Biological classification vs 'Kind'

So there is no mixture of characteristics, either in living or fossil species, that would falsify the YEC model? If not, then how do you explain the nested hierarchy? Other than evolution and common ancestry, what other mechanism would produce such a pattern of shared characteristics preferrentially over other patterns? Why do we see the exact pattern of shared characterstics that we would expect from evolutionary mechanisms if evolution never occurred? Is God trying to trick us into accepting evolution? You may want to check out this thread. I can understand that you are getting in over your head. If you want to discuss ERV's more you can either comment on the thread above or start a new one with questions not covered in the other thread. The initial conclusions are based on the data. They are not assumed. There is no assumption in the chain at all. Or are you arguing that we need to know everything before we can know anything? If the conclusion is based on mountains of solid data why shouldn't you conclude that decay rates are constant? Are you saying that we should ignore the data because you don't like the conclusion? And until such time the conclusions are solid. To bring us back on topic, you need to explain why the non-avian dinosaur baramins are only found beneath rocks with isotope ratios consistent with 65 million years worth of decay. If both evolution and radiometric dating are wrong, how does this happen? How does YEC explain this? Even more, how does the YEC model explain how post-flood survival correlates with the depth of ancestral fossils? For example, we only find trilobites deep in the geologic record and there are no surviving trilobites. Rhinos are found much higher in the fossil record, and they survive today. How does the YEC model explain this? How does depth of burial affect post-flood survival with respect to baramins? Full paper. Quick quote:

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Phylogenomics is a methodology for annotating the specific molecular function of a protein using the evolutionary history of that protein as captured by a phylogenetic tree [17]. Phylogenomics has been used to assign precise functional annotations to proteins encoded in a number of recently sequenced genomes [27,28] and specific protein families [29], despite being a time-consuming manual process. Phylogenomic ideas have also proven helpful for addressing general evolutionary questions, such as showing that horizontal gene transfer is much less common between bacteria and human genes than was suggested in the original publication of the human genome [30,31].
Phylogenomics applies knowledge about how molecular function evolves to improve function prediction. Specifically, phylogenomics is based on the assertion that protein function evolves in parallel with sequence [32], implying that a phylogeny based on protein sequences accurately represents how molecular function evolved for that particular set of proteins. Additionally, molecular function tends to evolve more rapidly after duplication than after speciation because there are fewer mutational constraints; thus, mutations that alter function may more easily fixate in one of the copies [33—35]. These observations give rise to the phylogenomics method, which involves building a phylogenetic tree from homologous protein sequences, marking the location of duplication events, and propagating known functions within each clade descendant from a duplication event. This produces a set of function predictions supported by the evolutionary principles outlined above.

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And what happens when you apply this evolution based algorithm? Very accurate protein function predictions. The theory works. Baraminology doesn't.Edited by Taq, : No reason given.

What features must a fossil have in order to be transitional between non-humans and humans in the YEC model? Or are such conclusions forbidden a priori? How can you claim to be reasonable if a specific conclusion is forbidden before even looking at the fossils? I will fully agree that no fossil can be shown to be an ancestor of any living human. Only DNA can show this, and hominid fossils don't have DNA in them. However, if humans did evolve from a common ancestor with other apes shouldn't we see fossils with a mixture of basal ape and modern human features? We should, shouldn't we? Isn't that exactly what we see with these fossils? If apes and humans were created separately then why do we see fossils that have a mixture of human and ape features? Dr. Wile's explanations demonstrate his ineptitude.

It might be a reasonable conclusion if the YEC model were built upon evidence from the real world, because there would then be all this other evidence that supported your conclusion, but the YEC model is not based upon evidence. It's based on a story in a book.If your views on the definition of kind have any validity then you should be able to describe for us some of the evidence behind it. I think it's great that there's evidence behind your opinions. What is that evidence? In case you're keeping a count of the number of times you've violated rule 5 of the Forum Guidelines (do not use bare links unaccompanied by description and discussion of its relevant points), please increment by one. This rule exists primarily to insure that participants understand the material they're referencing, but also to remove any ambiguity about what is being referenced, and because it is troll-like behavior to merely link to a webpage that people spend a lot of time and effort carefully dissecting only to have you link-spam them again and again. And you've got at least several "agains" so far. More accurately, the majority of scientists subscribe to what the evidence indicates. Scientists are biased toward the evidence while creationists are biased toward stories from a book. Mr. Wile discredits himself as a scientist by ignoring the evidence to instead follow stories from a book. No one thinks dissenting views based upon evidence to be inept. But a scientist with a dissenting view based upon revelation instead of evidence is pretty conclusively demonstrating ineptitude in his chosen vocation. But I don't myself think Wile inept because he's not trying to do science. He's doing religious apologetics, and at that he's very good and the very opposite of inept. But he's not doing science in his apologetics, he's just trying to make those who aren't very familiar with science think he's doing science. And then those people come here and tell us what a wonderful scientist Mr. Wile is. Pardon us if we roll our eyes.--PercyEdited by Percy, : Clarify rule 5 explanation.

Don't you see what's wrong with this? You're saying your beliefs are based upon evidence, and then you talk about the lack of evidence for the other view. This means your views aren't based upon evidence for what you believe, but upon your lack of awareness and understanding of the evidence for the scientific viewpoint.I think it's great that your beliefs are based on the evidence. What is that evidence?As for evidence for mutations ability to create new information, consider a population of organisms that has a gene with these alleles for eye color:

• GGAAGC (green eyes)
• GGAAGA (blue eyes)
• GGCACG (yellow eyes)

Then a mutation occurs in this gene producing an allele that didn't previously exist in the population so that these are now the alleles:

• GGAAGC (green eyes)
• GGAAGA (blue eyes)
• GGCACG (yellow eyes)
• GGCAAG (brown eyes)

The number of alleles was 3, which can be represented in log₂3 = 1.585 bits, and then it increased to 4, which is log₂4 = 2 bits, and that's an increase in information of .415 bits.--PercyEdited by Percy, : No reason given.

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Uh, okay. And you think unfalsifiable and unevidenced ideas are science?

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Yes, unfalsifiable hypothesis are science. Evolution is one. A rabbit in the pre-cambrian would not suddenly cause the scientific community to abandon darwinistic evolution - mainstream scientists (due to their inherant bias toward their 'dogma') would expand the theory to explain this phenomena, or find some means to rationalize away the evidence. The statement that a hypothesis must be falsifiable to be valid is bologna (and interestingly is unfalsifiable itself).Unevidenced hypothesis can also be valid (though should obviously be tested) - though I wholeheartedly disagree with your conclusion that YEC is unevidenced.

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If you falsify common ancestry for chimps and humans then all you've done is falsified common ancestry for chimps and humans. Maybe orangutans and humans share a common ancestor

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Of course....could we please avoid arguments that pick at the semantics of my statements instead of addressing the obvious intent of the message?

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When Michelson/Morley falsified the ether it didn't prove the Biblical account. When geologists falsified static continents it didn't prove the Biblical account. So when you falsify evolution that doesn't prove anything about the Bible or ID. You need evidence *for* ID.

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I've seen plenty such evidence....and again - I wasn't born yesterday here. I understand that falsifying evolution doesn't prove YEC - but that really had nothing to do with my statement. You asked a question: What would falsify Baraminology? I responded with a possible falsification test.

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If you'd like to try to use Mr. Wile's unevidenced arguments about dating then please first see rule 2 of the Forum Guidelines (stay on topic) and also rule 5 ("Bare links with no supporting discussion should be avoided").

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I have made a good faith effort to avoid straying off-topic - including dropping lines of conversation and starting (or suggesting the start of) new threads when the topic veered too far.I have also not posted any bare links without discussion. The links I have posted are contextual to the discussion at hand and used to support the arguments and positions I have made (as Rule 5 requests).

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Well, I guess when you have no evidence you have to believe this. Can we expect you to next argue that "evidenced assumptions" are no better than actual assumptions?

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I think what you're actually thinking of, and what you're confusing with assumptions, is tentativity. We all agree that science is tentative and that good theory can only be displaced by better theory that explains more of the evidence. But underpinning all theory in science is evidence, and if you believe that ID is science than you need evidence *for* ID.

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Sigh...No, evidenced assumptions take precedence over unevidenced assumptions. No, I'm not confusing anything - call it whatever you'd like. My point is that any scientific conclusion is not 100% certain. Therefore a certain measure of certainty must be assumed in order to use that conclusion to advance further hypotheses. When an earlier conclusion is found to be errant, all subsequent hypotheses based upon that conclusion must be re-evaluated.I've stated this multiple times now...can we move on?

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You forgot the most important principle of baraminology: when transitional fossils are found, simply declare that they're not transitional.

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Yeah, it's like the darwinistic principle: when a ape or human fossil with unusual features is found, declare it a human ancestor. Look we can both take accusational potshots at the other's viewpoint.Percy, the quality of your responses have seemed to deteriorate a bit. Could we get back to discussion of the evidence?

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Again, you need evidence *for* ID, not against evolution. If you think there's an absence of evidence for evolution then one would have thought that you'd find the absence of evidence for ID even more stunning. Let's say you're right, that there's no evidence for evolution. Since there's also no evidence for ID, on what basis are you forming an opinion? The Bible? Would that be science? Wouldn't a scientist withhold judgement in the absence of evidence?

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I have already seen adequate evidence to convince me of a YEC model - if I hadn't I would still be an old-earth creationist or theistic evolutionist as I was many years ago.I do however realize that both YEC and darwinian evolution cannot both be true. They are incompatable theories. Therefore, if you wish to convince me of a viewpoint other than YEC I need to see data that either discredits YEC or supports darwinian evolution.

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You mean there's been an evolution in thinking in baraminology? Don't they still take the Bible as their basis rather than evidence from the natural world?

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They take an interpretation of the Bible as their hypothesis and test it against the evidence of the natural world. How is this not science?

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There you go again, stating your preference for stories over evidence.

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You entirely missed the point. A naturalistic origin of life is unevidenced (and moreover rather discredited). Do you prefer that story instead?

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No one's ruling out the supernatural a priori. What we're ruling out is the incorporation of ideas into our thinking that are not supported by evidence. If evidence for the supernatural somehow enters into your thinking on kinds then we'd like to hear about your evidence.

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But that is exactly what has happened. Mainstream atheistic scientists have ruled out an intelligent supernatural Creator as "unevidenced" and yet advanced abiogenesis through chemical evolution - a hypothesis with striking evidence against it. The only logical explanation for such behavior is a bias toward their atheistic darwinistic 'religious' dogma.

The various forms of dating, including radiometric dating as well as many other forms of dating, disprove a ca. 6,000 year old earth.You need to see the data? Can you see the data? Most YECs simply cannot see any data that disproves their position, no matter how well-supported it is.Can we take this up on one of the dating threads?

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

You are simply wrong, dogma is the direct inverse of science, here's a good explanation:

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It is significant that, although it is often claimed that Darwinism is unfalsifiable, many of the things Darwin said have in fact been falsified. Many of his assertions of fact have been revised or denied, many of his mechanisms rejected or modified even by his strongest supporters (e.g., by Mayr, Gould, Lewontin, and Dawkins), and he would find it hard to recognise some versions of modern selection theory as his natural selection theory. This is exactly what a student of the history of science would expect. Science moves on, and if a theory doesn't, that is strong prima facie evidence it actually is a metaphysical belief.

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Wow, are you ever confused!Scientific theories are falsifiable. If evolution were not falsifiable then it wouldn't be science, but it is falsifiable, as the example of rabbits in the pre-Cambrian amply shows. We were talking about common ancestry, and rabbits in the pre-Cambrian would falsify evolution's implication of common ancestry. The necessity that scientific hypotheses be falsifiable, in other words, testable, is one of the cornerstones of the scientific method. Untestable hypotheses are useless. For example, when Einstein hypothesized that light was subject to gravity according to his equations, what would be the value of the hypothesis if it was untestable? Think about it. How would we ever know if it were true or false if it couldn't be tested? I'm confused why you're arguing that baraminology is falsifiable if you really believe, as you argued above, that falsification isn't a requirement of science, but anyway, no you did not provide a falsification test for baraminology. You said that clear evidence "for common ancestry between chimps and humans" would falsify baraminology, but of course it would not. The part of my post that you thought was semantics was trying to get the point across that the biological classification system and baraminology are independent of one another. You don't prove or disprove one by proving the other false or true. That's why I keep asking you for positive evidence of Baraminology. And if you think it's falsifiable, then what would be a falsification test that isn't evidence for evolution? Well, I think it's great that you have evidence for ID. What is it? Please try to stop yourself if you find yourself typing, "The evidence for ID is that I've never seen any evidence for evolution." Sure you have, over and over. Here's your entire discussion of your "scientifically irresponsible" link from your Message 156: That was your whole discussion. You need to bring the evidence and arguments from the link into the discussion here. That's what rule 5 is about. Being off-topic isn't an excuse to violate rule 5, it just means you've violated two rules instead of one.Here's the bottom line. We don't do debate by link here. It would be like the old joke about assigning jokes numbers, and then to tell jokes people just call out numbers like "5" or "16". Or it would be like a game of poker with links as chips: "Oh yeah? Well, I call your link to ICR with a link to Nature and raise you by a link to Science."If you need more information I already provided it when I explained in more detail the rationale behind rule 5 in a message I posted to you earlier this evening. Please use links only as references to provide a background or foundation for the evidence and arguments that you yourself enter into a discussion. The proper term is tentativity. I would absolutely *love* a discussion of the evidence behind kinds or baraminology. When are you going to present some?--PercyEdited by Percy, : Fix typo.

Well, that's wonderful that you've seen convincing evidence of a YEC model (how many models are there, by the way?). Care to share any of this evidence with us, especially for kinds or baraminology? Okay, this is the second time you've talked about testing hypotheses, which is great, we agree about this, but now I'm really confused. So earlier when you said that theories don't need to be falsifiable, that was I guess a joke, right?Anyway, what evidence from the natural world supports the Biblical hypotheses of kinds or baraminology? Abiogenesis has been discredited? Really? Get thee over to the Origin of Life forum right away, I can't wait to hear about this.About naturalistic origins for things, look at it this way. When God smote the Israelites who were worshiping the golden calf and they were swallowed into the Earth, didn't that leave evidence behind? It did, right? So supernatural events operate in and have an effect upon the natural world. Scientists seek evidence in the natural world. If you have evidence of processes that violate the laws of nature and are therefore supernatural then you have to bring them forward. But in the absence of such evidence scientists can only invoke processes for which they have evidence. That's why when scientists invoke a natural origin through natural processes for life they are doing science, because they have evidence for these processes. And when you invoke supernatural processes for the origin of life you're not doing science, because you have no evidence for supernatural processes.--Percy

Well, the only reason we think it's unevidenced is because we haven't yet seen any evidence, but if we're wrong about that then that's easy to fix. So you've got the evidence for an intelligent supernatural Creator? That's wonderful. Stupendous, even. We all can't wait to see it. Shouldn't you be holding a press conference about this in Times Square?By the way, I asked this in another post, and I hate to be repetitive but I just can't help it for something so important: which world religion turns out to be right?--Percy

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But that is exactly what has happened. Mainstream atheistic scientists have ruled out an intelligent supernatural Creator as "unevidenced" and yet advanced abiogenesis through chemical evolution - a hypothesis with striking evidence against it. The only logical explanation for such behavior is a bias toward their atheistic darwinistic 'religious' dogma.

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But there is, so far as I know, no evidence against abiogenesis. The probability arguments advanced by creationists are spurious. What evidence do you have against it?Bear in mind that that science has not ruled out other options. Just that abiogenesis is the best scientific theory currently available. It does not require new scientific laws. It does not require the existence of designers, supernatural or otherwise, for which there is no evidence. But it might not be right.Edited by Peepul, : No reason given.

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The supposed age of the fossil is based on scientifically irresponsible dating techniques. You prove my point here that darwinists were unable to come to the reasonable conclusion (a young fossil) since they were unwilling to question their base-assumption of the accuracy of radio-isotope dating methods.

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I followed the link you attached here to One Reason I Am Skeptical of an Ancient Earth : ProslogionDr Wile is saying that it is wrong to extrapolate our knowledge of radioactive decay rates from 100 years to billions of years.He would have a point if there were no evidence about radioactive decay rates in the past - but there is a lot of evidence of this. For example, correlations with other dating methods, the Oklo nuclear reactor, astronomical observations, lack of other effects correlating with changes in radioactive decay rates.Plus Dr Wile engages in very questionable reasoning:-

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I would think that if there were overwhelming evidence that radioactive processes are outstandingly stable, perhaps such an extrapolation could be made. However, what we have observed so far does not give such overwhelming evidence. Indeed, not only has Otto Reifenschweiler shown that the half-life of tritium can change significantly depending on the chemical environment and temperature (Reduced radioactivity of tritium in small titanium particles, Phys Lett A184:149-153, 1994), but there is now strong evidence that small changes in half-life occur when the distance between the earth and sun changes! (Davide Castelvecchi, Science News 174:20, 2008).

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There is of course overwhelming evidence that rates are stable across a wide range of pressures, temperatures and environments. There are huge numbers of experiments that show this. As a nuclear chemist, Dr Wile must know this. But he does not reference any of them.Instead he references just two papers that he believes support his view. This cherry picking is sufficient in itself to show that he is not a trustworthy source on this issue.His two quoted papers are interesting. The first shows a reduced decay rate for tritium in particular circumstances. However, there is no suggestion of time variation here - there is no relevance to his argument about stability.The second is revealing. He quotes a paper that claims a small variation in decay rates (< 0.1%) with distance from the sun. What he does not mention is that subsequent experimenters repeated this kind of experiment and disagree with this conclusion :-

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In conclusion, we find no evidence for correlations between the
rates for the decays of 22Na, 44Ti, 108Agm, 121Snm, 133Ba, and 241Am
and the Earth—Sun distance. We set limits on the possible amplitudes
of such correlations (2.5—37) times smaller than those observed
in previous experiments [1—3]. Our results strongly
disfavor the suggestions by Jenkins et al. [4] of an annual variation
based on a previously unobserved field produced by the Sun or the
annual variation in the flux of solar neutrinos reaching the Earth.
Recently, Cooper [8] performed a very clever analysis of decay
power data obtained from the 238Pu thermoelectric generator
aboard the Cassini spacecraft. The results of this analysis also
strongly disagree with the hypothesis of a correlation between nuclear
decay rates and the distance of the source to the Sun.

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from http://donuts.berkeley.edu/papers/EarthSun.pdfSo, there is hardly 'strong evidence' in favour of this, as Dr Wile claims. This rebuttal was published before Dr Wile wrote his piece.Bob, this is typical creationist material. When it's examined carefully, it leaves a bad taste. Dr Wile represents himself as an expert ('earned PhD in nuclear chemistry') and yet does not honestly present the balance of the evidence. This is almost universal behaviour among creationists and it means that you cannot trust what creationists tell you . Read the original science and draw your own conclusions.

No he wouldn't.There is nothing better that we could possibly say about any proposition except that all the evidence supports it.And so if all the evidence we had about decay rates was our observations of radioactive decay for the last hundred years, then it would still be scientifically correct to follow where all the evidence leads, and Wile would still be talking crap by disputing a conclusion supported by all the scientific evidence.