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Author Topic:   Transitional fossils and quote mining
Coyote
Member (Idle past 2106 days)
Posts: 6117
Joined: 01-12-2008


Message 106 of 210 (525205)
09-22-2009 12:24 PM
Reply to: Message 99 by Arphy
09-22-2009 7:47 AM


Creationist nonsense
Everything is always devolving. As my article clearly explains Mutations are evolutions end - creation.com. Our genomes are in a constant state of decay.
Nonsense.
This "devolution" stuff is an attempt to justify a religious belief (The Fall) with scientific terms. But it is clearly a disproved idea.
And your article--your article is elegant nonsense. I love your "time to extinction" chart -- so you claim that Noah's descendants would last about 2,000 years and then go extinct. That failed logic disproves your nonsense right there!
Why don't you let religious belief and science be two different fields? (See tagline.)

Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 99 by Arphy, posted 09-22-2009 7:47 AM Arphy has not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22391
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 107 of 210 (525222)
09-22-2009 1:57 PM
Reply to: Message 99 by Arphy
09-22-2009 7:47 AM


Re: To my numerous opponents
Arphy writes:
You mean like "evolutionism?"
ehh...????
Ehh? Your own irony is lost on you, I see. You said, "You have just put a label on something which doesn't really mean anything," right in the middle of a message where you repeatedly do the exactly that:
Arphy in Message 86 writes:
Even if evolutionism (is that the correct term now, look, all i want is a term that you guys are happy with that describes the belief that all living things share a commen ancestor) doesn't know how...
...
The term devolution is used to show that creationists see evolution working in the opposite way that evolutionism does.
...
Hence why evolutionism came up with puncuated equalibrium.
...
The point is not what you name something (you can call it anything you like) but is there a "trail" left by evolutionism from theropod to bird.
Got any more meaningless labels?
Arphy writes:
as if this argument over details of the evolutionary history of birds called evolution itself into question.
See you did it again. Where did I say that?
Who are you kidding? It's your entire line of argument. "Here's yet another scientist who rejects mainstream views about evolution." Except that they don't.
Evidence is used to support or refute a worldview.
Maybe that's the case in religion, but in science evidence is used to build interpretive frameworks of understanding called theories.
Degenerative is not the same as disadvantageous.
You said creationist views were opposite, but anyway, why don't you define degeneration and devolution for us, and provide examples of these evolutionary phenomenon from the real world.
Our genomes are in a constant state of decay.
Except that they aren't, and the fossil record shows clear progressions over time that are the opposite of "decay".
I'm not saying we don't have any shared characteristics. I'm not sure why scientists classify humans this way as there are many big differences between an ape and a human.
No matter how you slice it, chimps, gorillas and humans are more similar to each other than to any other creatures on the planet, and the scientific classification system reflects this fact.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 99 by Arphy, posted 09-22-2009 7:47 AM Arphy has not replied

  
Arphy
Member (Idle past 4432 days)
Posts: 185
From: New Zealand
Joined: 08-23-2009


Message 108 of 210 (525283)
09-22-2009 8:09 PM
Reply to: Message 97 by greyseal
09-22-2009 7:28 AM


Re: To my numerous opponents
"devolution" is a made-up word without foundation.
of course it is a made up word. We had to make up some word so that we can distinguish ourselves from what evolutionists think these mechanisms show.
why would it make it worse? It only makes it worse IF "all mutations are harmful" and you're a hell of a long way from proving anything of the sort. Examples have been given of positive mutations (sickle-cell under some conditions, moth colouration and far, far more) so that part is bunk
It makes it worse because genomes are in a state of decay. Again see article for evidence (note to all the people who said "It's not YOUR article". I meant that i had posted the article.) Also sickle-cell is degenerative as well as beneficial (in some circumstances).
which basically says "all mutations are harmful" and I feel confident in saying that that page is dreck from top to bottom, full of outdated information, misquotes, mistakes and outright lies.
It is entirely science-free and really does little to bolster the opinion you would apparently like others to have of you of somebody who honestly looks at both sides of the issue.
You cannot refute it so you make some pointless remarks, and then tell me to go find an article that refutes what the author of the article I posted was saying. Sorry, that is your job.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 97 by greyseal, posted 09-22-2009 7:28 AM greyseal has replied

Replies to this message:
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Arphy
Member (Idle past 4432 days)
Posts: 185
From: New Zealand
Joined: 08-23-2009


Message 109 of 210 (525284)
09-22-2009 8:13 PM
Reply to: Message 103 by greyseal
09-22-2009 10:54 AM


Re: To my numerous opponents
would be stupider now, and more full of things like cancer and deformities, than they were 6000 years ago.
and you are saying they aren't? Where is your evidence for this?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 103 by greyseal, posted 09-22-2009 10:54 AM greyseal has replied

Replies to this message:
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Arphy
Member (Idle past 4432 days)
Posts: 185
From: New Zealand
Joined: 08-23-2009


Message 110 of 210 (525285)
09-22-2009 8:18 PM
Reply to: Message 104 by PaulK
09-22-2009 11:18 AM


Re: Lies, Damn Lies and Creationist Quote Mines
Clearly the creationist in question read it as an admission that there were no transitional fossils.
Again, which means what? It certainly was an admission that there are no directly transitional fossils. i.e. none where he feels that the evolutionary story told about the fossil can be said to necessarily be true.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 104 by PaulK, posted 09-22-2009 11:18 AM PaulK has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 112 by Dr Adequate, posted 09-22-2009 8:36 PM Arphy has not replied
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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 111 of 210 (525294)
09-22-2009 8:35 PM
Reply to: Message 108 by Arphy
09-22-2009 8:09 PM


Re: To my numerous opponents
It makes it worse because genomes are in a state of decay. Again see article for evidence
But "a creationist said so" is not evidence. It's pretty much the opposite of evidence.
If you have any actual scientific evidence for this impossible imaginary decay, feel free to present it. On some thread where it is on topic.
It is the rule and custom of this forum that merely linking to, or copy-and-pasting, some crud that some creationist has made up, does not constitute debate. This is, I believe, because the moderators wish you to think about what you're saying and take some sort of responsibility for it, instead of just regurgitating someone else's nonsense.
Now, the topic of this thread is the way that creationists continually lie about the opinions of real scientists. Do you have anything to contribute to this subject?
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 108 by Arphy, posted 09-22-2009 8:09 PM Arphy has not replied

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


Message 112 of 210 (525296)
09-22-2009 8:36 PM
Reply to: Message 110 by Arphy
09-22-2009 8:18 PM


Re: Lies, Damn Lies and Creationist Quote Mines
Again, which means what? It certainly was an admission that there are no directly transitional fossils. i.e. none where he feels that the evolutionary story told about the fossil can be said to necessarily be true.
No. This is why he said that the creationist interpretation of his words was wrong.
I think it is clearer to him what he means than it is to you.
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 110 by Arphy, posted 09-22-2009 8:18 PM Arphy has not replied

  
Arphy
Member (Idle past 4432 days)
Posts: 185
From: New Zealand
Joined: 08-23-2009


Message 113 of 210 (525312)
09-22-2009 9:47 PM
Reply to: Message 105 by Blue Jay
09-22-2009 12:20 PM


Re: To my numerous opponents
I recognize the enormity of the task you have ahead of you in this thread, with so many opponents, and I commend you for your intelligence and your good demeanor.
Thanks. hopefully i don't lose my good demeanor, it isn't easy.
Hmm... I really don't see how the "ToE" is the worldview as opposed to "evolution". To me it sounds similar to saying "the theory of gravity is my worldview". This doesn't make any sense. The theory of gravity may support your worldview, however it is not the worldview itself.
A mechanism is the ultimate explanation for any event
Exactly, a mechanism explains the event. We believe in the event and then explain it using evidence. The event comes first, and then it is explained. In other words the story of evolution comes first and then you try to support this with mechanisms. Yes, i think that things like the evolution of birds are soft core topics, however the idea "they must of evolved from something" is the hard-core topic. In other words The idea that everything evolved from something else is the hard-core idea. the ideas of how this works out for individual situations (such as the evolution of Birds through the mechanisms of the ToE) are then the soft-core issues.
The "opinions" for your example I think are hard-core ideas. Sort of like creation and evolution. The proponents of these opinions then have various evidence (soft-core) for why they think that their opinion is correct.
Arius very clearly stated that Jesus is not God the Father. Would I be within my rights to use this quote to support an argument that Jesus was not a real historical figure?
Sure, you are quoting an "expert (hmm...)". However what is the evidence behind him making statements like this. If the expert says something but doesn't back it up with evidence, then expert or not, his opinion becomes useless.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 105 by Blue Jay, posted 09-22-2009 12:20 PM Blue Jay has replied

Replies to this message:
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hooah212002
Member (Idle past 801 days)
Posts: 3193
Joined: 08-12-2009


Message 114 of 210 (525313)
09-22-2009 9:52 PM
Reply to: Message 113 by Arphy
09-22-2009 9:47 PM


Re: To my numerous opponents
In other words the story of evolution comes first and then you try to support this with mechanisms.
Nope. Sorry. This is how religion works, not evolution. The evidence backs up evolution, which is why it is still the most widely accepted theory for the history of life on earth. There is no dogma attached to evolution, no matter how many creationists say so.
Edited by hooah212002, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 113 by Arphy, posted 09-22-2009 9:47 PM Arphy has not replied

  
Granny Magda
Member
Posts: 2462
From: UK
Joined: 11-12-2007
Member Rating: 4.0


Message 115 of 210 (525323)
09-22-2009 10:53 PM
Reply to: Message 92 by Arphy
09-22-2009 6:40 AM


Worldviews vs The World
Hi Arphy,
While i may not be able to change your worldview, what i hope i can do is to firstly challenge many of the misconceptions about the YEC creation model, that seem to abound.
My worldview is to follow the evidence wherever it leads. My worldview is that the scientific method, as embodied in methodological naturalism, is the only way to assess and best describe objective truths about our universe. It is all very well to have a worldview. What matters is comparing that to the actual world and making sure that the two are in agreement.
I'm not carrying a flag for evolution because I think it's desirable or the best possible system. If I were a deity creating life, I wouldn't chose to do it by evolution; it seems a little harsh and uncaring to me.
The point is that in my journey through the evidence for evolution, I have seen a great deal of compelling evidence, all of it pointing to evolution. I can't tell you where your journey through that evidence should take you. All I can do is encourage you to keep looking, with an open mind, although I would warn you against relying on sites like creation.com, which are full of misinformation and refuted claims.
2nd, i hope to be able to show you that you can not dismiss a YEC, simply for being a YEC, but if you do dismiss me then it is because you think that YEC arguments are easily refuted.
No, I know that they are easily refuted. I've seen them refuted time and again.
Let me be clear, I've been active on this site for a while now and I have seen a fair number of creationists make a large number of claims. I've never seen one that was any more than superficially convincing. The kind of claims that you have been dredging up from CMI are claims I have seen many times before. Not a single one is new to me. Not one. Most are what I would call PRATTS (Points Refuted A Thousand Times). They are full of sound and fury, but signify nothing.
I have a feeling that understand YEC perfectly well. In fact, I suspect that I understand it rather better than you do. No offence.
Linnaeus: ok, even if linnaeus catagorizes humans like this, it still doesn't necessarily make it true.
What's not true? The label itself? Or the underlying reality that some organisms are more similar others?
Like it or not, the classification of humans alongside other apes was carried out by exactly the same method that also classifies us as primates, as placental mammals, as tetrapods, as vertebrates, as chordates and as animals. It was done by comparing and cataloguing physical similarities.
This would be impressive enough, but this system is also bolstered by the fact that it agrees with genetic comparisons. Genetic models overlap incredibly closely with morphological models. We have more genes in common with other apes than we do with non-ape primates. We more more genes in common with with other mammals than we do with non-mammal tetrapods, and so on. This can be confirmed yet further by a comparison of ape and human chromosomes, which show high degrees of similarity.
The model works and it is extremely useful to science. Living here in Europe, I see animals and plants every day which still bear the names Linnaeus gave them over two-hundred years ago. Strange that creationists only seek to undermine this system when it rubs their religious ideas up the wrong way. You guys often object to being described as apes, but you never seem to object to us being classified as vertebrates.
Granny writes:
Even amongst YECs (perhaps especially amongst YECs) there is still widespread failure to reach any kind of consensus.
Arphy writes:
Example?
Just take a look at the Answers in Genesis Arguments We Don’t Use" page. I assure you, for each of those bad arguments, there will be another creationist group which regards it as true, or even as an important tenet of faith.
For example, AiG list There have been no new species as an argument one should not use.
Henry Morris of the Institute for Creation Research however, believes the opposite;
Henry Morris writes:
Not only could Darwin not cite a single example of a new species originating, but neither has anyone else, in all the subsequent century of evolutionary study.
You may or may not have heard of Morris. He is a very influential creationist as these things go. This is par for the course with YECs. Biologists on the other hand are in near unanimous agreement about the truth of evolution and many of its corollaries. The kind of disagreement exemplified by the Feduccia example is over a detail of natural history and does not represent a genuine division on the general question of evolution.
hmm...I guess it depends on what these major points are, but theories like gradualism, punctuated equalibrium, Evo Devo, all have their proponents which claim that their idea is the major force of how evolution works.
Evo Devo is not a theory. It is a methodology, short for evolutionary developmental biology.
Bringing up punk eek is also irrelevant. PE is not a mainstream view, but nonetheless, it has absolutely no quarrel with the cornerstones of evolution, like random mutation and natural selection.
What is wrong with using a definition from the web?
Well, nothing. But it does nothing to demonstrate that you actually understand what is being said.
zebras, horses, and donkeys are all part of the "equine" syngameon
So your definition of kind is at about the Genus level. Interesting. With about 1200 genera of living mammals, that makes (if we assume that only say, 30% of the animals are clean) That gives us, by my estimation, about 8400 animals. All in one boat. That is completely absurd and we’re only on the mammals. There are about 1600 genera of birds to go and reptiles, and amphibians and the rest... This is before we even consider invertebrates.
Forgive me if I don’t convert to biblical literalism just yet.
The number of kinds needed to take on the Ark is estimated to be about 8000.
Another insane number. Even if only 10% were considered clean, that would add up to a staggering 104,000 animals. These kinds of numbers have no connection to reality whatsoever.
Haven't you read my previous posts? these mechanisms cause "devolution" not evolution.
So you say, but you haven’t provide any evidence for this beyond directing me to a creation.com page.
For the record, I am not going to respond to any more blank links, from creation.com or anywhere else. I do not debate bare links. It is against the site rules. It is also not a fair tactic. It is very easy for you to cite a link to a webpage, but it takes much more effort for me to go through them all debunking them one by one. You mean well I’m sure, but you’re starting to run me a Gish Gallop and I’m not playing.
If you want to insist on using hoary old PRATTS like devolving DNA (AKA The Fall), please present them here in your own words. As I said before, that at least shows that you understand them.
The "smooth gradual change" is only found in textbooks not in reality.
Perhaps you missed this recent post (Message 167) from RAZD, where he presented just such an example. A virtually complete fossil record for foraminifera, exactly what you claim does not exist.
quote:
Drs. Tony Arnold (Ph.D., Harvard) and Bill Parker (Ph.D., Chicago) are the developers of what reportedly is the largest, most complete set of data ever compiled on the evolutionary history of an organism. The two scientists have painstakingly pieced together a virtually unbroken fossil record that shows in stunning detail how a single-celled marine organism has evolved during the past 66 million years. Apparently, it's the only fossil record known to science that has no obvious gaps -- no "missing links."
"It's all here -- a complete record," says Arnold. "There are other good examples, but this is by far the best. We're seeing the whole picture of how this organism has changed throughout most of its existence on Earth."
The sources and more text can be found in the original post.
I'm guessing your talking about fossil succession. Here is a snipet from an article by John Woodmorappe
It hasn’t escaped my notice that Woodmorappe’s article doesn’t actually contain any mechanisms. It just throws out a few buzz-words and waffles on a bit. It’s long on bullshit, short on actual evidence. In fact, it doesn’t even propose a mechanism to provide evidence for. Lame.
hmm.. you mean a mammal with feathers. Sure none have been found. Doesn't mean they didn't exist, And even if they never did exist how is this proof against creation?
It’s not proof against creation. It is evidence for evolution. Evolution explains why we don’t see mammals with bird traits. If creation were true, there would be no reason why God could not have created whatever combinations took his fancy. Instead we see nesting hierarchies of interelatedness, with no species displaying traits that defy an evolutionary model. That is a powerful observation, which evolution explains and creationism cannot.
Firstly, it was a predator (more or less) free country. Secondly the animals that we see work well with flood theory, i.e. mainly birds, as they eventually flew there after the flood.
What, even the kiwis? Did flocks of kakapo fly over there? If you are going to tell me that they lost their flight in a mere few thousand years, you are proposing evolution on a scale undreamt of by biologists.
NZ is an island (OK, two islands). Evolution explains why islands all over the world show certain patterns in their flora and fauna. Islands which have been geographically isolated for a very long time have a wealth of unique species. Evolution explains this; they have been reproductively isolated and have diversified from their original ancestor populations.
These "predictions" in no way prove the YEC model wrong.
It’s not about that. I am providing you with positive evidence in favour of evolution. You might like to try the same and provide me with some positive evidence for creation, instead of taking ineffectual pot-shots at the ToE.
As I've said before Tiktaalik does not seem to be a transitional fossil
And as I’ve said before, i refuse to debate bare links. If you want to deny that Tiktaalik (a fossil about which you seem to know next to nothing) is a transitional fossil, bring on your evidence in your own words. I’m not going to do all the work here and it would be nice to know that you understand the arguments you are citing.
ehh...??? the only thing about birds in that post is
Arphy writes:
Archaeopteryx: There is a quote in the article by Dr Alan Feduccia, an expert saying Paleontologists have tried to turn Archaeopteryx into an earth-bound, feathered dinosaur. But it’s not. It is a bird, a perching bird. And no amount of ‘paleobabble’ is going to change that. This was also the conclusion reached at the International Archaeopteryx Conference in 1984
which in no way says anything against evolutionism or transitional forms in general.
That’s exactly my point! You weren’t talking about bird evolution. You weren’t talking about whether birds evolved from theropods or directly from archosaurs. You weren’t addressing the actual topic of the quote. You just threw it out there as one of a number of disconnected snipes at the ToE. Nowhere in the original citation do you address the real topic of the quote.
Until I see compelling evidence to the contrary, I am happy to accept the evidence I have seen and the consensus of the majority of..." YEC experts.
Dream on. YECS are not in the majority. They represent less than a percent of practising biologists. If you want to claim to agree with a majority of a <1% minority, you go ahead, but it ain’t much to shout about.
If you can "not make a watertight argument for any (transitional forms) being directly ancestral to living species groups" then where is the clear progressive tree? If you can not say that "this evolved into that, which evolved into that..." then where is this "clear" progression of what evolved into what?
I thought that was what you were getting at. Okay.
What Patterson is getting at is that we can never absolutely classify one fossil as being the direct ancestor of another. All we can do is infer ancestry by morphological comparison. Take a look at this image;
Now look at Tiktaalik and Acanthostega. No-one can say that Acanthostega is absolutely definitely the direct descendant of Tiktaalik. Indeed, no-one is saying that. What is clear, both from their shared morphologies and the time and place they existed is that they bear some degree of common ancestry. Could Tiktaalik be the direct ancestor of Acanthostega? Sure. The ancestry could be so direct that the individual type fossil for Tiktaalik is the direct ancestor of the individual type fossil for Acanthostega (although it would seem unlikely). At this remove we can’t say for sure. All we can say is that they share common ancestry, just as modern animals display diverging ancestry and gradual change. This is made abundantly clear from the fact that we can use this theorised ancestry to predict exactly where and when new transitional fossils will be found — just as in the case of Tiktaalik.
Patterson was merely cautioning his fellows against being too dogmatic in assuming a particular evolutionary heritage as gospel. He is guarding against making lazy assumptions and stressing the importance of making classifications based on solid evidence — evidence like the fossil record and the amazing series of fossil transitions it contains.
What he was not saying was that evolution was false, that his entire career was a lie and that the systematists should all just pack up and go home.
I hope this makes it clearer for you.
Mutate and Survive
Edited by Granny Magda, : No reason given.
Edited by Granny Magda, : No reason given.
Edited by Granny Magda, : No reason given.

"A curious aspect of the theory of evolution is that everybody thinks he understands it." - Jacques Monod

This message is a reply to:
 Message 92 by Arphy, posted 09-22-2009 6:40 AM Arphy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 130 by Arphy, posted 09-24-2009 8:20 AM Granny Magda has replied

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


Message 116 of 210 (525326)
09-22-2009 11:16 PM
Reply to: Message 113 by Arphy
09-22-2009 9:47 PM


Re: To my numerous opponents
Exactly, a mechanism explains the event. We believe in the event and then explain it using evidence. The event comes first, and then it is explained. In other words the story of evolution comes first and then you try to support this with mechanisms.
Or, in plain English, we find out what the evidence says did happen before we try to find out how it happened.
If you wish to advocate the opposite procedure, is this not putting the cart before the horse?
For example, a detective would start with the "hard-core" fact that Joe Bloggs has been shot dead before investigating whodunnit. It would be kinda futile to start questioning suspects for the murder without having some sort of evidence that he was dead.
In the same way, scientists discovered the incontrovertible fact that birds were descended from reptiles before arguing about details of the mechanism such as whether they did so "ground-up" or "trees down". Do you actually think that they should have proceeded the other way round?
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 113 by Arphy, posted 09-22-2009 9:47 PM Arphy has not replied

  
PaulK
Member
Posts: 17822
Joined: 01-10-2003
Member Rating: 2.2


Message 117 of 210 (525343)
09-23-2009 1:59 AM
Reply to: Message 110 by Arphy
09-22-2009 8:18 PM


Re: Lies, Damn Lies and Creationist Quote Mines
quote:
Again, which means what?
What exactly don't you understand ?
quote:
It certainly was an admission that there are no directly transitional fossils. i.e. none where he feels that the evolutionary story told about the fossil can be said to necessarily be true.
It doesn't even mean that. All it means is that the fossil evidence is too limited to prove direct ancestry beyond doubt.
But, of course, that is not the issue. The question is whether the morphological intermediates predicted by evolution exist. And they do - with more being discovered every year. Funnily enough the morphological intermediates that would be major problems for evolution aren't found.
By your own words creationism doesn't predict which combinations of traits will be found - thus the fact that evolution does is strong scientific evidence for evolution over creationism.
Which is why many creationists plug the completely false view that transitional fossils don't exist. And they are quite happy to use misrepresentation in an attempt to support that false claim.
Edited by Adminnemooseus, : Fix 2nd quote box.

This message is a reply to:
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greyseal
Member (Idle past 3861 days)
Posts: 464
Joined: 08-11-2009


Message 118 of 210 (525366)
09-23-2009 6:25 AM
Reply to: Message 109 by Arphy
09-22-2009 8:13 PM


Re: To my numerous opponents
would be stupider now, and more full of things like cancer and deformities, than they were 6000 years ago.
and you are saying they aren't? Where is your evidence for this?
I think you misunderstand what a hypotheses is.
You are saying "humans are stupider and more full of cancer and deformities than they were (in the past)" - yes? (at least, you are telling me "why do you say they are not" which indicates assent).
Now, why do you believe that your idea should be the de-facto position?
I think the established position is that humans now haven't changed in some 30,000 years or so - we have bones of humans throughout the ages, pictures, stories, works of art, tools, houses - these indicate that by and large humans are more or less the same shape as they were a long way into the past.
We know what people ate, what people did, how long people lived, what they wore and both can work out what they looked like as well as we have pictures and paintings of what they thought they looked like.
None of them show an increasing tendency to mutation and deformity, and unless you believe in atlantis and some distant golden age (what am I saying, of course you do) then the marvels of the modern age certainly do lend credence to an increase in understanding rather than a decrease in mental faculties.
I daresay genetic testing done would yield (if it already has not) a genetic code by and large identical to now (we are after all, the same species as people living 6000 years ago).
This is science, Arphy - now, provide your evidence that the established view is wrong.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 109 by Arphy, posted 09-22-2009 8:13 PM Arphy has not replied

  
greyseal
Member (Idle past 3861 days)
Posts: 464
Joined: 08-11-2009


Message 119 of 210 (525371)
09-23-2009 6:56 AM
Reply to: Message 108 by Arphy
09-22-2009 8:09 PM


Re: To my numerous opponents
"devolution" is a made-up word without foundation.
of course it is a made up word. We had to make up some word so that we can distinguish ourselves from what evolutionists think these mechanisms show.
the important words there, Arphy, were without and foundation.
Without a foundation for the word, it is just a made-up word used at best to lend credence to a viewpoint that is, as I have just pointed out, without foundation.
the rest of what you said is rendered pointless because of this lack - you state that the genome is "in a state of decay" but you have not established the proof of this statement.
One piece of correlation (and repeat after me, CAUSE IS NOT CORRELATION IS NOT CAUSE) is sickle-cell - but frankly it correlates nicely with the theory of evolution too. In the parts of the world where there is maleria, it provides a benefit pushing up it's prevalence. If you want to call it a point for both or neither sides, go ahead, but pick one.
The article you posted really is nothing more than an opinion piece - it is devoid of science. I'm not saying this to handwave it away, although I can see why you would think that.
"mutations destroy" - yes, we know...but they don't all and only do that
"mutation physics" - rubbish from top to bottom. I found the paper it refers to, but...the paper doesn't appear to agree with the assertions on the webpage.
"mutations rapidly destroy" - hangs entirely on proving that all mutations are harmful
"All multicellular life suffers" is entirely opinion based on unproved math and base assertion
"How long to extinction?" is exactly the same - based on bad, unproved math and equating damage from aging to mutation. It is wrong from beginning to end for this reason.
"Reproductive cells" talks about the reduction in viable sperm-count and female fertility...in concert with aging. and? so?
"Do germ-line cells really suffer less damage?" is from a paper that talks about different problems entirely and I don't believe the conclusion in your paper is warranted - it's a supposition only.
"Haldane’s dilemma" is a false dilemma. Haldane himself said his work was suspect.
"Quantitative estimates of time to extinction" - Case closed. It's wrong, bad, inappropriate and bullshit math. Taking that sort of approach, you get nowhere - where do you start your "population size" and why? as has been shown to you, Noah's kids would have died out already about 2000 years ago.
The paper is crap. Worthless. Not worth the bits it's printed with.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 108 by Arphy, posted 09-22-2009 8:09 PM Arphy has not replied

  
Blue Jay
Member (Idle past 2697 days)
Posts: 2843
From: You couldn't pronounce it with your mouthparts
Joined: 02-04-2008


Message 120 of 210 (525553)
09-23-2009 5:56 PM
Reply to: Message 113 by Arphy
09-22-2009 9:47 PM


Re: To my numerous opponents
Hi, Arphy.
Arphy writes:
Hmm... I really don't see how the "ToE" is the worldview as opposed to "evolution".
I recognize that you have a lot of stuff to sort through, and it’s very easy to overlook or misunderstand things, but I didn't say that ToE is the worldview. In fact, I affirmed "evolutionism" as the worldview.
It's right here (Message 84):
Bluejay writes:
Evolutionism and Theory of Evolution are not the same thing. That you accept the Theory of Evolution (and you do) does not mean you accept the evolutionist worldview.
ToE is not the worldview.
The next paragraph explained what the worldview is:
Bluejay writes:
First, a worldview is a system of theories and beliefs that a person accepts and by which a person defines their perspectives. There are fundamental aspects of a worldview (a hard core), and there are auxiliary aspects (a soft core).
Do not confuse the worldview with the hard core of the worldview. The soft core is also part of the worldview, but it is more malleable. So, a worldview with ToE in its hard core is adjustable in relation to the clade from which Archaeopteryx evolved.
So, accepting Feduccia’s argument would require a shift in worldview, but would not require a wholesale scrapping of the worldview.
Arguments that call for a rearrangement of a worldview are not arguments against the worldview. Does that make sense?
-----
Arphy writes:
Bluejay writes:
Arius very clearly stated that Jesus is not God the Father. Would I be within my rights to use this quote to support an argument that Jesus was not a real historical figure?
Sure, you are quoting an "expert (hmm...)".
I don't want to get bogged down in an off-topic discussion of christological evidence: my argument is only an argument of principle, used as an analogy of your reasoning in an effort to show that your reasoning is invalid.
So, let me ask again: if I wanted to make an argument that Jesus never existed, could Arius saying that Jesus was not God contribute to that?
Then, if I used Arius, could I then also quote a docetist or gnostic saying that Jesus was never human, and show that, since I have arguments against Jesus being man and being divine, Jesus must never have existed in any form?
Of course I cannot do this, because, even though the two quotes, when combined, effectively wipe out all possible existences of Christ, they are not in harmony with one another. So, if the two do not combine to wipe away Christ’s existence, how can they be used independently for the same purpose?
They simply can’t. They address a completely different issue from the one my anti-Jesus argument is attempting to discredit.
Likewise for Feduccia’s quote: it addresses a completely different issue from the one creationists are trying to discredit.
-----
Arphy writes:
A mechanism is the ultimate explanation for any event
Exactly, a mechanism explains the event. We believe in the event and then explain it using evidence. The event comes first, and then it is explained. In other words the story of evolution comes first and then you try to support this with mechanisms.
First, it isn’t a matter of which one comes first: it’s a matter of which one is of more importance to the overall worldview. ToE is infinitely more important to the evolutionism worldview than is dinosaurs-to-birds.
Second, give me any evidence at all that the mechanism is being adjusted to fit the story. There is none. The mechanism has remained fundamentally the same since Darwin first published it. But, the stories have changed hundreds of times since then. This should be an indication to you that we care more about our mechanism than about our stories. That’s why I call the former hard-core and the latter soft-core.
Third, you are describing a mode of thinking that is religious, not scientific.
I don’t think I’ve told you yet, but I’m a practicing Christian. What you describe above is a correct explanation for how Christians think. We start with a story, which doubles as our evidence (the Bible), and try to work out a mechanism for how the story works (Christian apologetics).
But, you can’t do that with science. You have to start with evidence (e.g. the fossils), develop a mechanism or theory to explain the evidence (evolution), then produce your story (natural history) using that mechanism.
-----
Arphy writes:
Yes, i think that things like the evolution of birds are soft core topics, however the idea "they must of evolved from something" is the hard-core topic. In other words The idea that everything evolved from something else is the hard-core idea. the ideas of how this works out for individual situations (such as the evolution of Birds through the mechanisms of the ToE) are then the soft-core issues.
You’re close. Very close.
There doesn’t have to be just two levels to a worldview. Common descent (what you’ve termed the idea that everything evolved from something else) is more central to the evolutionism worldview than is the coelurosaurian ancestry of birds, but less central than the mechanisms of mutation and natural selection (the actual ToE).
Thus, we are more likely to overturn the coelurosaurian ancestry of birds than we are to overturn the concept of common descent, and we are more likely to overturn common descent than we are to overturn ToE. So, of course everything evolved from something else is harder-core than birds evolved from coelurosaurs. But, you can bet that ToE is even harder-core than common descent.
I hope now you see a little bit better the viewpoint of your opponents on this issue.
Edited by Bluejay, : Trimming quotes for better efficiency.
Edited by Bluejay, : Better wording in the christology segment.

-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)
Darwin loves you.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 113 by Arphy, posted 09-22-2009 9:47 PM Arphy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 121 by Arphy, posted 09-23-2009 9:57 PM Blue Jay has replied

  
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