Summations Only

It's Socratic teaching.

What it is that you're sampling makes no difference. All that matters is that the sampling is random, in which case you only need a sampling size of 1700 or 1800. I did also provide you the example of elections, where election surveys query between 1500 and 2000 people regardless of the size of the electorate.--Percy

You asked pretty much the exact same question in Message 143 of the Genesis "kinds" may be Nested Hierarchies. thread. Are you a troll?--Percy

Wrong!Do you work in a biological science? I do, as do several others here. I am sure we would all agree that common ancestry has added incredible value to biological science. It provides much of the basis for everything we do. Maybe we don't think on the scale of microbes to man evolution in our everyday work, the principles involved are solid and the Theory of Evolution is absolutely foundational and the unifying theory in biology. That's dumb. Of course we can't absolutely demonstrate that it DID happen. Of course we can't do an experiment in the lab to show beyond a doubt that it did happen. But we have consistent evidence that supports the hypothesis.Show us the consistent evidence of your hypothesis...HBD

Note that I added my comment to show that you haven't even attempted to answer it. ... is not a theory, certainly it is not THE theory of evolution (ToE) ... but you have been told this before, and blunder on blindly with your ignorance.It is a conclusion reached from the evidence we have. It may be one population of single cell life or several that participated in horizontal transfer of genes (primitive sex), once life had developed on earth. There certainly is no evidence of any other precursors from over 3 billion years ago. Scientific theories explain evidence. The evidence shows that the oldest life forms are microbes, and the evidence shows that over time organisms with more complex forms arose. The theory of evolution explains how this can occur via known biological processes.If the evidence showed a different pattern in the past, then our theory of how the diversity of life developed would have to explain that evidence.This has been another teachable moment brought to you by Dredge. The theory of evolution has contributed to the advancement of medicine and breeding of pets, livestock and food plants.Again your stumbling ignorance is refuted by reality.EnjoyNotes:
⁽¹⁾ anagenesis is the process of lineal change within species over generations.
⁽²⁾ cladogenesis the process of division of a parent population into two or more reproductively isolated daughter populations, which then are free to (micro) evolve independently of each other. This forms a clade (nested hierarchy).

See Message 560 regarding your confusion between conclusions and theories.What is "happening all around us" are the processes of evolution -- anagenesis and cladogenesis.If we look at the continued effects of evolution over many generations, the accumulation of changes from generation to generation may become sufficient for individuals to develop combinations of traits that are observably different from the ancestral parent population. This is also sometimes called arbitrary speciation in that the place to draw the line between linearly evolved genealogical populations is subjective, and because the definition of species in general is tentative and sometimes arbitrary.The process of anagenesis, with the accumulation of changes over many generations, is an observed, known objective fact, and not an untested hypothesis. The reduction or loss of interbreeding (gene flow, sharing of mutations) between the sub-populations results in different evolutionary responses within the separated sub-populations, each then responds independently to their different ecological challenges and opportunities, and this leads to divergence of hereditary traits between the subpopulations and the frequency of their distributions within the sub-populations.Over generations phyletic change occurs in these populations, the responses to different ecologies accumulate into differences between the hereditary traits available within each of the daughter populations, and when these differences have reached a critical level, such that interbreeding no longer occurs, then the formation of new species is deemed to have occurred. After this has occurred each daughter population microevolves independently of the other/s. These are often called speciation events because the development of species is not arbitrary in this process. If we looked at each branch linearly, while ignoring the sister population, they would show anagenesis (accumulation of evolutionary changes over many generations), and this shows that the same basic processes of evolution within breeding populations are involved in each branch.An additional observable result of speciation events, however, is a branching of the genealogical history for the species involved, where two or more offspring daughter species are each independently descended from the same common pool of the ancestor parent species. At this point a clade (a nested hierarchy) has been formed, consisting of the common ancestor species and all of their descendants.The process of cladogenesis, with the subsequent formation of a branching nested genealogy of descent from common ancestor populations is an observed, known objective fact, and not an untested hypothesis.These are the processes of evolution. They are happening all around us. Again, as noted in Message 560: So you have had this answered twice. The theory explains the evidence, and the degree that all the evidence is explained is a measure of the validity of the theory. With no invalidating evidence, a theory that explains the evidence and makes useful predictions, is accepted as the best explanation we have for the evidence.Calling it "a story" does not diminish the validity of the theory nor it's ability to make useful predictions.And so closes another teachable moment brought to you by Dredge.Enjoy

To add to Tangle's response to your trolling, Message 555, it speaks volumes to us all of your false religion, in Jesus' own words (according to the Matthew 7:20 Test):

quote:

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7:15 Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.
7:16 Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?
7:17 Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.
7:18 A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither [can] a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.
7:19 Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.
7:20 Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.

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You fucking evil hypocrite!

To me, personally, evolutionary theory has helped me on how to predict the quality and quantity of Gondwana coal and where that coal would be found underground.

A question re nested hierarchies doesn't belong in this thread, so I posed the same question in a more appropriate thread.

Well, you have raised some very disturbing points that need to be discussed with the scientists of the world. However, I'm not sure if the principles of gravity and chemistry, etc can be compared to fossils.Meanwhile, please consider this:If evolution has been progressing for at least three billion years, then there might be at least three billion fossils in existence (this is a very conservative estimate - only one fossil formed on earth per year). If we have collected one million fossils so far, this might represent only 0.033% of all fossils, which is hardly a statistically significant sample size.Imagine how stupid it would be for a politician to claim victory after only 0.033% of the votes had been counted. He would be laughed at and ridiculed and called a fool. So embarrassment.Plus, there is the situation alluded to by Mr. Percy - that creatures that inhabit low-lying areas are much more likely to be fossilized than creatures that don't. And I dare say birds are much less likely to fossilized than non-birds. Indeed, the majority of fossils discovered are marine creatures. So these factors further detract from the statistical worth of the fossil collection.

No wonder such surveys are so often wrong!Obviously, the bigger the sample size the more likely it is to be accurate, but samples of public opinion are limited by available resources, such as time and money.

Oh, please elaborate! This sounds like a classical case of Darwinist dreaming.

Let's consider that silly assertion.The Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History collection includes over 40 million fossils.The American American Museum of Natural History collection includes almost 5 million fossils.The Core Research Center of USGS has a collection of over a million fossils.The University of Florida has a collection of almost a million vertebrate fossils.The Yale Peabody Museum’s collection is over 4 million individuals.The list keeps going on.And almost every other nation also has numerous collections of fossils.If you want you do not have to remain ignorant as dirt.

I notice that you still don't know what "statistically significant" means. Did it never occur to you to find out before you started using the phrase?Meanwhile, please consider this:If chemists had used the entire mass of the Earth in their experiments, they would still only have tested to see if 0.0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001% of the atoms in the visible universe conform to their theories.Imagine how stupid it would be for a politician to claim victory after only 0.0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001% of the votes had been counted. He would be laughed at and ridiculed and called a fool. So embarrassment. And the Earth contains more oxygen atoms than thallium atoms, which further detracts from the statistical worth of our chemical observations.

I know it might seem that way, but as long as the sample is random you only need a sample size of 1700 to 1800 to achieve a confidence factor of 95%. The size of the electorate does not matter as long as the sampling is random. Predicting elections has other sources of error, such as making sure the sample is random and determining who is likely to vote, but the statistical math behind what I’m telling you is solid.Percy