became dominant.
brontos?: But they really existed -- or are you nitpicking about brontosaurs vs apatosaurs?
Lucy: Real. Don't see your point.
Dogs from wolves: Direct vs indirect descent? Read the article. Interesting. Begs more research, though. (I'm still wondering what features labeled the animals in question "dogs."
Birds from dinos: "Controversy" seems to stem from taxonomic interpretations. There seems a clear relationship, but lines of descent -- not so clear. I expect the cladistics will become clearer with more evidence.
Man from ape: This is pretty clear. Hypotheses followed the evidence. It improved as the evidence improved.

Scientists are human beings after all, just distinct from other human beings by having less practical applicable knowledge of anything real than most other human beings.

ROFL -- you just can't let it go, can you?

Here's Perceval:[/URL]

Note slight posterior frontal bone depression -- clear phrenologic evidence of an overactive imagination.[/quote][/QUOTE]

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

cobblers!

something is generally referred to as a 'scientific theory' if

#1 it's academically fashionable and/or politically advantageous
#2 it's impossible to verify empirically so it needs a true-sounding label stuck on it to give it some more clout

By "generally referred to" one has to that you mean "by those who aren't doing science." Fine, they can say what they want, but it is irrelevant, and @leibowde84 has given an accurate description of what a "scientific theory" really is, in a "scientific context." None of us cares very much about what people who don't know science say about science.

One theory predicted that the gaps in the fossil record were mere artifacts of an incomplete record, that would be filled in as we go

But the real "science theory" includes the very real -- and demonstrable -- fact that fossilization is extremely rare, requiring some very specific conditions, and is therefore never likely to be "filled in." Does that mean that we have to do more with less -- that sometimes we have to connect dots that are further apart than we'd like? Certainly. But when you are actually willing to look at all the evidence, and how those dots are connected (even when there is conjecture), you will see. If, of course, you are resolutely opposed to actually looking -- well, I guess you'll see nothing. C'est la vie.

The other predicted that the gaps were real, highly evolved species appeared suddenly without history, remained in stasis with limited variation, and/or went extinct.

Yes, that's called "Punctuated Equilibrium," and there's actually a tremendous amount of both good evidence and good theoretical explanation for why it happens. After all, earthquakes of significant size don't happen on a nicely scheduled, regular basis, nor do large comets impact the earth on a predictable schedule. Change to environmental conditions caused by unpredictable events explain punctuated equilibrium extremely well -- and more than that, they make Darwin's theory even more powerful.

Remind me which prediction was borne out by the evidence itself, and which is supplanted with artistic impressions?

Remind me, which "creation" was borne out by the evidence itself, and not just by the artistic and literary impressions of writers with extremely limited understanding of science?

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

You can stretch a 25 million year bracket around the label (Cambrian explosion) if you like, geological blink of an eye as that still is, but the actual appearances of highly evolved species are utterly instantaneous in the fossil record. - If we go by the actual evidence that is (a quaint old scientific notion that skeptic of evolution stubbornly cling to)

Only if you have a very limited understanding of context. 25 millions years is the blink of an eye in the 13.7 billion years of our universe, or the 4 billion years of our planet -- but it is an immense stretch of time to creatures whose life cycles span hour, days, weeks, months or years. To the creature that reproduces each year, that stretch of time allows for 25 million generations. For creatures like humans, on the other hand, all of our recorded history has happened in very few generations. If you want to go from the Bible, we're probably under 700 generations from Adam and Eve. How does that compare?

Try to think in context -- it works wonders.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Correct, it concludes that humans did not evolve from apes.. pretty definitive, cut and dry, not a lot of grey area.

My point being that this was considered as heretical as denying global cooling not so long ago. The evidence against this once 'immutable fact' is what creationists have been presenting for years, credit where it is due

I don't think Darwinism is a terrible theory, or that it's proponents are stupid or insane as Dawkins calls skeptics. it's entirely intuitive, logical, elegant and comprehensive theory- superficially at least. But you run into chronic problems when you start to dig a little deeper.

So it's in the best interest of science to examine these problems, and every possible solution, rather than pretend they don't exist just because they might appear to undermine a certain philosophical preference, that's fine, that's just how real science works

What problems?

And what does the idea of creationism add to the understanding of anything? Nothing useful has come from that idea.

Don't lose sight of the fact that the value of an idea is tied to its utility. Does it allow us to predict or control any aspect of our reality? If not, it's just more angels on pinheads.

Scientists seem perfectly content with the theory of biological evolution. So are most of the rest of us except a handful with a religious agenda. We understand that their objections are motivated by faith based beliefs. That pretty much marginalizes them in the reason and evidence based community. Faith is not a path to truth. How could it be? By faith, I can believe that 2 + 2 = 5. Let me share three examples of what faith does to reason:

[1] "... if in some historically contingent circumstances, the evidence that I have available to me should turn against Christianity, I don't think that that contraverts the witness of the Holy Spirit. In such a situation, I should regard that as simply a result of the contingent circumstances that I'm in, and that if I were to pursue this with due diligence and with time, I would discover that the evidence, if in fact I could get the correct picture, would support exactly what the witness of the Holy Spirit tells me. So I think that's very important to get the relationship between faith and reason right..." - William Lane Craig

[2] "The moderator in the debate between Bill Nye and Ken Ham on whether creationism is a viable scientific field of study asked, 'What would change your minds?' Scientist Bill Nye answered, 'Evidence.' Young Earth Creationist Ken Ham answered, 'Nothing. I'm a Christian.' Elsewhere, Ham stated, 'By definition, no apparent, perceived or claimed evidence in any field, including history and chronology, can be valid if it contradicts the scriptural record."

[3] “If somewhere in the Bible I were to find a passage that said 2 + 2 = 5, I wouldn't question what I am reading in the Bible. I would believe it, accept it as true, and do my best to work it out and understand it."- Pastor Peter laRuffa

Sorry, but that kind of thinking is wrong-headed and a dead end. It has always been sterile. If you disagree, please give us a counterexample

Incidentally, all three of those men are telling you that their faith has closed their minds. No evidence could possibly move them from their position, which is unsurprising given that they didn't get there by applying valid reasoning to the relevant evidence. They have chosen to believe an idea no matter what else they encounter that might have otherwise shown them that they are incorrect.

I simply cannot use the output of such minds.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

I make a distinction between science; the method we all know and love, and science: the human, academic, political, institutionalized opinion

You ignored the content of the post.

historically they have so often been diametrically opposed to each other.

Historically, science has made your life longer, healthier, safer, more comfortable, and more interesting. What else do you require from it other than that it not challenge faith based beliefs?

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Hoyle didn't just call the Big Bang names, he coined the name itself as a pejorative term for Lemaitre's primeval atom theory, a far more appropriate term

As above, if we are interested in truth, we are interested in the difference between scientific method and popular academic opinion.

Remind me if you would; in what year was it, that Lemaitre won his Nobel prize, for clearly one of the, if not the greatest scientific discovery of all time?

Sorry, but I just can't follow your argument if indeed you have one. What do I care about who won Nobel prizes when?

What is your larger point? That we ought to throw out science or the parts that contradicts your faith? Why? Because Hoyle might have called one scientific hypothesis religious pseudoscience? I simply don't see a valid argument here - just a plea to stop trusting the scientific community based on nothing substantial.