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Author Topic:   If evolution is true, where did flying creatures come from?
mike the wiz
Member
Posts: 4752
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

  
Capt Stormfield
Member (Idle past 455 days)
Posts: 428
From: Vancouver Island
Joined: 01-17-2009


(1)
Message 47 of 225 (737678)
09-28-2014 11:11 AM
Reply to: Message 42 by mike the wiz
09-28-2014 9:47 AM


Re: Reply to capt stormfield.
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.
In fact, I said or implied no such thing. I responded to a series of posts claiming that
...we say that others are wrong without even knowing what the other has to say.
by explaining why that claim is not true. Setting aside the incomprehensible hash you have concocted from stirring together your misunderstanding of logic and your misrepresentation of my words, I will address one important idea you inadvertently brushed up against.
...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.
What I came to realize as I became educated in both science and religion (at a religious college, BTW), was precisely that I had not "come to a belief" in creation. In reality, I had absorbed it from the culture around me as unconsciously, and as unthinkingly, as I had absorbed my language. When I assessed my creationist beliefs I discovered that I had not, in fact, applied my ability to reason to them. I came to understand the difference between the "believing" of my religious experience up to that point, and the tentative, always tested, acceptance of evidence that characterized a rational view of the world. So yes, my ability to reason is still the same, it simply had not been used in the development of my religious faith.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 42 by mike the wiz, posted 09-28-2014 9:47 AM mike the wiz has not replied

  
Capt Stormfield
Member (Idle past 455 days)
Posts: 428
From: Vancouver Island
Joined: 01-17-2009


Message 48 of 225 (737679)
09-28-2014 11:20 AM
Reply to: Message 46 by mike the wiz
09-28-2014 10:53 AM


Re: Probability is a pain
...with a sharing of 200 of the same genes...
Gosh! However could different species come to share the same genes?!?!? It's almost as if they had something in common, like... like... an ancestor or something!!!!!!

This message is a reply to:
 Message 46 by mike the wiz, posted 09-28-2014 10:53 AM mike the wiz has not replied

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


Message 49 of 225 (737680)
09-28-2014 11:47 AM
Reply to: Message 44 by mike the wiz
09-28-2014 10:30 AM


Now if you could just say what is "dumb" about it. Did you mean the typo-error? I pressed "2" instead of "3".
You mean 3 instead of 2.
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.
No, what's dumb is the assumption that what you're talking about is the equivalent of 100 heads in a row.
Let's think about your simplified model of evolution. You assume getting vision is a lottery with a 1 in 2 chance of winning, heads they see, tails they don't. We'll let that pass for now. But you also tacitly assume that the winners were the only ones to enter the lottery! That's the only context in which your math makes sense. If there are also an equal number of losers who didn't get vision, whose coin came down tails, then there is nothing particularly remarkable about the result; on the contrary, it's what you'd expect.
Well, there are plenty of groups that don't have eyes. These would be the losers in your hypothetical vision lottery.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 44 by mike the wiz, posted 09-28-2014 10:30 AM mike the wiz has not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22388
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 50 of 225 (737684)
09-28-2014 12:45 PM
Reply to: Message 43 by mike the wiz
09-28-2014 10:08 AM


Re: Probability is a pain
An aside:
mike the wiz writes:
And the last rope-a-dope was, "the greatest."
"The greatest" was not a rope-a-dope. Rope-a-dope was a strategy employed by "the greatest."
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 43 by mike the wiz, posted 09-28-2014 10:08 AM mike the wiz has not replied

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


(1)
Message 51 of 225 (737688)
09-28-2014 1:45 PM
Reply to: Message 46 by mike the wiz
09-28-2014 10:53 AM


Re: Probability is a pain
High nonsense, there is no reason for a turtle and yet a tortoise to be so close in appearance, except by design.
Ooh, I know! What if they're related!
(It just came to me in a flash.)

This message is a reply to:
 Message 46 by mike the wiz, posted 09-28-2014 10:53 AM mike the wiz has not replied

  
ringo
Member (Idle past 411 days)
Posts: 20940
From: frozen wasteland
Joined: 03-23-2005


Message 52 of 225 (737694)
09-28-2014 2:43 PM
Reply to: Message 35 by Bookworm7890
09-27-2014 10:59 PM


Re: Reply to capt stormfield.
Bookworm7890 writes:
And to evolutionists: did our ancestors crawl/slither/ooze/flop out of the ocean just so that their descendants could argue all day without at least thinking about what our opponent has to say?
No. They crawled, slithered, oozed, flopped and eventually flew because they could. In some cases the ability to crawl, slither, ooze, flop and fly was beneficial to survival and was passed on to their descendants; in other cases maybe not.
The ability to distinguish good ideas from bad is a separate line of evolution. Our species manages to survive even though some individuals lack that ability.

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Pressie
Member
Posts: 2103
From: Pretoria, SA
Joined: 06-18-2010


Message 53 of 225 (737727)
09-29-2014 5:46 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by Bookworm7890
09-26-2014 10:26 PM


Modern animals descend from prokaryotes, then through eukaryotes to modern animals. Scientific fact. Not debated in scientific circles.
What's your question?

This message is a reply to:
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vimesey
Member
Posts: 1398
From: Birmingham, England
Joined: 09-21-2011


(1)
Message 54 of 225 (737729)
09-29-2014 6:03 AM
Reply to: Message 46 by mike the wiz
09-28-2014 10:53 AM


Re: Probability is a pain
But you're still making the same mistake - you're still looking at the particular result and saying that the odds of that particular result occurring are tiny. Whereas evolution simply needs a successful result, whatever that particular result's configuration is.
And in order for your racetrack analogy to work when applied to evolution, you would have to run your 14 laps millions and millions of times. To use your analogy, a successful mutation, which led to a species-wide change, would equate, say, to a barrier being hit once on each lap. Which barriers are hit, in what order, doesn't matter for evolution - all that needs to happen is that a barrier gets hit on each lap. And over millions and millions of races, that's going to happen.
You're making the mistake of looking at one race, and applying probability to the outcome of that one race. But evolution has millions of races and millions of drivers.
You go on to try to extend this to the unlikelihood of 40 separate eye evolutions. However, what you should be asking is how likely it is, given observed mutation rates, observed natural selection and a sod of a lot of organisms over a hellishly long period of time, that something would have evolved to detect light in an increasingly sophisticated way. It could have been an eye - it could have been light sensitive skin - hell, it could have been a sprungle on the end of a grollit's dringle stalk. That it was an eye is irrelevant - that it was a successful series of mutations is all that matters.

Could there be any greater conceit, than for someone to believe that the universe has to be simple enough for them to be able to understand it ?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 46 by mike the wiz, posted 09-28-2014 10:53 AM mike the wiz has not replied

  
Larni
Member (Idle past 163 days)
Posts: 4000
From: Liverpool
Joined: 09-16-2005


Message 55 of 225 (737732)
09-29-2014 6:40 AM
Reply to: Message 46 by mike the wiz
09-28-2014 10:53 AM


Re: Probability is a pain
there is no reason for a turtle and yet a tortoise to be so close in appearance, except by design.
Yes there is. They could be related to each other. That is a pefecty cromulant reason for their similarity.

The above ontological example models the zero premise to BB theory. It does so by applying the relative uniformity assumption that the alleged zero event eventually ontologically progressed from the compressed alleged sub-microscopic chaos to bloom/expand into all of the present observable order, more than it models the Biblical record evidence for the existence of Jehovah, the maximal Biblical god designer.
-Attributed to Buzsaw Message 53
The explain to them any scientific investigation that explains the existence of things qualifies as science and as an explanation
-Attributed to Dawn Bertot Message 286
Does a query (thats a question Stile) that uses this physical reality, to look for an answer to its existence and properties become theoretical, considering its deductive conclusions are based against objective verifiable realities.
-Attributed to Dawn Bertot Message 134

This message is a reply to:
 Message 46 by mike the wiz, posted 09-28-2014 10:53 AM mike the wiz has not replied

Replies to this message:
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Zatara
Junior Member (Idle past 3247 days)
Posts: 4
From: Richland
Joined: 05-07-2015


Message 56 of 225 (757323)
05-07-2015 9:59 AM
Reply to: Message 55 by Larni
09-29-2014 6:40 AM


Evolution of Birds
Though there is disagreement among biologists, most agree birds evolved from dinosaurs. Archaeopteryx is the first good example of a "feathered dinosaur." It was discovered in 1861, found in the Solnhofen limestone in southern Germany Archaeopteryx is a transitional fossil, with features clearly intermediate between those of non-avian theropod dinosaurs and birds.
I think what puzzles creationists is a failure to appreciate the time involved for even very small changes. Sometimes these changes take millions of years to be noticeable. And contrary to a creationist misunderstanding, the old species does not necessarily die out when a new one evolves. That's why we still have many different kinds of apes, including one with a very bad back that has not finished adapting to walking erect. This ape is sometimes called "homo sapiens."

This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
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 Message 59 by Faith, posted 05-07-2015 11:48 PM Zatara has replied

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


Message 57 of 225 (757346)
05-07-2015 4:06 PM
Reply to: Message 56 by Zatara
05-07-2015 9:59 AM


Re: Evolution of Birds -- another old bird
Welcome to the fray Zatara,
Though there is disagreement among biologists, most agree birds evolved from dinosaurs. Archaeopteryx is the first good example of a "feathered dinosaur." It was discovered in 1861 ...
We actually have a number of fossils besides Archy, and a new one has just been found in China:
The oldest record of ornithuromorpha from the early cretaceous of China (Nature Communications, Article number: 6987 doi:10.1038/ncomms7987 Published 05 May 2015)
quote:
Ornithuromorpha is the most inclusive clade containing extant birds but not the Mesozoic Enantiornithes. The early evolutionary history of this avian clade has been advanced with recent discoveries from Cretaceous deposits, indicating that Ornithuromorpha and Enantiornithes are the two major avian groups in Mesozoic. Here we report on a new ornithuromorph bird, Archaeornithura meemannae gen. et sp. nov., from the second oldest avian-bearing deposits (130.7 Ma) in the world. The new taxon is referable to the Hongshanornithidae and constitutes the oldest record of the Ornithuromorpha. However, A. meemannae shows few primitive features relative to younger hongshanornithids and is deeply nested within the Hongshanornithidae, suggesting that this clade is already well established.
Figure 1: Holotype of Archaeornithura meemannae gen. et sp. nov., STM7-145.
Holotype of Archaeornithura meemannae gen. et sp. nov., STM7-145.
(a) Main slab; (b) counter slab. Anatomical abbreviations: al, alular digit; ba, basicranium;
co, coracoid; cv, cervical vertebrae; d I—IV, pedal digit I—IV; fe, femur; fi, fibula; fu, furcula;
hu, humerus; ma, major digit; mi, minor di
Ornithuromorpha is the clade of birds that all living birds but not Enantiornithes nest in refs 1, 2. Until now the earliest record of this group was from the lower Cretaceous Yixian Formation (125 Ma), ... Therefore, the Huajiying Formation is the second oldest avian-bearing deposit in the world, only after the Upper Jurassic Solnhofen Limestones that preserve Archaeopteryx in Germany ...
Lots of good stuff in the article, including images of the fossils of the feathers.
Enjoy
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This message is a reply to:
 Message 56 by Zatara, posted 05-07-2015 9:59 AM Zatara has not replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 58 of 225 (757369)
05-07-2015 9:39 PM
Reply to: Message 46 by mike the wiz
09-28-2014 10:53 AM


Re: Probability is a pain
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?
Your post saddens me.
You make the same tired argument about probability that has been debunked many times, and I'm sure that it will be rebutted in the same way here.
At some point one would hope that the dialog would evolve to attacking the actual arguments that proponents make in response, but that seemingly never happens. Instead the creationist deals out the same old tired lecture about probabilities.
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!"
Sigh.

Je Suis Charlie
Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass

This message is a reply to:
 Message 46 by mike the wiz, posted 09-28-2014 10:53 AM mike the wiz has not replied

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


Message 59 of 225 (757376)
05-07-2015 11:48 PM
Reply to: Message 56 by Zatara
05-07-2015 9:59 AM


Re: Evolution of Birds
I think what puzzles creationists is a failure to appreciate the time involved for even very small changes. Sometimes these changes take millions of years to be noticeable.
But what's so odd really, is that very noticeable changes occur within a few generations when you isolate a small number of a Species. Darwin demonstrated this with pigeons, getting extreme variations in a very short period of time just by breeding to enhance a chosen trait. They always reverted to type left to their own reproductive devices. All this demonstrates is the great variability that is built in to a Species, that develops through microevolution if the breeding pool is isolated. Isolation can occur either artificially by human manipulation, or by natural factors such as migration of a small number of a Species in the wild. Either method will produce a new type or breed or race or variety.
Change is built into the genome, but it can only vary the traits of the particular Species that are programmed into its genome, it can never produce something that is not already genetically available to that Species. Oodles of time isn't going to make one Species into another if the genetic program for all the characteristics of a given Species is limited to what is already packed into its genome. This is macroevolution's ultimate downfall. If the Species is genetically equipped for fur it isn't going to grow feathers no matter how clever you are at breeding strategies. OR, if you get something in the direction of feathers by assiduous selection, you will sacrifice so much else to the effort you may not even have a viable living creature at all in the end. That is, if you try to breed from an anomaly you will most often get disease and deformation. That is, Species are capable of change but there are limits. Extreme change, even if produced by a series of small changes, is more likely to lead to extinction than further ability to change. Thus dies the Theory of Evolution.
Fossils show what once lived, they do not necessarily show whether they were related to other fossil forms or not. The idea that birds evolved from dinosaurs is based only on some morphological similarities and position in the fossil record. We can tell if a fossil was related to a currently living thing by its morphology, but it's sheer speculation to claim descent from one Species to another.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 60 of 225 (757377)
05-07-2015 11:54 PM
Reply to: Message 59 by Faith
05-07-2015 11:48 PM


Re: Evolution of Birds
Real genetics is more interesting than genetics you made up.

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