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Author | Topic: Why is the Intelligent Designer so inept? | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Coyote Member (Idle past 2136 days) Posts: 6117 Joined: |
Is that a paradigm?
It is a religious belief seeking to distort and misrepresent scientific evidence in order to fool school boards and courts into believing it is really science. Or an unevidenced assumption? Has ID been confirmed by the standard scientific method of verification of predicted results? Or does it remain an untested hypothesis? Religious belief is the exact opposite of science. Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.
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Straggler Member (Idle past 96 days) Posts: 10333 From: London England Joined: |
Straggler writes: Or an unevidenced assumption? Or does it remain an untested hypothesis? That is why I don't categorize I.D. as science. Can a paradigm be an unevidenced assumption? I would say yes but it could very well be a weak one but I don't think I.D. is weak. If it is not science can it be a "paradigm"? Evolution is evidenced by means of prediction and verification. ID is not. Surely by whatever measure we are to use regarding such things ID must be considered inferior on this basis even if no other? No?
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Straggler Member (Idle past 96 days) Posts: 10333 From: London England Joined: |
It is a religious belief seeking to distort and misrepresent scientific evidence in order to fool school boards and courts into believing it is really science. Religious belief is the exact opposite of science. Oh I agree with all of that. But demonstrating that this is the case is another question. For example "irreducible complexity" is arguably a scientific argument. It is just one that has failed.
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Coyote Member (Idle past 2136 days) Posts: 6117 Joined: |
But demonstrating that this is the case is another question.
The way Behe approached ID, through irreducible complexity, was arguably not science. For example "irreducible complexity" is arguably a scientific argument. It is just one that has failed. I think this was demonstrated on the witness stand at Dover when he was asked about the background research he had conducted. The attorney interrogating him was able to produce a huge stack of articles (50 or more if I remember correctly) that he was not familiar with. He had to admit, in essence, that he came to his conclusions without benefit of scientific research and in contrast to existing scientific knowledge. That's pretty much the same as creation "science," from which ID is evolved. Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.
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Percy Member Posts: 22505 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.4 |
traderdrew writes: During the Cambrian we had a strong diversity of phylum but not a strong diversity of species. What does this imply? What does this imply? I'd like to know what it even means before I think about what it might imply. How does the "strength of diversity" of phyla or species manifest itself? Is this "strength of diversity" a measure of their rate of increase, e.g., the number of new phyla created per million years versus the number of new species created per million years? Or is it a measure of the number of species per phyla? Neither of these possibilities support what you say next, so I have no idea what you mean.
It implies rapid evolution (one phylum seemingly morphing into another phylum) if you wish to believe in such things. The Cambrian Explosion is just the name that was chosen when at first it appeared that evolution was very rapid during this period. We now know that the Cambrian explosion lasted a long time, and that it includes a portion of the preCambrian period. It probably lasted around 60 or 70 million years. We can compare more recent rates of evolution to the rate of evolution then. 70 million years ago mammals were minor role players and dinosaurs ruled the earth, while today dinosaurs are extinct and mammals (especially people) rule the earth. That's an enormous amount of evolutionary change, yet there was nothing exceptional about this rate of evolution over the past 70 million years. The same is true of the rate of evolution during the Cambrian. But the Cambrian is the period when a great many new body plans emerged, phyla if you like. The reasons for this are no mystery - they're quite obvious, in fact. The late preCambrian and on into the Cambrian was when multicellular life first appeared, along with hard body parts which preserve much better in the fossil record, and these factors opened up an enormous number of new ecological niches into which newly evolved lifeforms radiated, and the hard body parts created the illusion of sudden appearance in the fossil record. But with the discovery of more and more soft bodied predecessors we now understand that it was nowhere near as sudden as originally thought, and that the pace of evolution during this period was no greater than today.
Once again, I do not disagree with evolution. I just disagree with the mechanisms involved. The mechanisms are descent with modification (mutations and allele remixing) and natural selection. By the way, the point you were originally trying to make about Lynn Margulis was that she rejects mutation as a significant driving force of evolution. This isn't true. What she actually believes is that DNA contributed by viruses and bacteria play a far greater role in eukaryote evolution than mainstream biologists currently accept. But the important point is just one of terminology: changes to DNA caused by viruses and bacteria are still called mutations. Margulis definitely does not reject the possibility of mutations affecting evolution, which is what you originally claimed, and which is what I pointed out was incorrect.
Now back to the hox gene link. If you have the knowledge that can refute Paul Chien's knowledge, then feel free. You're missing the point, so let me provide a little history. When EvC Forum was first created, one of the problems we had was that some people liked to debate by link. One person would say, "I'm right because of http://www.sitex.com," and another person would reply, "No, you're wrong because of Home | Sitey," which I think we can agree is a pointless way of discussion. We also found that people were often posting bare links that later discussion revealed they didn't understand. And so we added rule 5 of the Forum Guidelines:
I did extend to you the courtesy of actually looking at your Chien link, but as I said, I don't see how it supports your position. If you'd like to enter Chien's arguments into the discussion then, just as the Forum Guidelines say, you'll have to do it in your own words and use the link as a reference.
I do believe DNA and the genome is very complex. The more I read about it the more I get the impression that it wasn't created by accident. I thought I already addressed this, but if not let me say it again. Scientists do not believe DNA emerged through some unlikely accident. They think it emerged gradually over millions of years from simpler predecessors through a process of imperfect replication and selection. --Percy
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Straggler Member (Idle past 96 days) Posts: 10333 From: London England Joined: |
The way Behe approached ID, through irreducible complexity, was arguably not science. I think this was demonstrated on the witness stand at Dover when he was asked about the background research he had conducted. The attorney interrogating him was able to produce a huge stack of articles (50 or more if I remember correctly) that he was not familiar with. He had to admit, in essence, that he came to his conclusions without benefit of scientific research and in contrast to existing scientific knowledge. That's pretty much the same as creation "science," from which ID is evolved. True. Because Behe set out to prove his hypothesis correct rather than attempting to objectively test it by means of prediction and verification (or as would be the case in this instance refutation). However I think that the irreducible complexity hypothesis is a valid hypothesis in scientific terms. Just. It's derivation is admittedly dodgy (although ID of some sort has arguably been the prevalent hypothesis for the majority of human history) and the attempts of it's proponents to verify/refute it are undeniably woeful..... But I think it remains a valid, testable (albeit failed) hypothesis in scientific terms.
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bluescat48 Member (Idle past 4220 days) Posts: 2347 From: United States Joined: |
The Cambrian Explosion is just the name that was chosen when at first it appeared that evolution was very rapid during this period. That is the problem with giving a non-science title to a phenomenon. Handles such as Explosion, Bang and Drift, though may be understood by the science crowd, seem to give false implications to "Joe Average." There is no better love between 2 people than mutual respect for each other WT Young, 2002 Who gave anyone the authority to call me an authority on anything. WT Young, 1969 Since Evolution is only ~90% correct it should be thrown out and replaced by Creation which has even a lower % of correctness. W T Young, 2008
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Blue Jay Member (Idle past 2728 days) Posts: 2843 From: You couldn't pronounce it with your mouthparts Joined: |
Hi, Traderdrew.
Welcome to EvC! Before I begin, I'd like to draw your attention to the dBCodes options at EvC. For example, press the "peek" button at the bottom right corner of this message, and you can see the codes that I entered to make the following quote boxes:
Some Person writes: Something some person said. quote: It's much easier to follow the discussion if you use these quoting formats for stuff you're cutting and pasting from other peoples' posts. ----- Okay, now I would like to add a few things to Percy's explanations about phyla and the Tree of Life. If you go back to the Cambrian period and look at the fossil organisms carefully, you will notice that the different phyla were not as well-defined back then as they are now. You will notice, for instance, that the entirety of our phylum, the Chordata, that was present in the Cambrian period, were small, simple, soft-bodied creatures that are more similar to worms and slugs than they are to us, at least in morphology. You will also notice that the oldest "arthropods" do not have legs, which are the defining feature of their phylum in modern times. These ancient arthropods would later develop flap-like structures attached to their gills, which would eventually develop into segmented legs. Today, we look out over the diversity of life, and we see that zebras and octopus and mosquitos are extremely different organisms. Thus, when we hear that the phyla that include zebras, octopus and mosquitos all appeared in the Cambrian period, we envision complex chordates, cephalopods and insects popping up from nowhere, and conclude that evolution couldn't possibly explain this. But, the truth is that the zebras of the Cambrian were small, squishy, worm-like proto-fish with very little, if any, skeleton; that the octopus of the Cambrian were shelly snails without differentiated tentacles; and that the mosquitos of the Cambrian were worm-like swimming things without legs, antennae or wings. In fact, close observation would show that the Cambrian animals are more similar to one another than their purported descendants are to them. Compare Haikouichthys, for instance, to a ring-tailed lemur, then to a sea cucumber, and tell me which it more closely resembles. ----- Phyla did not appear in the Cambrian: rather, many Cambrian animals evolved from a common stock, and we retrospectively classified them into different phyla based on the distinguishing characteristics of their descendants. The vague hints of these diagnostic characters that can be found in Cambrian animals shows the fragility of our classification system for these creatures: while a check-mark next to "notocord" or "jointed legs" looks really good on paper, in reality, it's very difficult to discern these features in Cambrian animals. Edited by Bluejay, : No reason given. Edited by Bluejay, : "the" and "that" are very different words. -Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus) Darwin loves you.
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bluescat48 Member (Idle past 4220 days) Posts: 2347 From: United States Joined: |
Bluejay writes: But, the truth is that the zebras of the Cambrian were small, squishy, worm-like proto-fish with very little, if any, skeleton; that the octopus of the Cambrian were shelly snails without differentiated tentacles; and that the mosquitos of the Cambrian were worm-like swimming things without legs, antennae or wings. One point, if one removes the appendages from the stomate animals (which includes all animal phyla except accoelomortphs, Ctenophores, Cnidarians, Placozans & Poriferans) they are still vermifoid either in the adult stage or, in the case of some such as echinoderms, the larval stage. There are many that do not have any or very limited appendages such as snakes, caecilians, eels, lampreys & hagfish and all of these, I have mentioned in this sentence, are chordates. There is no better love between 2 people than mutual respect for each other WT Young, 2002 Who gave anyone the authority to call me an authority on anything. WT Young, 1969 Since Evolution is only ~90% correct it should be thrown out and replaced by Creation which has even a lower % of correctness. W T Young, 2008
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traderdrew Member (Idle past 5184 days) Posts: 379 From: Palm Beach, Florida Joined: |
What does this imply? I'd like to know what it even means before I think about what it might imply. How does the "strength of diversity" of phyla or species manifest itself? Is this "strength of diversity" a measure of their rate of increase, e.g., the number of new phyla created per million years versus the number of new species created per million years? Or is it a measure of the number of species per phyla? Neither of these possibilities support what you say next, so I have no idea what you mean. It is not some kind of esoteric science. The people at TalkOrigins Archive: Exploring the Creation/Evolution Controversy know there needed to be a flexible genome. There was a lack of transitional fossils and a diverse amount of body plans during the explosion. The ratio of phylum and species was unusual relative to other time periods.
The Cambrian Explosion is just the name that was chosen when at first it appeared that evolution was very rapid during this period. We now know that the Cambrian explosion lasted a long time, and that it includes a portion of the preCambrian period. It probably lasted around 60 or 70 million years. We can compare more recent rates of evolution to the rate of evolution then. 70 million years ago mammals were minor role players and dinosaurs ruled the earth, while today dinosaurs are extinct and mammals (especially people) rule the earth. That's an enormous amount of evolutionary change, yet there was nothing exceptional about this rate of evolution over the past 70 million years. The same is true of the rate of evolution during the Cambrian. I am not referring to a 60 to 80 million year time period. I know that the Cambrian lasted about 80 million years. The Cambrian explosion refers to a 5 to 10 million year time period. I also know of no evidence that supports your belief that the rate of evolution was just as quick during the era of the dinosaurs as it was during the Cambrian. Unless perhaps and maybe perhaps, you shoehorn the phylum together. I get the impression that you are starting to reach for answers. I do have a belief system that explains the rapid evolution of the dinosaurs but that is another topic.
The late preCambrian and on into the Cambrian was when multicellular life first appeared, along with hard body parts which preserve much better in the fossil record The first multicellular life occurred during the Ediacaran era. What is the Ediacaran Biota?
The Ediacaran biota emerged about 610 million years ago and had largely disappeared by the beginning of the Cambrian. Margulis definitely does not reject the possibility of mutations affecting evolution, which is what you originally claimed, and which is what I pointed out was incorrect. I'm not sure I wrote it that way or if you misunderstood me. I'm not going to argue that. However, I believe in the possibility of mutations affecting evolution. I’m sure this is possible under chaos theory because it seems to me that the world operates out of chaos. Chaos tells me that you can’t have evolution driven solely by random mutations and natural selection. If you wish I can write an article articulating my belief system in evolution. You guys can do whatever you want with it. Edited by traderdrew, : No reason given. Edited by traderdrew, : No reason given. Edited by traderdrew, : html editing Edited by traderdrew, : No reason given.
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traderdrew Member (Idle past 5184 days) Posts: 379 From: Palm Beach, Florida Joined: |
But, the truth is that the zebras of the Cambrian were small, squishy, worm-like proto-fish with very little, if any, skeleton; that the octopus of the Cambrian were shelly snails without differentiated tentacles; and that the mosquitos of the Cambrian were worm-like swimming things without legs, antennae or wings. In fact, close observation would show that the Cambrian animals are more similar to one another than their purported descendants are to them. Compare Haikouichthys, for instance, to a ring-tailed lemur, then to a sea cucumber, and tell me which it more closely resembles. True, I can very well mislead someone with what I stated. If I was a pure evolutionist, I might propose that the evolution of the organisms that led the the Cambrian era somehow occurred in the embryonic stages of their development. I suppose it is refreshing for some of you to see an IDist attempting to question his belief system. Edited by traderdrew, : No reason given.
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Taq Member Posts: 10085 Joined: Member Rating: 5.6 |
Phyla have only existed for a few hundred years. They were invented by Linnaeus. Phyla are not real things, they are human contrivances. Now I have heard all of it. If this is true then why doesn't science just throw it out? Documentation please. Science has thrown the Linnaean system out, for the most part. A vast majority of taxonomists use cladistics. As I stated before, the only objective division in biology is at the species level. That's it. Everything above the species level (genera, families, orders) are human contrivances that we use to group species together.
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Taq Member Posts: 10085 Joined: Member Rating: 5.6 |
I am familiar with the term binominal nomenclature as used for species descriptions. The diversity above genera obviously grows stronger. Obviously there are large differences between phylum represented by plants, spiders, corals, and humans. Why aren't mammals, reptiles, and birds all in separate phyla? Who gets to decide these things? What are the criteria that are used?
I do believe DNA and the genome is very complex. As it should be given the fact that the genomes we are studying are hte product of 3.5 billion years of evolution. You want to pretend that modern genomes are the product of accidents. They aren't. They are the product of a known process that is not accidental. That process is natural selection.
Secondly, "Hox gene (regulatory-gene) mutations" can only re-arrange parts which are already there--they cannot create truly novel structures. What science has shown is that there is no such thing as a novel structure. All the structures we see are modifications of pre-existing structures. Our limbs are modified fish fins, as one example. Two of our middle ear bones are modified reptillian jaw bones, as another example.
"The drawback for scientists is that nature's shrewd economy conceals enormous complexity. Researchers are finding evidence that the Hox genes and the non-Hox homeobox genes are not independent agents but members of vast genetic networks that connect hundreds, perhaps thousands, of other genes. Change one component, and myriad others will change as well--and not necessarily for the better. Thus dreams of tinkering with nature's toolbox to bring to life what scientists call a "hopeful monster"- such as a fish with feet--are likely to remain elusive." (Nash J.M., "Where Do Toes Come From?," Time, Vol. 146, No. 5, July 31, 1995. Also at "Page not found | TIME") Both icthyostega and acanthostega are fish with feet.
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Percy Member Posts: 22505 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.4 |
traderdrew writes: It is not some kind of esoteric science. Your claim was hard to understand because you were vague, not esoteric.
The people at TalkOrigins Archive: Exploring the Creation/Evolution Controversy know there needed to be a flexible genome. You're referencing a website with thousands of webpages. Is there any particular webpage at TalkOrigins that you meant to reference?
There was a lack of transitional fossils... The predecessors of Cambrian species tended to have soft body parts which are much less likely to become preserved in the fossil record.
The ratio of phylum and species was unusual relative to other time periods. Just after the first species of a new phylum has emerged, how many species would you expect there to be in that phylum? Wouldn't you expect just one? And there wouldn't be anything unusual about that, right? Because no other number is possible, right? Continuing forward in time from the origin of this new phylum by a few million years, you still couldn't expect there to be as many species in that phylum as there would be 100 million years later. And there would be even more species in that phylum 200 million years later. And even more 300 million years later. Right? Of course, the increase in number of species across all phyla couldn't be continuous because of extinction events like the Permian and Cretaceous extinctions, but regardless your statement that "The ratio of phylum and species was unusual relative to other time periods" makes no sense. It wouldn't be the same as subsequent time periods, but that's precisely what you would expect, and there's nothing unusual about it.
The Cambrian explosion refers to a 5 to 10 million year time period. It's true that this is what the evidence appeared to indicate at one time. As more evidence rolled in, such as of soft-bodied ancestors in the late Precambrian and more details of the Cambrian itself, it was realized that the Cambrian explosion wasn't anywhere near as rapid as originally thought. While still a period of evolution more rapid than the pace we see today, it took more like 70 or 80 million years. As I attempted to get you to recognize in my previous email, 70 or 80 million years ago dinosaurs still roamed the earth. And as Bluejay pointed out to you, the differences between phyla in the Cambrian was much less than today. Phyla were created based on differences we see in the characteristics of creatures today. These differences were nowhere near so apparent in their ancestors of 500 million years ago, and in many cases the modern distinctions we see today did not even exist.
I also know of no evidence that supports your belief that the rate of evolution was just as quick during the era of the dinosaurs as it was during the Cambrian. You misunderstood. I was talking about the period not of the dinosaurs but of the period since the dinosaur extinction. And I wasn't saying anything about the rate of evolution but of the amount. 70 million years ago the largest and most sophisticated mammal was catlike, and today the most sophisticated mammal is a person and the largest is a whale, quite a huge amount of change. Compare this to the amount of change during the equally long period of the Cambrian explosion, where basically you had soft-bodied worms at the beginning, and by the end you had more complicated worms, some with hard body parts, and a larger variety of body plans.
The first multicellular life occurred during the Ediacaran era. Yes, of course, and the Ediacaran period immediately preceded the Cambrian. As I said, the organisms with hard bodied parts that suddenly appeared in the Cambrian fossil record had soft-bodied Precambrian predecessors.
Margulis definitely does not reject the possibility of mutations affecting evolution, which is what you originally claimed, and which is what I pointed out was incorrect. I'm not sure I wrote it that way or if you misunderstood me. You wrote it that way in Message 218 when describing Lynn Margulis's ideas and something you called "the complexity theory of evolution":
traderdrew in Message 218 writes: These theories are not forms of neo-Darwinism because unguided mutations are not involved in these theories. I still don't know what the "complexity theory of evolution" is, but Lynn Margulis works within the conceptual framework of the modern synthetic theory of evolution that combines genetics with Darwin's ideas about descent with modification and natural selection. She does have strong disagreements with mainstream biologists about the degreee to which viruses and bacteria contribute mutations and influence evolution. I tend to agree with Margulis that these influences are underestimated. --Percy Edited by Percy, : Grammar. Edited by Percy, : Typo.
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traderdrew Member (Idle past 5184 days) Posts: 379 From: Palm Beach, Florida Joined: |
As I stated before, the only objective division in biology is at the species level. That's it. Everything above the species level (genera, families, orders) are human contrivances that we use to group species together. Is that the official scientific point of view or is that just a contrived argument in an attempt to refute on of my points? I have studied some genera. You can't tell me that genera are contrived separations from each other.
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