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Author Topic:   Why is evolution so controversial?
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 211 of 969 (724292)
04-15-2014 5:26 PM
Reply to: Message 202 by Percy
04-15-2014 3:18 PM


Re: Back to earth
Those are just the pre-reqs. For undergraduates I would expect evolution to be included in the biology class.
But I'm looking at the curricula at UT Southwestern and Stanford, and I don't see many required courses that would have to be extensively about evolution. Perhaps a comparative medicine course when not taught by a science adverse professor? Definitely in the genetics course the topic would be unavoidable but that course does not seem to be mandatory.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him. Galileo Galilei
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass

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NoNukes
Inactive Member


(1)
Message 212 of 969 (724293)
04-15-2014 5:28 PM
Reply to: Message 209 by Faith
04-15-2014 5:22 PM


Re: Calling AZPaul!
I hope he'll do it again, even if he does hate everything I believe and will say it as obnoxiously as possible.
We don't agree on all that much, but I do try to be fair. When you're right, you're right.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him. Galileo Galilei
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass

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 Message 209 by Faith, posted 04-15-2014 5:22 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 213 of 969 (724296)
04-15-2014 5:40 PM
Reply to: Message 212 by NoNukes
04-15-2014 5:28 PM


Re: Calling AZPaul!
At least he can think and follow an argument most of the time.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 212 by NoNukes, posted 04-15-2014 5:28 PM NoNukes has replied

Replies to this message:
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Taq
Member
Posts: 9970
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.6


(2)
Message 214 of 969 (724303)
04-15-2014 8:41 PM
Reply to: Message 190 by Faith
04-15-2014 10:58 AM


Re: Back to earth
Yes, following someone else's characterization of my argument, even if Earth is only 6000 years old the cow in the Precambrian is not to be expected because that's too deep for the burial of land animals in the Flood. It's not impossible on Flood theory but it is highly unlikely.
And yet you can't tell us why it is unlikely that we would find a single mammal species anywhere in the Pre-cambrian through the Devonian. It is just something you have made up.
The falsification stands.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 190 by Faith, posted 04-15-2014 10:58 AM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 216 by Faith, posted 04-15-2014 9:43 PM Taq has replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


(1)
Message 215 of 969 (724308)
04-15-2014 9:17 PM
Reply to: Message 213 by Faith
04-15-2014 5:40 PM


Why Is Evolution So Uncontroversial? Redux
Perhaps we could get back to the topic or some semblance of it, rather than a general discussion of your ignorance of ... well, everything.
Asked to explain why evolution is so uncontroversial among scientists, you replied:
I'll tell ya why it's so "uncontroversial" as you put it. It's because it's unfalsifiable ...
Now, even you with your pathetic ignorance of the scientific method must have gathered that scientists consider unfalsifiability to be a bad thing. A very bad thing. A fatal flaw in the pretensions of any idea to even be considered as scientific.
So your answer is as though you were asked "Why is chocolate cake so popular with gourmets?" and replied "Because it is made out of shit, tastes revolting, and causes nausea and projectile vomiting in all those unfortunate enough to partake of it". It's not just that your answer is false, it's that if it was true it would not explain the phenomenon it's purported to explain, but rather would render it utterly inexplicable.
So, would you like to try again? Why is there so little scientific controversy over evolution?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 213 by Faith, posted 04-15-2014 5:40 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 218 by Faith, posted 04-15-2014 9:45 PM Dr Adequate has replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 216 of 969 (724310)
04-15-2014 9:43 PM
Reply to: Message 214 by Taq
04-15-2014 8:41 PM


Re: Back to earth
Yes, following someone else's characterization of my argument, even if Earth is only 6000 years old the cow in the Precambrian is not to be expected because that's too deep for the burial of land animals in the Flood. It's not impossible on Flood theory but it is highly unlikely.
And yet you can't tell us why it is unlikely that we would find a single mammal species anywhere in the Pre-cambrian through the Devonian. It is just something you have made up.
The falsification stands.
Oh but I have told you and many times too.
Land animals got buried in the higher levels of the strata, that's the explanation and there's nothing wrong with it. Certainly no more wrong with it than the idiotic idea that flat slabs of rock represent time periods of millions of years each. A lot less crazy than that as a matter of fact.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 214 by Taq, posted 04-15-2014 8:41 PM Taq has replied

Replies to this message:
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RAZD
Member (Idle past 1404 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


(2)
Message 217 of 969 (724311)
04-15-2014 9:44 PM
Reply to: Message 94 by Cedre
04-12-2014 10:06 AM


Taxonomy vs Cladistics
Thanks again for your reply RAZD
Thank you for the opportunity to discuss this in greater detail. I always happy to help people that want to learn, including other readers of these posts.
You said:
Start by discarding everything you think you know about evolution, no matter what the source of that information was.
Why on earth should I do that? At least show that everything I know about evolution is false!
Not everything but enough to confuse you. Some of the things you think are about evolution are not, and some are wrong. Better to start all over with a clean slate than to try to tease out the wheat from the chaff in lengthy posts (like this). There are resources available, and if you are truly interested in learning you will pursue studying them.
You said:
and what you have said about it leads me to think that it was worse than useless, as it appears that the teacher was not that well informed ...
Uphold this please! Thanks.
In Message 1 you said:
quote:
Even more shocking was my biology professor's reply when I asked her to elaborate on some detail of evolution during a class, she told me not to trouble myself with such question that will only distract the lesson, and then she added evolution is contentious anyway. "Evolution is contentious!" From the lips of a research professor!
Evolution is only contentious to those who do not understand it and have religious reasons for not accepting it. This is a very very small minority within the scientific crowd (people who use the scientific method to reach conclusions based on evidence and repeated testing).
So if you have someone teaching you that says evolution is contentious then I conclude that she is not well versed in evolution.
Of course she may not have wanted to answer your question because the question was silly (you don't tell us what the question in question was), and you may have misunderstood that your question was contentious ...
You said:
and I have some trouble with the concept of a high ranking medical program ignoring evolution, especially when it comes to diseases. Treating this years flu with last years inoculations won't take into account how the flu virus has evolved in that time, just for one example.
Another example is that I have lymphoma cancer, I have had chemo therapy 6 or 7 times (I'm losing count), each time it is different chemicals because the cancer evolves to be immune to the last ones. Not understanding this would be fatal.
I’m not studying to become a pharmacologist. My job’s to diagnose/treat with available treatments. In any case I already pointed out that although touched upon in Medical School evolution is not given front page and centre treatment.
And your job to diagnose and treat with available treatments will be severely handicapped, imho, without understanding how evolution is involved in the diseases and their resistance to old treatments due to evolution. It would be like trying to walk with your feet tied together ...
You said:
Not quite right.
What’s not quite right about what I said? Are you disputing that phyla are based on body plans? Or is your issue with claim that different body plans evolved at Cambrian explosion and later in the Palaeozoic?
Phyla are (arbitrarily defined) based on inherited characteristics that separate the group from other groups, not on whole body plans, per se. Where one taxonomic level ends and another begins is fairly arbitrary in dividing up the natural history of life on earth. The traits used to identify levels are not whole body plans but specializations of specific parts -- the parts that have evolved on a different path than other organisms.
When speciation occurs one daughter population diverges from another daughter population because they evolve different hereditary traits from their common ancestor population. Descendants of those daughter populations will always be separated by that initial division. This is a process that continues to this day.
Remember that what you originally said was:
Message 30: There are dozens of different phyla of animals, each with its own body plan, and according to Wikipedia a "phyla can be thought of as grouping organisms based on general specialization of body plan", so it goes without saying that new body plans arose to account for the phyla of animals we see around us today. So if a new phylum emerges we can reasonably predict that it would have a unique body plan.
There are two rather major problems with this thinking:
First, "body plan" is a rather clunky and useless term to use in this regard and this is what has caused some of your confusion. Evolution works by modification of previous forms, most traits are inherited from their parent/ancestral population, some are new mutations that may or may not be beneficial. If you select a species at any time in the past and compare it to the parent population and the daughter population, you would likely be hard pressed to document any visible differences in their "body plans" ... only after many generations would you see some difference. In one sense new body plans evolve continually with every speciation, we just haven't seen yet how different they will become.
Based on similarities in inherited traits, different species can be grouped as descended from one daughter population while other species can be grouped as descended from a different daughter population, each descended from a common parent population, and wikipedia would be better to say "phyla (and other classification levels) can be thought of as grouping organisms based on general development and specialization of different inherited traits." New body plans don't pop into existence fully developed, they evolve over many generations of accumulated adaptations, which gets us to the other problem:
Second, a "new phylum" won't "emerge" -- unless a new species appears that is completely unrelated to any known breeding\ancestral population existing today -- because "phylum" is an artifact of the Linnean classification system. This would be like growing a new branch from the center of the trunk of an old tree, a new branch grown from dead wood, that then pierces through the other existing tree rings to reach outside the trunk to be visible as a new branch.
Even if a species were to evolve from some prokaryote bacteria into a multicellular organism that then evolved into something with arms and legs -- over many generations and as an example -- a whole new "body plan" ... it would not become de facto a new phylum but a descendant from the prokaryotic bacteria phylum.
Phylums are just names for early branches in the diversity of life, other taxon levels are also just names for other branches at different times in the diversity of life. So don't get hung up on the names, rather look at the process of branching descent forming nested hierarchies from common ancestor populations: that is the process of evolution in action over many generations.
In other words you comments are based on a very poor understanding of evolution, and you need to "reboot" and start over.
You then stray with this straw man:
The issue I take with your comments is that the body plans are not completely different
Not my claim! Body plans are sufficiently different to lay the blueprint of the phyla of animals we see around us today.
It was your implication, whether due to terminology or misunderstanding is irrelevant.
It's not a straw man that each "phylum" can be traces back to a common ancestor that is the original species descended from a parent population that was also the common ancestor for other phylum and that the differences at that time were not significantly different. What we see today is the product of millions of generations of evolution since those first species.
At a slightly different level we can compare the differences between mammals and reptiles and we can see that while there are specialized differences in traits there is also a lot of similarities based on their descent from a common ancestor population that was a tetrapod. There are more similarities than differences, even though a lot of time and a lot of generations have passed since they went separate ways from their common ancestor population. If we went back to when mammals and reptiles divided we would not see as much difference in species as we see now. At that time their "body plan" differences would be similar to the differences between horses and zebras, and the same holds for other devisions at the times they occurred.
You then say:
rather they have different specializations of a generally similar body plan.
Hmm Not sure what you are driving at. Organisms under Chordata obviously have body plans with general specializations that allow them to be classed under one phylum. However Chordata body plan very different for example from Echinodermata body plan and so on.
At one point they had a common ancestor population and no significant difference in "body plan" (minor variations would occur) -- then the population divided into daughter populations and they still have very similar "body plans" ... and the kept evolving along divergent paths, developing different "specializations" as they went, but still derived from the parent common ancestor "body plan" ... again the term "body plan" gets in the way and is confusing and misleading, while talking about having different inherited traits is better in describing what has occurred.
You say:
there is no major difference that I can see in body plans beyond the development of specialized adaptations.
Perhaps you shouldn't be looking under one phylum if you want to see differences. Major body plan differences exist between different phylum, say Chordata which have bilateral body plan and Echinodermata which have radial body plan, in addition to symmetry there are many other differences that add up to allow for sufficient grouping of organism into different phyla.
Which just shows the confusion resulting from using "body plan" instead of inherited traits. You are looking now at the result of divergent evolution from a common ancestor with a common body plan. What is different is that the divergent paths have resulted in different specializations of inherited traits along the way.
Remember that "phylum" (and any other taxon level) is just the arbitrary name of an arbitrary grouping that we use to identify which group is descendant from which daughter population.
If you look at cladistics this becomes a little clearer:
Cladistics - Wikipedia
quote:
Cladistics (from Greek κλάδος, klados, i.e. "branch")[1] is an approach to biological classification in which organisms are grouped together based on whether or not they have one or more shared unique characteristics that come from the group's last common ancestor and are not present in more distant ancestors. Therefore, members of the same group are thought to share a common history and are considered to be more closely related.[2][3][4][5]
The cladistic method interprets each character state transformation implied by the distribution of shared character states among taxa (or other terminals) as a potential piece of evidence for grouping. The outcome of a cladistic analysis is a cladogram — a tree-shaped diagram (dendrogram)[17] that is interpreted to represent the best hypothesis of phylogenetic relationships. ...
The cladogram to the right represents the current universally accepted hypothesis that all primates, including strepsirrhines like the lemurs and lorises, had a common ancestor all of whose descendants were primates, and so form a clade; the name Primates is therefore recognized for this clade. Within the primates, all anthropoids (monkeys, apes and humans) are hypothesized to have had a common ancestor all of whose descendants were anthropoids, so they form the clade called Anthropoidea. The "prosimians", on the other hand, form a paraphyletic taxon. The name Prosimii is not used in phylogenetic nomenclature, which names only clades; the "prosimians" are instead divided between the clades Strepsirhini and Haplorhini, where the latter contains Tarsiiformes and Anthropoidea.
If we did the same diagramming further back in time it would show other branches from the common ancestor populations, and end up with this kind of diagram:
quote:
Diagrammatic representation of the divergence of modern taxonomic groups from their common ancestor.
Note the absence of dependence on taxonomic level labels (phylums etc) and instead notice that each clade ("animals" would include us and many more species, and a couple of phyla ... but not all of them) are all evolved from common ancestors: that there are branching points where the common ancestor populations divided into the daughter populations at each branching point; and their descendants diverged more and more generation by generation.
Where would a "new phylum" fit in this representative scheme?
Where would a "new body plan" fit in this representative scheme?
Looking at the history of evolution on earth as depicted in this diagram shows how the terminology of "phylum" and "body plan" are artifacts of classification rather than products of evolution.
You show more confusion
Do birds and bats have different body plans or the same body plans with different specializations?
Erm (scratching my head) they both Chordata, obviously they have similar body plan. Do bats and snails have same body plan? Nope quite different!
Different now, but how different were their ancestors when they had just diverged from their common ancestor population? Less different than bats and birds. Compare embryos and you will see little difference in the early stages, before the specialized adaptations begin to develop.
The specialization you see has occurred since they diverged, over millenia and many many generations, not at the moment of divergence.
You said:
But yes, and the evidence is in the parts of the body plans that are shared and how one branch develops generation by generation from that common basis to reach the specialized variation on the general body plans of their ancestors.
And
Curiously, what we have observe is the fossil record,
What evidence? Until you can show evidence that unguided changes are capable of generating new, viable body plans all you have is another just so story. ...
Every new generation of every species shows the evolutionary process capable of generating new, viable body plans.
Every new speciation event shows the evolutionary process capable of generating new, viable body plans.
The fossil record merely documents how this has occurred in the past and how the species at different times were simply steps along the path to the diversity of today, how evolution from common ancestors has demonstrated the evolutionary process capable of generating new, viable body plans at every stage along the way.
... Something else could account for the homologies.If you compare a 1953 and a 1954 Corvette, shoulder to shoulder, then a 1954 and a 1955 model, and so on, the descent with modification is overwhelmingly obvious.
Taken as an example, the parts that are homologous are those that are the same from model to model, and the parts that are different are derived, they stand in for mutations in your analogy.
If you compared a corvette with a thunderbird, for another example, you would find many differences but still similar performance, the engines would be analogous.
You could very likely form a tree of the development of vehicles based on homologies and derived features, but there would be some aspects that make it more problematic than we find in life: when you compare other aspects of autos you see things that are not observed in life: rear window wipers for instance, did not develop and stayed in one line of vehicles, but quickly spread to many different makes and models. This horizontal transfer of new traits is not something you see in the diversification of multicellular life.
The aspects of vehicles that change from model to model are not inherited traits, as vehicles do not breed and when something doesn't work it can be replaced. Life doesn't do this either.
When we observe real life changes we see homologies and derived features in the process. When we look at the fossil record and use the observed homologies and derived features to sort the diversity of life into a cladistic chart we can check that pattern with the genetic evidence and see that it generally confirms the chart, and in some cases corrects it:
quote:
Every cladogram is based on a particular dataset analyzed with a particular method. Datasets are tables consisting of molecular, morphological, ethological[18] and/or other characters and a list of operational taxonomic units (OTUs) which may be genes, individuals, populations, species, or larger taxa that are presumed to be monophyletic and therefore to form, all together, one large clade; phylogenetic analysis infers the branching pattern within that clade. Different datasets and different methods, not to mention violations of the mentioned assumptions, often result in different cladograms. Only scientific investigation can show which is more likely to be correct.
Until recently, for example, cladograms like the following have generally been accepted as accurate representations of the ancestral relations among turtles, lizards, crocodilians, and birds:[19]
             Testiduines
---------------- turtles
|
| Lepidosauria
| ------------------ lizards
| |
-----------▼ | Crocodylomorpha
| Diapsida | ------------------ crocodilians
-------------♦ |
| Archosauria |
------------------•
| Dinosauria
------------------ birds
If this phylogenetic hypothesis is correct, then the last common ancestor of turtles and birds, at the ⊣ connection near the ▼ (a ⊤ in some browsers) lived earlier than the last common ancestor of lizards and birds, near the ♦. Most molecular evidence, however, produces cladograms more like this:[20]
             Lepidosauria
---------------- lizards
|
| Testiduines
| ------------------ turtles
Diapsida | |
-----------♦ | Crocodylomorpha
| | ------------------ crocodilians
-------------▼ |
| Archosauria |
------------------•
| Dinosauria
------------------ birds
If this is accurate, then the last common ancestor of turtles and birds lived later than the last common ancestor of lizards and birds. Since the cladograms provide competing accounts of real events, at most one of them is correct.
(Note I have modified the diagrams slightly from wikipedia so that the ▼, ♦, and • symbols would represent the common ancestors to the branches.)
The organisms\species just above and below from these common ancestor populations would be very similar in inherited traits or "body plans" to the point where anyone living then would have difficulty distinguishing them. The specializations that developed since then have led to the noticeable differences in body plans in the modern species.
... Something else could account for the homologies. ...
... and until you specify and demonstrate what that "something else" is you will have an empty argument based on wishful thinking rather than science.
Homology can tell you nothing about how a system could have evolved by numerous, successive, slight modifications. ...
Homology alone doesn't do this, but homology plus derived new traits does. Each of the "numerous, successive, slight modifications" would show up as derived features in the evolutionary history of each species.
... In other words, homology doesn’t necessarily imply evolution. ...
Homology implies relatedness, even your corvette analogy shows this, that species with a shared homology had a common ancestor that had that specific trait, and the more homologies there are implies that the common ancestor was more recent.
... Evidence for common ancestry is not evidence for the mechanism of Neo-Darwinism. ...
Common ancestry is evidence that speciation occurred, and until you develop, test and demonstrate an alternative process evolution remains the best explanation for the observed patterns of common ancestors in a nested hierarchy.
... Common ancestry can stand independent of Neo-Darwinsim and is readily accepted by those who reject Neo-Darwinism such as Michael Behe.
Curiously it doesn't matter what people say, as both the process of evolution and the process of speciation have been observed, thus confirming that the derivation of daughter populations from a common ancestral population does occur, and that this process forms nested hierarchies. This is sufficient to validate the concept that these two processes can be applied to natural history of life to arrange them into the overall nested hierarchy that is the tree of life:
Remember that:
The Theory of Evolution (ToE), stated in simple terms, is that the process of evolution over generations, and the process of divergent speciation, are sufficient to explain the diversity of life as we know it, from the fossil record, from the genetic record, from the historic record, and from everyday record of the life we observe in the world all around us.
The fossil record is a test of the ToE, and until you can find something in the fossil record that cannot be explained by these processes evolution remains the best explanation available.
Hope that was not too long, but it was either that or skip some of the misinformed statements in your post, or multiple replies that add up to the same total length.
Edited by RAZD, : like this

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This message is a reply to:
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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 218 of 969 (724312)
04-15-2014 9:45 PM
Reply to: Message 215 by Dr Adequate
04-15-2014 9:17 PM


Re: Why Is Evolution So Uncontroversial? Redux
Falsifiability is one of the hallmarks of genuine science. The typical standard for falsifiability of the ToE given here is the idea of finding a mammal in the lower levels of the strata, where YECs also say they wouldn't have occurred. I'm sorry you seem to be unable to follow the argument but that's your problem, not mine.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 215 by Dr Adequate, posted 04-15-2014 9:17 PM Dr Adequate has replied

Replies to this message:
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 Message 220 by NoNukes, posted 04-15-2014 10:10 PM Faith has not replied
 Message 221 by RAZD, posted 04-15-2014 10:12 PM Faith has not replied
 Message 274 by Coyote, posted 04-17-2014 1:19 AM Faith has replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


(1)
Message 219 of 969 (724313)
04-15-2014 10:09 PM
Reply to: Message 218 by Faith
04-15-2014 9:45 PM


Re: Why Is Evolution So Uncontroversial? Redux
Falsifiability is one of the hallmarks of genuine science.
Just as not being made of shit is one of the hallmarks of good food. So if your ridiculous nonsense was actually true, it would not explain the absence of scientific controversy over evolution, just as the postulate that chocolate cake is made of shit would not explain the popularity of chocolate cake.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 218 by Faith, posted 04-15-2014 9:45 PM Faith has not replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


(1)
Message 220 of 969 (724314)
04-15-2014 10:10 PM
Reply to: Message 218 by Faith
04-15-2014 9:45 PM


Re: Why Is Evolution So Uncontroversial? Redux
he typical standard for falsifiability of the ToE given here is the idea of finding a mammal in the lower levels of the strata, where YECs also say they wouldn't have occurred.
Every time you post this, you reinforce the truth that you don't know what falsification means. No surprise there given you know nothing about the scientific method or any branch of science. But why keep proving it.
Falsification simply means that it is possible to conceive of an observation or experimental result that is utterly incompatible with the theory of evolution.
The unremarkable thing is that no observation anyone could ever imagine would, if verified, cause anyone to know that that creation was by not caused by supernatural means. All you have to is make up some more properties for water. That makes your beliefs utterly non-falsifiable.
However people have listed things, of which finding a mammal in the wrong layer is only one example, which are utterly incompatible with the theory of evolution.
Nothing standard about the oft repeated mammal example; but only one example is needed to demonstrate that the theory of evolution has at least the possibility of falsification.
Of course you will never be able to come up with a way, because science confuses you.
Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him. Galileo Galilei
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass

This message is a reply to:
 Message 218 by Faith, posted 04-15-2014 9:45 PM Faith has not replied

  
RAZD
Member (Idle past 1404 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


(1)
Message 221 of 969 (724315)
04-15-2014 10:12 PM
Reply to: Message 218 by Faith
04-15-2014 9:45 PM


difficult falsification is not absence of falsification
... The typical standard for falsifiability of the ToE given here is the idea of finding a mammal in the lower levels of the strata, where YECs also say they wouldn't have occurred ...
Let me simplify it further: something out of sequence as it is currently understood would need to be explained, either by changing what we currently understand or by proposing a new mechanism. That would be how science works.
Any breakdown of the nested hierarchy of life would present this problem.
Falsifiability is one of the hallmarks of genuine science. ...
Indeed, and the fossil record is a test of the ToE. As long as the fossil record can be explained by the processes of evolution and divergent speciation the theory is not invalidated. There remains the possibility of a new fossil -- any new fossil -- showing something that cannot be explained by the Theory of Evolution: that is a falsification test.
Genetics is another test of the ToE, and as long as there is no conflict between the fossil record and the genetic record the theory is not invalidated. There remains the possibility of a new genetic information -- any new genetic information -- showing something that cannot be explained by the Theory of Evolution: that is a falsification test.
The fact that these seem unlikely to occur is not because these are not real falsification tests, but because these tests have already been run many many many times with no hint of falsification occurring, and this is evidence of the Theory of Evolution being a very strong theory, so strong that the likelihood of any significant modification necessary is very remote.
This happens when theories are very very good at explaining all the evidence. Like gravity.
... where YECs also say they wouldn't have occurred. I'm sorry you seem to be unable to follow the argument but that's your problem, not mine.
Which of course is absolutely and totally irrelevant to whether or not evolution is falsifiable.
Edited by RAZD, : ...

we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand
Rebel American Zen Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ...
to share.


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This message is a reply to:
 Message 218 by Faith, posted 04-15-2014 9:45 PM Faith has not replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


(2)
Message 222 of 969 (724317)
04-15-2014 10:15 PM
Reply to: Message 216 by Faith
04-15-2014 9:43 PM


Re: Back to earth
Land animals got buried in the higher levels of the strata, that's the explanation and there's nothing wrong with it.
Well, it would occur to a sane person to wonder why the Triassic, which contains land animals aplenty, contains no echidnas, platypus, opossums, monito del montes, rat opossums, marsupial mice, dunnarts, Tasmanian devils, Tasmanian wolves, numbats, marsupial moles, bandicoots, rabbit-eared bandicoots, possums, cuscuses, gledero, ringtails, pygmy possums, ringtail possums, kangaroos, wallabies, koalas, wombats, noolbengers, elephant shrews, hedgehogs, gymnures, moles, desmans, tenrecs, golden moles, solenodons, shrews, flying lemurs, colugos, old world fruit bats, flying foxes, mouse-tailed bats, sac-winged bats, sheath-tailed bats, bull-dog bats, fish-eating bats, hollow-faced bats, false vampire bats, yellow-winged bats, horsehose bats, noseleaf bats, leaf-nosed bats, new world leaf-nosed bats, moustached bats, naked-backed bats, leaf-chinned bats, funnel-eared bats, smokey bats, disc-winged bats, sucker-footed bats, common bats, short-tailed bats, free-tailed bats, dwarf lemurs, mouse lemurs, sifakas, indri, woolly lemurs, aye-ayes, weasel lemurs, koala lemurs, lorises, pottoes, tarsiers, new world monkeys, marmosets, tamarins, old world monkeys, gibbons, humans, great apes, tree shrews, anteaters, sloths, armadillos, West Indian sloths, two-toed tree sloths, three-toed tree sloths, pangolins, scaly anteaters, aardvarks, pikas, hares, rabbits, mountain beavers, beavers, squirrels, chipmunks, marmots, prarie dogs, scaly-tailed squirrels, spring hares, rats, mice, voles, gerbils, hamsters, dormice, bamboo rats, African mole rats, birch mice, jumping mice, jerboas, pocket mice, kangaroo rats, pocket gophers, blind mole rats, old world porcupines, guinea pigs, capybaras, coypu, pacaranas, pacas, agoutis, chinchilla rats, spiny rats, chinchillas, viscachas, octodonts, degu, tuco tucos, cane rats, grasscutters, dassie rats, old world porcupines, agoutis, gundis, blesmols, African mole rats, dogs, wolves, foxes, jackals, bears, racoons, weasels, otters, skunks, badgers, mongooses, civets, genets, hyenas, aardwolves, cats, elephants, hyraxes, horses, zebras, asses, tapirs, rhinoceroses, camels, pigs, peccaries, javelinas, hippopotamuses, chevrotains, mouse deer, deer, giraffes, cattle, sheep, goats, or antelopes.
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
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Taq
Member
Posts: 9970
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.6


(3)
Message 223 of 969 (724318)
04-15-2014 10:26 PM
Reply to: Message 216 by Faith
04-15-2014 9:43 PM


Re: Back to earth
Land animals got buried in the higher levels of the strata, that's the explanation and there's nothing wrong with it.
That's not an explanation. That is an empty assertion.
We find tons of land animals (e.g. amphibians, arthropods) in the Carboniferous, and yet not a single mammal. How do you explain that?
Certainly no more wrong with it than the idiotic idea that flat slabs of rock represent time periods of millions of years each. A lot less crazy than that as a matter of fact.
It appears you are the one who can't think outside the box.

This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
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subbie
Member (Idle past 1254 days)
Posts: 3509
Joined: 02-26-2006


(1)
Message 224 of 969 (724321)
04-15-2014 11:51 PM
Reply to: Message 223 by Taq
04-15-2014 10:26 PM


Re: Back to earth
Taq writes:
We find tons of land animals (e.g. amphibians, arthropods) in the Carboniferous, and yet not a single mammal. How do you explain that?
Not only that, but there are also no sea mammals. Not one single whale, dolphin, porpoise, seal, sea lion, manatee, walrus, sea cow...

Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. -- Thomas Jefferson
We see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat
It has always struck me as odd that fundies devote so much time and effort into trying to find a naturalistic explanation for their mythical flood, while looking for magical explanations for things that actually happened. -- Dr. Adequate
Howling about evidence is a conversation stopper, and it never stops to think if the claim could possibly be true -- foreveryoung

This message is a reply to:
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NoNukes
Inactive Member


(3)
Message 225 of 969 (724322)
04-16-2014 1:14 AM
Reply to: Message 213 by Faith
04-15-2014 5:40 PM


Re: Calling AZPaul!
At least he can think and follow an argument most of the time.
Interesting. I have no problem admitting that Dr. Adequate is sharper than I. But when it comes to analyzing the silly stuff you post, I haven't notice very many posters here having the least bit of difficulty finding the right places to laugh.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him. Galileo Galilei
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass

This message is a reply to:
 Message 213 by Faith, posted 04-15-2014 5:40 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
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