Shocking claim to Macro-evolution!

[TagliatelliMonster]

Lol. You're in a state of denial.

I'm not the one who's denying 21st century biological knowledge.
I'm not the one in denial of reality.
I'm not the one who's faith based beliefs cloud my judgement

 

[nPeace]

Good, so it's about evolution. So let's park the unsolved problem of abiogenesis.

I am pleased to see we both now seem(?) to agree the theory (of evolution) is independent of the choice of any particular biochemistry. As I said in an earlier post, It would be just as applicable to any alien life chemistry one could dream up as it is to terrestrial biochemistry. We do not need to understand the chemical processes at work for it to be valid. Just as we do not need to know anything about atoms and molecules to model the thermodynamics of a heat engine, or electromagnetic induction, or human anatomy, even though how they work they way they do ultimately depends on how atoms and molecules behave.

The core thesis of the theory of evolution is extremely simple. Darwin simply looked at what plant and animal breeders have done for thousands of years, which is to select desirable features in their stock and breed from them, in order to accentuate these traits. He then realised that nature itself would select in a similar way, to accentuate traits that gave a better chance of breeding success. He then theorised that, if this happens for long enough, the organism can change enough to be regarded as a new species. And that's it!

So, once you have an organism (with any internal biochemical processes you like) that reproduces and hands on its traits to the next generation, you will get evolution if there is anything in the environment that gives certain traits a reproductive advantage. It's a natural amplifier, basically. And we have plenty of evidence that this does indeed happen, from fossils, from embryology and from observation in the field (peppered moth, cancer and bacterial drug resistance, etc). None of this evidence relies on any assumptions about biochemistry either. (Though, as it happens, the advent of DNA analysis have given us another independent corroboration of the theory.)

The rest is filling the detail, on DNA, RNA, gene expression, genetic drift etc etc, in other words understanding the highly complex biochemistry in life here on Earth by which traits are handed on from one generation to succeeding ones. Now that is very much a live field of science. We are constantly learning more and revising our models, just as we should.

You can show that a process occurs without understanding in full detail exactly how, as my examples of heat engines, electromagnetism and anatomy illustrate.

That's quite a "mouthful".
The scientific method does not deal with ifs or maybes, does it.
You do not know that this works.
The evidence that you refer to is as I said before, all interpreted to fit that opinion.

I made a post a few minutes ago, containing a bit about this sacred cow.
It's bad enough that the ancient Israelites made a sacred calf, but now today, persons declined to try to beat that by making a sacred cow.
So, that's why people in all fields continue Kicking The Sacred Cow.

 

[nPeace]

So you believe that every species that has ever existed in the fossil record popped fully-formed into existence from nothing before subsequently going extinct, and that later on another species popped into existence fully-formed from nothing that just so happened to look almost identical to the previous species despite sharing no ancestry whatsoever before going extinct itself, and that this process repeated itself over and over again for millions of years for every species on the planet?

Nope. Not I.
Where did such a bizarre idea come from?

 

[Subduction Zone]

That's quite a "mouthful".
The scientific method does not deal with ifs or maybes, does it.
You do not know that this works.
The evidence that you refer to is as I said before, all interpreted to fit that opinion.

I made a post a few minutes ago, containing a bit about this sacred cow.
It's bad enough that the ancient Israelites made a sacred calf, but now today, persons declined to try to beat that by making a sacred cow.
So, that's why people in all fields continue Kicking The Sacred Cow.

That is simply incorrect. Perhaps we need to go over the concept of evidence. The scientific evidence supports only one side. I checked out your source and it appears to be wrong from the very start. Almost all fossils are seen as transitional today, and the record has been largely fleshed out.

 

[nPeace]

That is simply incorrect. Perhaps we need to go over the concept of evidence. The scientific evidence supports only one side. I checked out your source and it appears to be wrong from the very start. Almost all fossils are seen as transitional today, and the record has been largely fleshed out.

Did you intentionally miss this post?

 

[Subduction Zone]

Did you intentionally miss this post?

No, I responded to that. You may have missed it. You were guilty of an equivocation fallacy.

 

[exchemist]

That's quite a "mouthful".
The scientific method does not deal with ifs or maybes, does it.
You do not know that this works.
The evidence that you refer to is as I said before, all interpreted to fit that opinion.

I made a post a few minutes ago, containing a bit about this sacred cow.
It's bad enough that the ancient Israelites made a sacred calf, but now today, persons declined to try to beat that by making a sacred cow.
So, that's why people in all fields continue Kicking The Sacred Cow.

The scientific method is all about ifs, buts and maybes. There are no proofs in science, only evidence, either for or against a hypothesis or theory.

So sure, I do not know that "this" (not entirely sure what you are referring to here) works. But the hypothesis of evolution is borne out by the evidence we have. Importantly, the evolutionary hypothesis also make successful predictions about what we may expect to find in future. So it is far from a case of just "interpreting" data to make it fit. We actually predict new data and then go and look for it - and find it. For example evolution predicts transitional fossils between forms and the age range of the rocks in which they might be found. And we find them.

Thus evolution predicted feathers on dinosaurs: Feathered dinosaur - Wikipedia
And Bingo! we found them. We can see, from archaeopteryx etc, the transitional forms from dinosaurs to birds. So it makes immediate sense that we now find feathers on dinosaurs that are not birds as well.

And of course we now have new corroborations of kinship from DNA comparisons as well, which were not available at all in Darwin's day. This gives us another, quite independent, means of corroborating the theory.

So it will not do to pretend that the findings are all massaged to fit the model. There is far too much and it is far, far too consistent

 

[ImmortalFlame]

Nope. Not I.
Where did such a bizarre idea come from?

Well, it must be what you believe if you don't believe the geological column and fossils support common descent.

 

[ecco]

From the OP:

Tour:
Beyond our planet, all the others that have been probed are lifeless, a result in accord with our chemical expectations.​

It's pretty easy to spot people who intentionally try to deceive. One of their techniques is to make a statement of fact based on current understanding and make it sound like an end-all truth.

Anyone quoting these statements is just as guilty of intentional deceit as the original author.

 

[tas8831]

And here's a critique of his response to Tour.


Calling the wrong guy stupid

Tour is just another religious nut claiming authority where he has none. Tour is a nanotube chemist - big deal.. Who cares what a nanotube chemist claims ab out evolution?

He pontificates about evolution, claims his colleagues agree with him (but won't name any), admits he is a layman on the subject, claims nobody understands evolution (but then backs out when Nick Matzke agrees to meet with him to discuss it - but only if they can record it)...
Yeah, he's stupid. But not as stupid as the guy that wrote that response:

He holds a BBA from the University of Georgia and worked as a computer programmer for over twenty years before transitioning to full-time writing. His writing has also been influenced by shorter stints working as a bartender, real estate investor and landlord.
​

You people shoot yourselves in the foot at every turn. I love it!

 

[tas8831]

I repeat: I've never come accross somebody who argues against biological evolution while NOT having some kind of religious agenda to go along with it.

Same here. Knew a guy in college that was a creationist. Said he had 'done research' and used to be an old earth evolutionist. Then amazingly became a YEC. As I got to know him better, he unwittingly refuted his own story - he had NEVER been an OEE. He had been home schooled by a bible zealot father and then attended a 'TRUE bible school' . His time as an 'evolutionist'? As a teenager, he rebelled a bit - smoked some pot, kissed a girl. That was it.
The only person I have ever read about that was perhaps not a closet creationist is Stanly Salthe, but he is no a young earther, nor even an anti-evolutionist - he is just mad that the scientific community did not adopt his version of evolution.

 

[tas8831]

A mistake? Scientists cannot afford that kind of mistakes! You can't have sloppy science - because when you do, it's not real science anymore!

A bit off topic, but since you mention mistakes and sloppy science -

Here is a story about some genuine sloppy science:

The Lancelet: Dr. David Menton is a liar.

Summary: When the initial Tiktaalik paper was published, the YEC crowd went into a a desperate attempt-to-debunk frenzy. David Menton, creationist anatomist, was one of the first to write up a 'scientific' critique.
He made 2 big errors - one of which is outlined in the link - he dismissed the relevance of Tiktaalik's pelvic fins, and he claimed that there had to be a bone-to-bone articulation between the pectoral and pelvic girdles and the axial skeleton in order for Tiktaalik to be able to 'walk' on land.

Problem for the YEC re: the pelvic girdle - it was not mentioned in the first paper. Menton just made it all up.

Problem for the YEC re: necessity of bone-to-bone articulation to support weight to walk on land - elephants don't have this, yet they do OK.


I was generous when I considered this 'sloppy'. It was malicious mendacity, all to prop up an ancient middle eastern mythology.

I think creationists have the corner on THAT market.

 

[tas8831]

Is this all we're going to do now? Link to other people's opinions, then link to other people's assessments of those opinions in response?

Easy, now - the guy with the blog is a Christian writer with a BA and worked as a bartender once!

 

[tas8831]

Lol. You're in a state of denial.

So precious - I love how creationist layfolk love to argue via authority when the (non)authority happens to be one of them, but what of all the other actual authorities? Nope. They are like children on a school yard.

 

[tas8831]

One of their techniques is to make a statement of fact based on current understanding and make it sound like an end-all truth.

Especially since, if we were to apply that standard back at them, we would have to conclude that their god does not exist since no earth-changing 'miracles' have happened since we have been able to actually record or accurately and speedily report such things.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

His time as an 'evolutionist'? As a teenager, he rebelled a bit - smoked some pot, kissed a girl. That was it.

That is very interesting and a very common theme, which is quite revealing.

Reading between the lines, it means that when he (and others in his religious circles) uses the term "evolutionist", he doesn't actually mean "someone who understands and accept 21st century principles and models of biology". No, no.... he means.... "a sinner".

A pot smoking, girl kissing, not-a-good-christian sinner.

This is how they condition their kids.
They equate accepting mainstream biology with "sinning".
It doesn't matter what biology is all about.

Just like it doesn't matter that kissing a girl as a teenager is actually not only harmless, it's likely very healthy psychologically as it helps in growing in sexual maturity and emotional development.

No, what matters is that it is a SIN.


It's not about rational vs irrational.
It's not about good science vs bad science.
It's not about evidence.
It's not about anything real.

It's only about sinners and hunting them down with symbolic (thankfully) torches and pitchforks.

 

[ecco]

His time as an 'evolutionist'? As a teenager, he rebelled a bit - smoked some pot, kissed a girl. That was it.

Hilarious. But probably similar to other "evolutionists" who return to Creationism.

 

[ecco]

Especially since, if we were to apply that standard back at them, we would have to conclude that their god does not exist since no earth-changing 'miracles' have happened since we have been able to actually record or accurately and speedily report such things.

Apparently, you haven't been watching the news.
Every day someone claims that their survival during a tornado is a miracle.
Every day someone claims that their survival during a car crash is a miracle.

Three people shot. One survives - it's a miracle.
A missing child found alive - it's a miracle.
Plane crashes on landing 535 dead. Eight survive - it's a miracle.

Not quite in the same category as miracles:
I'd like to thank my producers and God and my fans for this Grammy. (Did God not like the other contenders? Did they not pray hard enough?)

Score a winning touchdown and raise a hand to thank Jesus. (Did God not like the other team? The other team's kicker did raise a hand to thank Jesus when he scored the go-ahead FG, was that not enough?)




I

 

[We Never Know]

In scientific terms, "macro" refers to any evolution above the species level (i.e: speciation). However, whenever I've heard creationists define the term it always seems to mean "the extent of evolution past which we have yet to directly observe". Whenever I point out that macro-evolution originally refers to speciation - which has been observed numerous times - this tends to be completely ignored and then they simply assert macro-evolution is MORE than speciation, and when asked to specifically define the point at which micro becomes macro they never really can.

Same species of birds or fish for example that have been seperated and can no longer breed to produce offspring and are now classified as different species, in my opinion isn't macro-evolution, it would be more micro-evolution.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Same species of birds or fish for example that have been seperated and can no longer breed to produce offspring and are now classified as different species, in my opinion isn't macro-evolution, it would be more micro-evolution.

You're free to use the word however you like, but if you want to be understood, you will want to say what you mean by macroevolution. Creationists typically are vague on this. They're not clear about how much evolution can occur before it's called macroevolution, even though they say that it does not occur.

Personally, I don't use the word because it has no utility to me. There's just evolution whether we are talking about across a generation or across an eon. I have no need to put an arbitrary line separating one degree of evolution from another as the creationist likes to do when arguing that one occurs and the other does not.