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Author Topic:   If evolution is true, where did flying creatures come from?
mike the wiz
Member (Idle past 248 days)
Posts: 4755
From: u.k
Joined: 05-24-2003


Message 4 of 225 (737575)
09-27-2014 8:39 AM
Reply to: Message 3 by subbie
09-27-2014 8:22 AM


You are asking easily answered questions
Yet I noticed that you didn't answer his question, instead you gave an anti-Christian rant. If this is a debate board, then the poster named Bookworm asked a debate-question, to then state things about his motives is highly inappropriate, the purpose is to debate the question, within the context of it being asked. I thought it was a pretty thoughtful question actually.
And, the fact that you think these questions are unanswerable makes you feel more secure in your faith in some deity or other, most likely the Christian god.
Or it makes logical sense to ask ourselves if complete designs can be irreducibly deconstructed in a way that will make sense over eons of great time, or does it make more sense to say they are complete and whole designs.
For example the Pteroid-bone in the Pterosaur might be described as an essential rod pertaining to lift, but then it is a reasonable question to ask what Bookworm asked - what about the brains to fly? We know that things that fly have tremendous flight-sense, almost like satellite-navigation systems, we also know there are other analogous designs (metaphorically, I don't refer to homoplastic features) that are equatable such as echolocation in bats and oil birds.
However, I'm quite certain you don't want to know the answers.
We don't mind because those answers are only conjectural. They can only be conjectural because nobody has shown evidence showing a bellows-type lung evolving into a contraflow lung, for example, or direct empirical evidence showing reptile-skin slowly changing into feathers.
It is quite reasonable, whether you have faith as a Christian, or are even agnost or atheist, to consider whether such changes are plausible, given the objects in question are so sophisticated.
The insect-wing for example, in regards to Bio-mimetics, the designers simply couldn't come up with something as brilliant as that wing, so it is reasonable to ask why, if the best brains can't design a wing as good, it should have evolved, with no intelligence involved.

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 Message 3 by subbie, posted 09-27-2014 8:22 AM subbie has seen this message but not replied

  
mike the wiz
Member (Idle past 248 days)
Posts: 4755
From: u.k
Joined: 05-24-2003


Message 7 of 225 (737579)
09-27-2014 9:40 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by Bookworm7890
09-26-2014 10:26 PM


Hi Bookworm.
Any evidence FOR OR AGAINST evolution/creation of birds and flying creatures is appreciated!
I would say that the chief-candidate for an alleged transitional intermediate for evolution of birds would be Archae-optical-trix. Although logically speaking it's only "partly" transitional. For the sake of fairness it could be argued to be a candidate for bird-evolution because of it's dinosaur-features, so we have to be respectful towards the evolutionist in that regard, logically we can't move the goal-posts on them. This does count as confirmation evidence in that it fulfills the ponen-rule,( it would follow that such a creature might exist if evolution occurred.)
But I myself would say it's more of a Chimera than a transitional. Odd Chimeras do exist, such as the Platypus.
As for direct evidence of birds and flying creatures, I would say that the evidence for design is overwhelming. If we look at what makes a birds' feather, there is a velcro-type locking system, the hooks, barbs, barbules and barbicells all interlock, the anterior barbules to the posterior barbules. The feather itself is aerodynamic, efficient, strong, lightweight in correspondence with the contraflow, through-flow lung-system incorporating air sacs, hollow bones, and obviously provides a system for immensely fast heart-rate and metabolism.
As to the achievements in flight the dexterity of a small bird is quite simply not to be believed in it's excellence. It can land on a vertical branch perfectly from flight in the space of a few tenths of a second, and the vice-like grip is designed for tree-branches.
Also the evidence that the Butterfly is designed, can be read in this short link of some of the amazing design-features it has:
Butterfly designer wings - creation.com
I would say the evidence for design must be qualified by all of the elements of design being present, all of which are present in flying creatures. There are a variety of flying creatures that all qualify as overwhelmingly designed, therefore the evidence is incontrovertible, IMHO.
Generally speaking, the general evidence of the fossil record shows abrupt appearance, pertaining to bats, Pterosaurs, Pterodactyls, and birds. That is to say, their flying-capabilities appear, fully formed with variations, and there is no evolutionary history except for the alleged histories, which is conjectural.
Logically speaking, I haven't found any sound reasons to believe such sophisticated designs could evolve, given the designs are clearly meant to be in place, wholly, as the empirical evidence shows.
This concludes my participation in this thread. Thanks for your time, and sorry if I don't get back to you, I don't spend much time at forums like this anymore but if you click on my name, you will see some posts I have made, that could be helpful to you, if you read through my posts.
All the best.

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 Message 1 by Bookworm7890, posted 09-26-2014 10:26 PM Bookworm7890 has seen this message but not replied

  
mike the wiz
Member (Idle past 248 days)
Posts: 4755
From: u.k
Joined: 05-24-2003


Message 11 of 225 (737583)
09-27-2014 10:47 AM
Reply to: Message 10 by Bookworm7890
09-27-2014 10:33 AM


Re: Nonukes is getting closer.
Yeah I also appreciate NoNukes's attitude there, he also provided some explanation of flight, which I have taken a look at, here is my opinions from his link, Bookworm: mikey-responses interspersed in bold:
(it is good you yourself have behaved well if you are a Christian, as we are so inclined to do, even when insulted, and I have a long history of being insulted, your light will shine indeed bright, if you do not return any ad hominem attacks, that would be my advice, -- not that you need my advice, of course, as I am sure you don't need the basics of morality teaching you, but obviously we can do a good job by showing our good behaviour, and thus we can refute them using sound wisdom, which is a lot harder to achieve, of course.)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"If our study of functional morphology determines that the ancestor of a flying group must have been a glider, and we think that it was arboreal (like all modern non-aquatic gliders) then flight must have evolved from an arboreal gliding ancestor."
Non Sequitur.
"Before we can answer how and why flight evolved, we must understand how and why wings evolved;"
Begging-The-Question. "Interpreted: First we assume evolution is true, before proving it."
"Scientists generally agree that wings must have been exaptations; they were used by the ancestor for one function, and became useful for flight among the descendants"
I also agree with my relatives that my meal last night was cooked well. (forgive my temptation to be flippant, I'm sure the details of investigation are properly scientific even if I disagree with the conclusions. Mikey can't help but have a pop)
"A comparative study of the functional morphology of the wings of the earliest known flying members of the lineage with the "pre-wing" structures of likely ancestors and close relatives provides the best evidence for how wings evolved."
No it doesn't, it just shows different morphologies. in this case, as you earlier admitted, the fossil record doesn't offer anything but flyers, so you take something that can already fly and propose it is your "simplest" ancestral flyer, your exaptation. But gliders can lead to gliding only, you have to show evidence that gliding leads to flight, whereas you are showing flyers becoming flyers, so logically to prove an exaptation, this must be considered.
"It seems that #1, #2, and #4 are the best hypotheses to use for the origin of wings because they can be tested by bringing in other lines of evidence"
Incorrect. It will be A hypothesis, and arguing exclusive-hypothesis is tautological, because let's not pretend scientists would consider a hypothesis for design!
on the following page an admission takes place: I quote:
"A debate that has continued since the 1880s concerns the question of whether flight developed from the ground up (did flight evolve from a bipedal, cursorial, ground-dwelling ancestor?) or from the trees down (did flight evolve from a semi-bipedal, arboreal, leaping and gliding ancestor?). This debate will no doubt continue, however, it is a pointless debate, as neither hypothesis is testable. The important question is, how did the flight stroke evolve?"
If they can't be tested, why then conclude they evolved anyway? Again there is a Begging-The-Question supposition that "general evolution" is already true. That would be to apply the whole to the parts anyway, even if general evolution was true, which would be compositional error like saying, "a plane can fly, so it's part must be able to individually fly". But perhaps flight itself was too hard for evolution, and requires intelligent design, which is another potential conclusion
Arboreal versus Terestrial is well known by Creationists, Sarfati PHD uses this to prove the rule of the excluded middle.
1. Both theories can't be tested. Not enough evidence, which means an conspicuous absence of evidence for either, meaning we can reasonably infer NEITHER.
2. Sarfati argues that the points against each knock down the respective other leading to the inference of neither.
Edited by mike the wiz, : No reason given.
Edited by mike the wiz, : No reason given.

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mike the wiz
Member (Idle past 248 days)
Posts: 4755
From: u.k
Joined: 05-24-2003


Message 12 of 225 (737584)
09-27-2014 10:59 AM


NoNukes, I appreciate the investigative-side to your linked article, however, don't take my mikeyness personally, it is reasonable, generally, what he written, the manner in which it is scientifically written, but the assumption that evolution is the only conclusion is exclusively argued, and a common fallacy amongst science-writers.
Evolution isn't true by assumption or consensus, but by a sound syllogism that can't be broken, and there is no such syllogism because evolution is inductive and tenuous and limited as science in that it's historical.

Replies to this message:
 Message 14 by NoNukes, posted 09-27-2014 11:08 AM mike the wiz has replied
 Message 20 by Percy, posted 09-27-2014 1:33 PM mike the wiz has replied

  
mike the wiz
Member (Idle past 248 days)
Posts: 4755
From: u.k
Joined: 05-24-2003


Message 15 of 225 (737587)
09-27-2014 11:14 AM
Reply to: Message 14 by NoNukes
09-27-2014 11:08 AM


Sorry for the post I got Tangled. I also think my words might be tangled, I don't remember if it is the cursorial theory of terrestrial, but it will be funny if it is neither. Lol, what I mean is that there is a theory the birds stemmed from trees, and one that they stemmed from the ground.

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mike the wiz
Member (Idle past 248 days)
Posts: 4755
From: u.k
Joined: 05-24-2003


Message 22 of 225 (737605)
09-27-2014 2:43 PM
Reply to: Message 20 by Percy
09-27-2014 1:33 PM


Evolution isn't true because a scientific consensus formed around it. Rather, a scientific consensus formed around it because the overwhelming supporting evidence convinces almost all scientists that it is likely true
"Likely true"? Well - if it's down to probability, what is the probability of an eye evolving 40 times by convergence? Shall I be generous and say the chances of eye evolution are 1 in 2? That would then be 1 in 3 X 340. Is it likely true that the aggregate eye of the Trilobite solved the problems with optics?
QUOTE:‘Trilobites had solved a very elegant physical problem and apparently knew about Fermat’s principle, Abb’s sine law, Snell’s laws of refraction and the optics of birefringent crystals -Dr Levi-Setti
But that's just a particular eye that solves those problems, we also have other amazingly complex eyes that have other problems, also with the perfect solutions in place such as a crustaceans eye.
You see it seems "likely true" that immense wisdom beyond measure would be far more probable than an evolution process but that doesn't come under "methodological naturalism", so the mainstream scientists themselves were educated into the rules that were created to not include anything none-materialist. This alone is enough to throw out their consensus, logically.
This is why an appeal-to-authority, no matter how informed the authority, can't guarantee us, "truth". Biologists can't tell us about what is probable, if it is down to probability, even the mainstream scientists have acknowledge the beyond-calculable odds for an abiogenesis, and then an evolution that includes the convergent-evolution of many features, hundreds of times over. Beyond calculable as one set of odds, and there is no reason to ever entertain it, rationally, as a whole.
Nor does a naturalistic philosophy equate to "truth", the very participance in the removal of a potential conclusion,(designer) has nothing to do with "truth" and everything to do with semantics.
Evolution isn't true
There, you said it. Now THAT is a genuinely mined quote.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 20 by Percy, posted 09-27-2014 1:33 PM Percy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 23 by New Cat's Eye, posted 09-27-2014 2:53 PM mike the wiz has replied
 Message 29 by Percy, posted 09-27-2014 8:25 PM mike the wiz has not replied
 Message 40 by Dr Adequate, posted 09-28-2014 3:52 AM mike the wiz has replied
 Message 41 by vimesey, posted 09-28-2014 4:24 AM mike the wiz has replied

  
mike the wiz
Member (Idle past 248 days)
Posts: 4755
From: u.k
Joined: 05-24-2003


Message 24 of 225 (737607)
09-27-2014 3:05 PM
Reply to: Message 21 by New Cat's Eye
09-27-2014 2:33 PM


Notice how it doesn't go right from running to flying?
I noticed yes, but did you notice that it's Artwork? Did you know I can provide for you a drawing of a neanderthal that could pass for a businessman, or I could make him look like an ape? This is why I need you to show me the drawings of how the bellows-type lung evolved as simply as those drawings show, and how feathers evolved from skin. Please see my avatar, which I drawn, also. It's the common ancestor of all life.
Its also interesting to see that a lot of different animals, including those that do and do not fly, share the same bone types and locations. This is because evolution works by gradually modifying what is already present rather than introducing whole new plans like you seem to be suggesting:
"This is because" presumes a great deal, and is Begging-The-Question.
In fact one of the most astounding abilities of design is to take one thing you have created, one basic prototype-design, (girders,or bones) and using the one design, solve hundreds of dynamic problems.
Originally, before evolution-theory, these homological features were referred to as, Ideal Archetypes. I wrote about it a while back in this blog-entry:
Creation and evolution views
The following image does a better job of detailing which bones are where and how they have changed over time, within just reptiles in this case
I see a tautological guarantee. that is to say, if you are going to take, out of all of the reptiles that exist, bones that have already been shown to all share the same design plan, that by lining them up next to eachother based on the most similar you can find, that this seems to show an evolution. But this doesn't prove any ancestral link. It proves that with huge numbers of creatures on a planet where many of them need bones, and similar anatomy, you are guaranteed to create an evolution-scenario, by ranking, even if evolution didn't happen.
This is notoriously referred to as, "proof by ranking", a poor proof because it is GUARANTEED 100% that you can show an evolution even if there wasn't one. There is no way for me to refute your order, even if there was no evolution whatsoever.
I do however, appreciate the power these images hold over people's imaginations, it is true that this evidence would certainly fit with a common descent as it would with a common-designer. Therein lies the problem, the choice is basically personal, which one does one choose? Darwin chose the former, that's all.
Nevertheless I have always held in my own mind that the homologous bones of vertebrates are pretty strong in favour of a common ancestor. It is the "best" evidence for evolution I would venture, but the dynamics of the rate of differing uses is almost limitless, in regards to function. Function from the same one design, seems limitless, which is more in line with a limitless imagination, but evolution is not clever and has no intelligence, so we would expect much fewer variants from evolution, reasonably, and even if we didn't how can we know how many variants to expect given we already know the facts posteriori?
We would expect other things to be true, in line with homology but sometimes expected evidence, is not in congruence with a common ancestry, for example we would expect amniotes to develop the digits of the finger in the same way. Frogs and humans develop their digits in a very different way. One buds the other is sculpted, allegorically speaking. You can choose to focus on the shared digital-bone-plan or you can choose to focus on the differences between the two, and notice how incredibly different the use of the same bones are, representing an incredible spectrum. There would be no time for evolution to achieve this spectrum, IMHO.

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mike the wiz
Member (Idle past 248 days)
Posts: 4755
From: u.k
Joined: 05-24-2003


Message 25 of 225 (737608)
09-27-2014 3:09 PM
Reply to: Message 23 by New Cat's Eye
09-27-2014 2:53 PM


That's Begging-The-Question because you ASSUME that such a light-sensitive patch leads to an eye. If we actually knew an eye could evolve we could come up with a probability, a figure, but I didn't say that, "I agree that the story of eye-evolution is true."
It has not been proven that such an absurd notion would lead to a complex eye. I admit that if an eyeless fish re-gained eyes not by gene flow from a split population, but by convergence, that would prove the claim. I won't accept the conjectural and tenuous explanations of eye evolution just because evolutionists express that conjecture.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 23 by New Cat's Eye, posted 09-27-2014 2:53 PM New Cat's Eye has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 28 by New Cat's Eye, posted 09-27-2014 3:54 PM mike the wiz has replied

  
mike the wiz
Member (Idle past 248 days)
Posts: 4755
From: u.k
Joined: 05-24-2003


Message 26 of 225 (737610)
09-27-2014 3:24 PM
Reply to: Message 23 by New Cat's Eye
09-27-2014 2:53 PM


But I respect that you could argue a case from the homological bones. I am not peeing on your parade, I just don't think it's fair for those images to be regarded as conclusive. I don't think I can know just from those images, for example. I would not go as far as to say, "you are certainly wrong, and have misled yourself", I still acknowledge that you have the right to see it as evolution, and in your mind it is the most likely cause. I understand that, and I know that's just how you see it, and I don't see it that way.
I've had more than my fair share of opinions in this thread, so I shall leave it here.
All the best.

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mike the wiz
Member (Idle past 248 days)
Posts: 4755
From: u.k
Joined: 05-24-2003


Message 42 of 225 (737672)
09-28-2014 9:47 AM
Reply to: Message 37 by Capt Stormfield
09-28-2014 12:03 AM


Re: Reply to capt stormfield.
It was an honest appraisal of just how little substance supported my efforts to cling to belief over evidence that led me to accept that I was wrong. You should understand that "the effort... put into supporting..." an idea is irrelevant. What matters is evidence. Creationists appear to have none.
By implication you're saying that because you had set of reasons X, and you come to believe you were wrong, that that makes creation and creationists wrong. By implication if you say, "I was wrong" that would mean we are also wrong.
If that is the case, you commit the Ad Logicam fallacy.
If two people share the same conclusion, this does not mean that if one person's reasons for inferring that conclusion are wrong, that the other person is wrong.
EXAMPLE:
1. mike is a pig. pigs are animals, therefore mike is a human.
2. mike has every element that makes a human, therefore mike is human.
Captain, you are saying that because you personally came to the belief in Creation, and you think you are now wrong, that this means creation is wrong, creationists are wrong and there is no evidence for creation because we all believe and reason as you believed and reasoned. But it seems to me your abilities to reason are still the same.
It does not follow. If you are saying that your reasons were wrong, so that is why you believe creation is wrong, then that means that you have believed in a non-sequtir, ad logicam fallacy, for if I believed that gravity was true because I hate Mondays, that would not mean gravity is not true when I came to discover that Mondays doesn't mean it is true.
Chances are, the way you see things and reason, always spoke more about you than about the clear-cut Creation evidence all around us.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 37 by Capt Stormfield, posted 09-28-2014 12:03 AM Capt Stormfield has replied

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mike the wiz
Member (Idle past 248 days)
Posts: 4755
From: u.k
Joined: 05-24-2003


Message 43 of 225 (737674)
09-28-2014 10:08 AM
Reply to: Message 41 by vimesey
09-28-2014 4:24 AM


Re: Probability is a pain
You're a smart guy. But then answer always comes in the end. I admit this is a challenge to me, and I seldom feel challenged. You've got mikey on the ropes but he's a rope-a-dope. And the last rope-a-dope was, "the greatest."
Evolution fired its arrow at the wall, and hit it where I am. You're looking to paint a target around the point of impact, and claim that the arrow must have hit there by design, because the odds of it hitting that particular point on the wall is tiny.
This is Begging-The-Question because it assumes that you can compare a certain outcome with evolution, and thereby you have assumed that evolution is a "certain outcome". You have conflated a "certain outcome" with a posteriori-knowledge. A lottery win is certain, because the chances of anyone winning is close to 1 in 1, but is the chances of evolution happening, a "certain outcome"?
Example:
It is a certain outcome or nearly 1 in 1, that SOMEONE will win the lottery. But for a particular person to win the lottery is 1 in 14 million.
So let's say Jane wins the lottery, you could then say:" You're looking to paint a target around the point of impact, and claim that the arrow must have hit there by design"
BUT, the difference is that someone was going to win certainly. Whereas you have to prove that evolution was going to happen. It's only fortuitous that our knowledge of SOMETHING happening, is posteriori, which means we already know we are "here".
A fair analogy is the lottery. For our non-UK readers, the lottery here chooses 6 numbers, from 1 to 49. The odds of any one particular combination occurring are around one in 14 million.
And with every organism in a species getting a free ticket, the odds of successful evolution in that species are very high.
I would equate a "free ticket" as an equivocation of what we mean. You're very smart but like you say, probability is tricky, and first you have to prove free-tickets by showing that the mechanisms of evolution inevitably lead to new information in gene pools, and novel designs. You have not proven that evolution is unlimited, and the facts show that a culling and a loss of information, is usually prevailent and the general picture that we observe, as direct evidence, whereas we don't observe new machinery such as a new motor in the ATP synthase or the Kinesin motor. These small machines should be easy-tickets for evolution yet we don't see that the limited abilities of adaptation can achieve anything of the sort.
In reality, evolution just has to hit the wall.
Herein lies the easiness of knowledge-from-hinsight - what can anyone know about what evolution would produce, apriori?
Probability is only useful BEFORE. Is it "probable" that evolution can create at least 40 eyes by convergence? even if we say it is very easy, say 1 in 3, we have to multiply the consecutive coincidences, including not just eyes, but the chances of life being there by chance to begin with, and the chances of all of the homoplasies that exist, etc...
Would you say to me, "well, that spider appeared on your wall, but the probability is irrelevant because we know it's there!"
No - because if it happens again in the same place, we MULTIPLY the probability. So then if ONE thing evolved we could argue, "ah well, it was a free ticket" - but to argue the same thing again would be to argue the spider to the next night, appear on the same spot, the circle you drawn on the wall. Now the spider appears there on the same spot, every night, for 40 nights.
It's the same with evolution, we look into the past and we know that the same things would have had to happen consecutively, hundreds and hundreds of times, if we invoke "convergence" and mathematically, your example, though clever, can only be equated to evolution happening once, mathematically.
I could be wrong. But I doubt I am. Unusual things aren't guaranteed to happen, if they are still very unusual to the extreme. I can expect a "12" on my toy, but if it happens every day for the next year? Then that would be equatable to evolution's probabilities, coupled with the chances of abiogenesis, which are the same as a solar system packed with people, all solving a rubix cube consecutively.
Now would you then say after the event, "well, it was bound to happen, people win the lottery". LOl! RoFLmAO!!
Probability, in regards to one event, is not the same looking back in time, as a set of events. So your analogy would have to be multiple lotteries, because evolution argue multiple homoplasies.
Edited by mike the wiz, : No reason given.

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mike the wiz
Member (Idle past 248 days)
Posts: 4755
From: u.k
Joined: 05-24-2003


Message 44 of 225 (737675)
09-28-2014 10:30 AM
Reply to: Message 40 by Dr Adequate
09-28-2014 3:52 AM


Now if you could just say what is "dumb" about it. Did you mean the typo-error? I pressed "2" instead of "3".
Is it dumb that when flipping a coin, the chances of getting heads are 1 in 2. So then to achieve a heads 100 times in a row, would be 1 in 2 multiplied by 2, onwe hundred times.
the third dumbest thing I've seen all week
And my opinion is that you are a highly intelligent person, knowledgeable, and I often enjoy our encounters because that comes across when you put forth a goof challenge and may you have a pleasant day. Bless you sir.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 40 by Dr Adequate, posted 09-28-2014 3:52 AM Dr Adequate has replied

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mike the wiz
Member (Idle past 248 days)
Posts: 4755
From: u.k
Joined: 05-24-2003


Message 45 of 225 (737676)
09-28-2014 10:33 AM
Reply to: Message 28 by New Cat's Eye
09-27-2014 3:54 PM


You asked what the probability of the eye evolving is.
To answer that, we're going to have to use the path that evolution posits.
How could you possibly think that you could calculate the probability of the eye evolving by using some other method of getting there besides evolution?
Fair enough, I misunderstoof your intentions. It seemed you were making it easy to believe in an eye evolution as something guaranteed, sorry for the error.
(Sorry if I can't answer everyone all the time, usually I have to answer many posts, and sometimes it's best to just choose one or two randomly if you are debating many people.)

This message is a reply to:
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mike the wiz
Member (Idle past 248 days)
Posts: 4755
From: u.k
Joined: 05-24-2003


Message 46 of 225 (737677)
09-28-2014 10:53 AM
Reply to: Message 41 by vimesey
09-28-2014 4:24 AM


Re: Probability is a pain
I know, my posts are a "splurge", I need to focus.
Think of it like this, sure - I appreciate that if a race-car crashes into an armco barrier, the chances aren't relevant pertaining to that particular barrier because crashes happen all of the time. Likewise, it seems amazing when someone wins the lottery, but we tend to forget all of the people who lost. In the same way we forget the other 999 armco barriers the crashed car did NOT hit.
BUT the rules of mathematical probability show that you have to multiply the available options. So then, we might draw a circle around the armco barrier and say, "see, by design" but we all know nobody would do that. But would they do it, if during the next lap of the race at the re-start, there was a crash, and the same armco barrier was hit? To quote Niki Lauda at the British Grandprix this year, he said, (paraphrase) "what are the chances of a crash at the same barrier, yet they have stopped the race for one hour to repair it - the chances are ZERO". I laughed because everyone knew it was just a matter of Health-And-Safety rules gone mad.
So then, even small coinicidences must be multiplied. If you toss a coin and get heads once it's 1 in 2 because there are two possible outcomes, but if you get two heads in a row, there are now 4 possible outcomes.
Imagine if Lauda was wrong, and on the restart the barrier was hit again? Maybe that was 1,000 X 1,000 = a million to 1, but even with very highly likely odds, separate coincidences are very unlikely. We would say AFTER the race, "it was unusual for the same armco barrier to be struck fourteen times."
But from what you are saying, we shouldn't be amazed by such an occurrence. So then you equate evolution with a likely occurrence rather than proving that it is, and you do that by saying, "ah but we can always draw a circle around it after the fact!"
Would anyone with any sanity, say that if the armco was struck 14 times on 14 consecutive laps? "Ahh but that was likely, because it's happened now and any one can attack relevance after the fact!"
I don't think so somehow.
And in the very same way, evolution of echoclocation, separate times, with a sharing of 200 of the same genes, is a highly unlikely event to put it midlly. So is the outcome of 40 separate eye-evolutions. All of these homoplasies have to be multiplied and the odds are relevant. Each one is added up - what is the chance of having a turtle-version of a tortoise? One is clearly a land-version, the other is clearly a sea-version, it would be like there being a land-rover with wings and a land-rover with wheels, one a plane, one a car. There is no reason for it to happen unless it please God, it is obvious that He wanted a land version and a sea version. To argue, "it's inevitable" would then to be to argue that there should be convergent turtles all over the world, in every location, 4 thousand of them, because it's "inevitable because of convergence".
High nonsense, there is no reason for a turtle and yet a tortoise to be so close in appearance, except by design.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 41 by vimesey, posted 09-28-2014 4:24 AM vimesey has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 48 by Capt Stormfield, posted 09-28-2014 11:20 AM mike the wiz has not replied
 Message 51 by Dr Adequate, posted 09-28-2014 1:45 PM mike the wiz has not replied
 Message 54 by vimesey, posted 09-29-2014 6:03 AM mike the wiz has not replied
 Message 55 by Larni, posted 09-29-2014 6:40 AM mike the wiz has not replied
 Message 58 by NoNukes, posted 05-07-2015 9:39 PM mike the wiz has not replied

  
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