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Author Topic:   "Best" evidence for evolution.
dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


Message 448 of 830 (870708)
01-24-2020 3:07 AM
Reply to: Message 439 by Faith
01-23-2020 2:34 PM


Re: My 2 sense worth
Why do you continually refuse to ever learn anything? It would very much be to your own benefit to learn something about mutations, if for no other reason than to keep from continually hoisting yourself on you own petard of ignrance.
In John Maynard Smith's book on population genetics, Evolutionary Genetics (1st ed, page 54), he lists four types of mutations:
  1. Base substitution. The replacement of one base by another.
  2. Insertion or deletion of single bases. This involves a "frame shift" in the process of translation.
  3. Inversion of a section of DNA.
  4. Duplication or deletion of a section of DNA.
Those are not the only possible types of mutations; see Wikipedia's Mutation: Classification of types.
Note that #4 can, and often does, increase the amount of "GENETIC MATERIAL". For one thing, it can and has created duplicate copies of genes; that is how the gene for lysozyme (anti-microbial enzyme in animal immune systems) could mutate to instead produce alpha-lactalbumin (regulates the production of lactose) without the organism losing the ability to produce lysozyme since multiple copies of its gene have been added to the genome though duplication mutations.
IOW, your nonsense about mutations not adding more "GENETIC MATERIAL" to the genome is just that, nonsense. And if you had bothered to learn about mutations, then you would have known that and known to not make that mistake.
BECAUSE THEY RUN OUT OF GENETIC MATERIAL, GENETIC FUEL AS IT WERE, GENETIC DIVERSITY, GENETIC VARIABILITY. The changes that are supposedly open ended USE UP genetic material as it were. To get a new phenotype means GETTING RID OF alleles for other characteristics.
First, what you are saying about WEASEL programs such as my MONKEY is absolutely false and completely misrepresents what they do and what they are based on. All you demonstrate is your abject ignrance of them. Yet again, taking a small amount of time to learn what WEASEL and MONKEY are and what they do would have kept you from hoisting yourself on your own ignrance petard. But you just refuse to ever learn.
No, natural selection does not result in the loss of "GENETIC MATERIAL" which you describe as "GENETIC FUEL", which is a very bad analogy that doesn't even apply. You don't burn up genetic material! Instead, it changes! New functionality can be added and old functionality can be lost, but the genes for that old functionality doesn't simply disappear and could even be restored by a future mutation.
For example, birds still have genes for growing teeth. In experiments, placing embryo mouse gum tissue on a chick embryo jaw triggers those teeth genes causing the chick embryo to start growing teeth. Similarly, baleen whales do not have teeth, but at one point in the development of their embryos they start to grow teeth, which are later reabsorbed.
More trivially, a trait can go away through natural selection and then come back again in full force when the environment changes. The best known example is the peppered moth. It started out with light coloration so that it could camouflage itself on light-colored tree bark. Then when soot from the Industrial Revolution darkened the bark, the moths lost their light coloration and became dark instead. Finally, when the air pollution was alleviated and the tree bark became light again, the moths went back to being light colored. The genes for coloration never went away. Natural selection changing gene frequency does not remove those unexpressed genes from the genome (as you have repeatedly and falsely claimed would be the case).
Old genes rarely go away; they just stop being expressed. Genomes don't lose "GENETIC MATERIAL", but instead accumulate more genetic material along with changing what they had or just simply stop using some of the old stuff, but that old stuff is still there. Your silly nonsense about genomes becoming smaller is just that, silly nonsense.
 
BTW, I told you, "Give us a valid reason. Give us a mechanism." You have done neither! All you did was to repeat your contrary-to-reality nonsense assertions that are based on nothing but your abject ignrance and wishful thinking.
The WEASEl program is just an expression of the usuel wishfulness of the ToE.
Absolutely false and a gross misrepresentation.
Learn something about WEASEL programs! Read Chapter Three, "Accumulating Small Changes", of Richard Dawkins' The Blind Watchmaker. It is in the first half of that chapter that Dawkins describes his WEASEL experiment.
Or you could read my page, MONKEY. In writing my program, I used Dawkins' description of his program as the design specification -- Dawkins did not provide a program listing; I seem to recall that he had written it in BASIC while I wrote mine in Turbo Pascal and then recently rewrote it in C. In a collection of WEASEL programs, mine was pointed out as being truest to the original (as I said, I used Dawkins' description as my spec). I provide the source code, an executable (Windows), and an analysis of the probabilities that enable it to work so fast and successfully.
No WEASEL program that I know of deals with genetics in any manner, let alone genetic variability, nor do they make any assumptions whatsoever about genetic variability.
Rather, WEASEL tests cumulative selection both to illustrate how it works, to demonstrate its speed and power, and to compare its performance with the single-step selection that creationists (yourself included) constantly misrepresent as how evolution must work -- yet again, evolution uses cumulative selection as does life itself, not your puny single-step selection.
But last I saw, you seemed to have switched to cumulative selection. In Message 262 you said, "Cumulative selection" is a crock." But then in Message 407 you changed your tune with "The trial and error that must happen is going to make tiny changes over huge swaths of time, ... ", which I pointed out in my reply (Message 417) describes cumulative selection:
DWise writes:
Which is contrary to the single-step selection nature of trial-and-error.
Rather, what you are now describing is cumulative selection which you pronounce as not existing! The accumulation of tiny changes over huge swaths of time, one little selection per generation.
Does this mean that now suddenly you accept cumulative selection? Or are you just being inconsistent and self-contradicting yet again?
So far, you have neither admitted switching nor denied it.
In Message 249 I described MONKEY to you. You never replied. Here's what I wrote:
DWise1 writes:
Indeed, your emphasis on the non-evolutionary model of "trial and error" and "bazillions of tries" (no such number exists ; refer to my page, Number Names) tells us that your misunderstanding of evolution is far worse.
Please read my pages, MONKEY and MONKEY PROBABILITIES (MPROBS) (they are a pair: Monkey explains my experiment while MProbs explains why it works). Basically, when I read Richard Dawkins' description of his WEASEL program in The Blind Watchmaker, I could not believe it so I tried it myself -- since he didn't give a program listing (probably written in BASIC), I used his description as the specification for my own program, MONKEY (in honor of Eddington's model infinite monkeys typing Hamlet -- refer to the Internet The Infinite Monkey Protocol Suite (IMPS), RFC 2795), which I implemented in Turbo Pascal. That worked so incredibly well and quickly (compiled Pascal is much faster than interpreted BASIC) that I still could not believe it. So I analyzed the probabilities involved (and wrote that analysis up in MProbs) and finally understood why it was virtually impossible for it to fail (SPOILER: the probability of every single parallel attempt always failing becomes vanishingly small). I uploaded it to a CompuServe library where for the next half decade that I remained on that service it continued to be downloaded at least once for each and every month. On a web page collection of all such WEASEL programs, mine was rated as being most faithful to the original (small wonder, since the original was my specification). And all creationist attempts I've seen to "refute" WEASEL relied on adding features (eg, "locking rings") that did not exist and certainly do not exist in mine.
WEASEL was so named because it would produce a single line from Hamlet in which the characters look for shapes in clouds: "Methinks it is like a weasel." That reference is why I named mine MONKEY, which I chose to produce the English alphabet in alphabetical order (though I provide the option to enter your own choice of target string).
Dawkins wrote WEASEL to illustrate one of his points, the difference between single-step selection and cumulative selection:
  • Single-step Selection. You make repeated attempts to get the end result all in one giant saltation. If you fail, then you start over completely from scratch. Any "close but not quite" outcomes are lost.
    The probability of this method succeeding is abysmally small. In MPROBS I calculated that probability to be about 1.6244×10-37. Then I calculated the number of attempts you needed to attain one change in a million; it turns out that if you ran this on a supercomputer capable of a million attempts per second, it would take about 10,000 times longer than an estimate age of the universe of 20 billion (20×109) to have just one chance in a million of success. IOW, abysmally small.
    When creationists advance probability arguments against evolution, this is the kind of selection that they try to saddle evolution with. But this is not the kind of selection that evolution uses, nor does it have bearing on how life even works.
  • Cumulative Selection. Here, you create a population of possible solutions. You rate them all and select the one that comes closest to the final result, then you use that one to generate the next population, with each new possible solution differing by a single random letter placed in a random position. Rinse and repeat until you arrive at the target solution.
    The probability of this method succeeding is virtually inevitable. For it to fail, every single new string in every single generation would need to fail, which becomes vanishingly small so as to become virtually impossible. When I ran it on my IBM XT clone (Norton Index of 2) it would succeed consistently in less than a minute (depending on the population size I would select; the smaller the population size the longer it would take). Now when I run it on a new Windows box (about 1000 times faster) it appears to succeed instantaneously, so in order to watch it work I have to choose a small population size.
    This is the kind of selection that evolution uses and which is based on how life works. This has led me to a basic definition of evolution as "the results of life doing what life does."
 
So, Faith, when you go on about "trial and error" and "bazillions of tries", you are obviously using single-step selection. We know that that is not in any way how life works and hence is not in any way how evolution would work.
Because of your gross misunderstanding of evolution using your abysmally bad single-step selection, you fool yourself into the false belief that evolution could not possibly work. Which we can clearly see is not the case.
So by not having learned what evolution is nor now it works, you have fooled yourself into filling your head with pure crap.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 439 by Faith, posted 01-23-2020 2:34 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 451 by Faith, posted 01-24-2020 6:46 AM dwise1 has not replied
 Message 453 by Faith, posted 01-24-2020 7:40 AM dwise1 has not replied
 Message 465 by Faith, posted 01-24-2020 1:33 PM dwise1 has not replied

  
dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


Message 524 of 830 (870933)
01-26-2020 3:45 PM
Reply to: Message 517 by Faith
01-26-2020 1:25 PM


Re: re the Linnaean taxonomy for birds
Just as in Dawkins' WEASEL program you are always all thinking of openended possibilities of evolution, so the program just shows that openended evolution, just one new phenotype after another, without any recognition whatever of what is going on in the genetic substrate.
You still have absolutely no clue what WEASEL programs are nor what they demonstrate. You still refuse to pull your head out and actually look and finally learn something!
WEASEL programs have practically nothing to do with evolution. WEASEL programs are in no form nor manner based on any assumptions about genotypes, gene expression in the phenotype, genetic diversity, etc. STOP YOUR UTTERLY FALSE CLAIMS THAT THEY DO!
All that WEASEL programs do is to demonstrate the effectiveness of the mechanism of cumulative selection, especially to contrast it with the woefully poor performance of single-step selection which is used by your "trial and error" non-model. That's it. It's an abstract implementation using the methods of cumulative selection in order to solve the same abstract problem that is first attempted with single-step selection. Nothing about genetics, genotypes, phenotypes. So all your repeated efforts to misrepresent it just prove that you continue to liie about everything and anything.
The only connection between cumulative selection and evolution is:
  1. The mechanism for cumulative selection was derived from observations of how life works.
  2. Evolution uses cumulative selection (not single-step selection as creationists continually liie).
Cumulative selection is a methodology just as interest rate calculations are a methodology. Trying to claim that cumulative selection is invalidated because of ideas about genetic diversity would be the same shtupid liie as claiming that interest rate calculations are invalidated because of ideas about tax rates. Applications are based on methodology, but methodology is not based on all possible applications.
For example, a common application of cumulative selection is in engineering in the form of genetic algorithms. You need to optimize a complex system which is very messy to try to model completely and in which the parameters you seek interact with each other in ways that are either too difficult or impossible to calculate. Then you follow a procedure inspired by how life works:
  1. Represent your problem as a string of values (ie, the parameters that you want to solve for). Also prepare a test with which you can evaluate each string for how well it works. Also establish the halting condition, a test for whether when you can stop because you have arrived a solution that is satisfactory.
  2. Create an initial population of solutions. This could even just be a single string.
  3. Make a population of near copies:
    1. Make a copy.
    2. Modify each copy slightly. Eg, replace a small number of the values with a random value, modify the existing value by a random amount, exchange short segments between strings (ie, chromosomal "cross over").
  4. Evaluate the new generation of strings with your test and rate them all for how well they perform.
  5. If you have arrived at a satisfactory solution (your halting condition), then exit.
  6. Select the top performers (one or a few, depending on your implementation) and go to Step #3 to use them to make the next generation of copies.
Genetic algorithms do not depend on actual biological genetics, but rather are independent of any assumptions in biology. Basically, WEASEL and MONKEY are genetic algorithms and are also independent of any assumptions in biology.
It should be interesting to note that genetic algorithms often arrive at working solutions that no engineer would have predicted. There was an experiment using a genetic algorithm to design a differential amplifier on a field-programmable gate array (FPGA--basically a chip filled with logic gates and flip-flops into which you can load a computer-generated map of how to connect those components into something useful; we used FPGAs all the time). The design they obtained worked as specified, was immensely complex (irreducibly so, since removing or changing any single component would break it), and made use of the analog electronic characteristics of the FPGA components (something that no human intelligent designer could possibly do).
Elsewhere in an artificial-life experiment, TIERRA, the "organisms" were virtual computers which fed on system resources and could reproduce their programs and, basically, evolve. The human intelligent designers had determined how those organisms would work and also the shortest possible program that could still reproduce, but the system "evolved" a far shorter program that could reproduce using a technique that none of the humans had ever thought of.
So pull your head out and learn something before you yet again hoist yourself on the petard of your willful ignrance.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 517 by Faith, posted 01-26-2020 1:25 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 525 by Faith, posted 01-26-2020 4:06 PM dwise1 has replied

  
dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


Message 526 of 830 (870943)
01-26-2020 5:24 PM
Reply to: Message 525 by Faith
01-26-2020 4:06 PM


Re: Back to the WEASEL program
I know that you keep having problems with "tricky" concepts like the plural, but are you completely incapable of understanding simple English?
Google link to Wikipedia writes:
The weasel program or Dawkins' weasel is a thought experiment and a variety of computer simulations illustrating it. Their aim is to demonstrate that the process that drives evolutionary systemsrandom variation combined with non-random cumulative selectionis different from pure chance.
Which seems to me to demonstrate what I keep saying: it's all about the change in phenotype or surface traits, surface changes in other words.
Which is not at all what that quote says, not even close! Pick out the specific wording within what you quoted that says anything at all about phenotypes, surface traits, or surface changes!
What is wrong with you? Why are you incapable of understanding English? I assume that it's supposed to be your native language, so it wouldn't help to switch to a different language that you would be more familiar with.
 
Now, "random variation combined with non-random cumulative selection" is "different from pure chance". That's what we keep telling you but you keep veering off into the weeds. In particular, you keep insisting on single-step selection with your "trial and error" crap, which is not only not what evolution uses, but is practically the exact opposite!
So then, no, that quote does not demonstrate what you keep saying. If anything, it contradicts what you keep saying.
It purports to show that these changes are different from pure chance.
Which it does do. More specifically, it shows that random variation combined with non-random cumulative selection is very effective in converging on a solution. And that converging action is very different from pure chance. And my analysis of the probabilities involved show why that is.
In contrast, your "trial and error" approach using single-step selection is nothing but pure chance. That is why it is so abysmally ineffective at converging on anything. And my analysis of the probabilities involved show why that is.
But it really doesn't represent those processes realistically at all so it couldn't demonstrate any such thing.
WEASEL and MONKEY both do indeed represent the methodology of cumulative selection realistically and so they do indeed demonstrate how well it works, especially as a means of comparing that method with the workings of pure chance (ie, your "trial and error").
What WEASEL and MONKEY do not serve as is simulations of biological evolution itself. They never were simulations of biological evolution and they never were intended to be, regardless of the continual misrepresentations by lying deceiving creationists such as yourself.
As I wrote on my MONKEY page (which you should have read since I've pointed you to it far more than enough times):
quote:
Certainly, a better simulation of evolution or natural selection would make use of immediate selective pressure arising from the environment itself. Indeed, better simulations have been written and run and have demonstrated that natural selection works.
But then neither MONKEY nor WEASEL was ever billed as a simulation of evolution nor of natural selection. All they were ever intended to do was to compare two different kinds of selection, which they have done rather well. The significance of that comparison is that cumulative selection, the method that was modelled after the way that life works and that natural selection is understood to work, functions extremely well, whereas single-step selection, the method that has nothing at all to do with how either evolution or life itself works, fails miserably.
The added significance of this comparison to the creation/evolution discussion is that creation science routinely misrepresents evolution as using single-step selection (which ironically is the selection method of their own model, creation ex nihilo) and creationists neglect to tell their audiences that there is another method which far better describes what life actually does. And in making that omission, the creationists are deceiving themselves and their audience.
So your entire case is that WEASEL and MONKEY fail to serve a function that they were never even intended to serve. You sound like the blathering ID10T who keeps trying to use his smartphone as a hammer and complains about what a lousy job it does as a hammer, so then all hammers are pure bollocks. Yet again we have to ask: what is wrong with you?
Are you talking about nonbiological engineering or what? I really can't tell.
I am talking and have been talking about the mechanism of cumulative selection all along! But you keep veering off into the weeds. What the hell is wrong with you?
Cumulative selection can be used in many different applications, most of which have nothing to do with biology. It also happens to be behind how life works (and hence how evolution works) -- that's actually not coincidental since cumulative selection was inspired by observing how life works.
It is one thing to take the mechanism of cumulative selection aside and examine and test how it works in isolation from any practical applications. That approach is extremely common and highly useful.
Then when you plug the mechanism of cumulative selection into a particular practical application (eg, evolution), then you are no longer studying cumulative selection, but rather you are studying that particular practical application to which knowledge gained from that separate study of the mechanism of cumulative selection would be helpful.
Studying the mechanism of cumulative selection and a practical application of it are two different and separate things!
But that is EXACTLY what I said, it has NOTHING to do with genotypes, gene expression, genetic diversity etc.
Wrong! You repeatedly insist that WEASEL must have everything "to do with genotypes, gene expression, genetic diversity etc." Stop lying!
Which doesn't matter in nonbiological uses of such programs but very important if you are talking about a model for how evolution works.
Except that neither WEASEL nor MONKEY are, nor were ever, intended to be models for "how evolution works." They are demonstrations and tests for one component of a model for how life works (and hence how evolution works).
When are you ever going to get that through your thick skull? What is wrong with you?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 525 by Faith, posted 01-26-2020 4:06 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 527 by Faith, posted 01-26-2020 5:28 PM dwise1 has replied
 Message 531 by Faith, posted 01-27-2020 1:58 AM dwise1 has not replied

  
dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


Message 528 of 830 (870947)
01-26-2020 5:43 PM
Reply to: Message 517 by Faith
01-26-2020 1:25 PM


Re: re the Linnaean taxonomy for birds
If you understand that new breeds have to lose the genetic substrate for other breeds, surely you must also see that any phenotype in the wild has to lose the genetic substrate for other phenotypes.
Except they don't lose that "genetic substrate" (by which I guess you mean the individuals' genomes). So why would we be expected to understand something that doesn't happen? We may as well be expected to understand how the moon is made of green cheese.
Genomes do not keep getting smaller and smaller. If anything, they keep getting larger and larger through duplication-type mutations. Some genes may get damaged or get switched off, but they do not go away. Learn something instead of continually churning pure crap inside what passes for your noggin.
And after a series of population splits developing new phenotypes you are going to have LESS genetic diversity and often so little further evolution is absolutely impossible.
No, quite the opposite! You end up with more genetic diversity within the species (the real species, not your crap redefinition).
We covered this in last Thursday's class which included a lecture on gene flow. In effect, gene flow works against increases in genetic variation within a population by mixing all traits together through sex. As a result, the genomes of the members of a population become more similar and genetic variation decreases. There will still be overall change of the population's common genome through natural selection, but variations from that will decrease through gene flow within the population.
But then when the population splits into two different isolated populations, their genomes will at first be the same, but then over the generations they will diverge. Thus, by splitting into isolated populations the genetic diversity of the species increases (not decreases as you claim).
Natural selection selection increases genetic diversity across the populations of the species (again, real species, not your crap phantoms), but then gene flow between those populations will actually work against natural selection by introducing genetic material from the other population (a husband-wife team runs the class; she illustrated this point by talking wistfully about a tall dark stranger arriving). An illustration is water snakes in a lake on the US-Canadian border. Because of their different environments' demands on camouflage, one population is banded while the other is not. One population lives on the shore while the other lives on an island. But being water snakes, gene flow can occur working against the effects of natural selection.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 517 by Faith, posted 01-26-2020 1:25 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 532 by Faith, posted 01-27-2020 2:12 AM dwise1 has not replied

  
dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


Message 529 of 830 (870948)
01-26-2020 5:45 PM
Reply to: Message 527 by Faith
01-26-2020 5:28 PM


Re: Back to the WEASEL program
Your persistent liies and your malicious ignrance are the abuse.
Pull your head out and learn something. And stop lying about the truth!

This message is a reply to:
 Message 527 by Faith, posted 01-26-2020 5:28 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 538 by Faith, posted 01-28-2020 5:10 PM dwise1 has not replied

  
dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


Message 612 of 830 (873735)
03-18-2020 11:07 PM
Reply to: Message 611 by Faith
03-18-2020 7:44 PM


Re: Taxonomic classification
Yes I'm a very astonishing person, I agree.
It is not a good thing for everybody to stare at you pointing, mouths agape in astonishment.
From The Princess Bride:
quote:
Prince Humperdinck: That may be the first time in my life a man has dared insult me.
Westley: It won't be the last. To the pain means the first thing you will lose will be your feet below the ankles. Then your hands at the wrists. Next your nose.
Prince Humperdinck: And then my tongue I suppose, I killed you too quickly the last time. A mistake I don't mean to duplicate tonight.
Westley: I wasn't finished. The next thing you will lose will be your left eye followed by your right.
Prince Humperdinck: And then my ears, I understand let's get on with it.
Westley: WRONG. Your ears you keep and I'll tell you why. So that every shriek of every child at seeing your hideousness will be yours to cherish. Every babe that weeps at your approach, every woman who cries out, "Dear God! What is that thing," will echo in your perfect ears. That is what "to the pain means." It means I leave you in anguish, wallowing in freakish misery forever.
And so we point at you, our mouths agape in astonishment, crying out, "Dear God! What is that thing?"

This message is a reply to:
 Message 611 by Faith, posted 03-18-2020 7:44 PM Faith has not replied

  
dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


(2)
Message 762 of 830 (887419)
08-02-2021 11:28 PM
Reply to: Message 761 by PaulK
08-01-2021 3:10 PM


Re: Candle2 versus evolution
candle2 writes:
Fossils are piles of bones that were deposited in great
heaps by a global flood.
That is certainly not true.
Yes, fossils have been found in all kinds of situations. Yes, there are piles of unarticulated bones from major localized floods. There are also individual fossilized specimens with its bones still articulated. As well as fossilized delicate structures. As well as multiple delicate environments (eg, systems of burrowing, forest floors with intact complete root systems) layered one on top of another many layers deep, intact dinosaur nests with all the eggs in place and intact (try to find eggs like that in the grocery store). IOW, things that could not have possibly have survived such a massively destructive single world-wide flood as candle2 is claiming.
The funny thing that creationists don't realize is that geologists are not all drooling idiots (must be a case of creationists projecting their own condition onto others). Geologists can tell whether sediment was deposited rapidly or slowly: basically, lots of rocks in the matrix would indicate rapidly moving water causing rapid depositation (the larger the rocks, the faster the moving water) whereas the layer consisting of fine pariticles, no rocks or pebbles, would indicate slow moving water causing slow depositation. We find both kinds of layers, rapidly and slowly deposited, dispersed even within the same formation.
A few years back a creationist promoted a YEC video here, "Is Genesis History?". In response, I watched it and took notes. From my notes (including time marks from the video; sections edited out for brevity):
quote:
0:23 -- Andrew Snelling, geologist
0:31 talks of need for rapid sedimentation of the Coconino Formation
yet examination of a layer will show how rapidly it was deposited by the size of its component particles, such that rapid depositation will contain larger particles and slow depositation smaller particles
Coconino sandstone is fine-grained, hence slow depositation
candle2's overly simplistic views simply do not reflect reality.
candle2 writes:
A worldwide flood would sort many of the fossils into
size and density before depositing them.
And since this is not at all the order we see, we can be sure that a worldwide flood did not do it. Dinosaurs for instance are a hugely diverse group ranging from huge herbivores to tiny insectivores. Yet (apart from birds) they are only found in the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous systems, not earlier or later, no matter what size or shape they are.
This tired old canard simply does not match the facts. The overall pattern of fossils throughout the strata clearly does not match what would be the actual results of such hydrodynamic sorting. A wild claim that yet again does not match reality.
Interestingly though, hydrodynamic sorting can happen, but it's restricted to individual localized floods. From my notes for that creationist video:
quote:
0:50 -- Arthur Chadwick, paleontologist
interviewed at a dig of the Lance Formation
he described a one-meter thick bone bed
from his description of it, the burial had to have been a single event because the bones are sorted as we would expect from hydrodynamic sorting with large bones to the bottom and small bones to the top
that also means that the bones must have already become disarticulated, meaning that the soft tissue had to have already rotted away
he spoke of the rarity of fossils and the conditions needed
Note that that sorting had happened within that single pile of fossils. Not only were all those fossils associated together by being within the same layer (and hence were around at the same time, but that association within the same layer contradicts that the creationist hydrodynamic claim requires that all those bones be distributed among many different layers throughout the geologic column. Instead, there they are piled together in the same layer.
candle2 writes:
In any event, the bottom layer would contain fish fossils.
Above these would be amphibians, then reptiles
(Including dinosaurs). Above these would be birds
and mammals, including humans.
But this is not at all the order that we see. Fish continue on to the present day. Early mammals are found with dinosaurs, as are early birds. The great marine reptiles are found in the same geological systems as dinosaurs while marine mammals like whales only turn up in later-deposited strata.
candle2 writes:
This last group would be on the highest ground;
Thereby, assuring that they would be last to die.
And, less likely to be covered by sediment, which
would leave minimal fossils.
I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t expect to find whales on high ground.
Yes, the other old false claim of locality which is clearly, to quote Capt. Blackadder, bollux -- see that Blackadder clip at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGxAYeeyoIc.
Fossils' location within the geologic column does not agree even remotely with the elevation at which they lived. As per the whales, even bottom dwellers appear at virtually all levels within the geologic column. Creationists try to tweak this claim with the "fleetness of foot" argument, that the "more advanced" animals ran uphill to try to escape the encroaching Floode Waters. Even the bottom dwellers and whales.
But forget the animals! What about the plants? According to creationists, the more advanced plants, even the ones that lived right next to the shoreline (eg, mangrove trees), pulled up roots and hightailed it uphill, outracing the Floode. There's even a cartoon showing those trees and shrubs running uphill.
Kind of tells us that candle2 has never ever given any of his ridiculous PRATTs any thought at all.
candle2 writes:
If you have serious evidence to support this claim I’d like to see it.
We all know that he will never provide any evidence to support any of his claims, let alone this one.
He has no evidence. Nor does he have any clue what he's blathering on about.
Edited by dwise1, : Corrected Blackadder's rank from Lt to Capt.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 761 by PaulK, posted 08-01-2021 3:10 PM PaulK has not replied

  
dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


(3)
Message 763 of 830 (887434)
08-03-2021 11:19 AM
Reply to: Message 761 by PaulK
08-01-2021 3:10 PM


Re: Candle2 versus evolution
(My emphasis added)
candle2 writes:
Instead of changing their beliefs to fit the facts,
evolutionists insist that iron is responsible for
the C-14 amounts
, even after 75,000,000 years.
I wonder why you assume that the other evidence of age should be thrown out. It would not be scientific to do so.
Since this is the very first time I've ever heard anything about iron being responsible for new C-14 appearing in situ in fossils, I asked candle2 about it with no answer from him. I believe you have done the same. Uranium or radon, I could see, but iron?
But what this demonstrates is that whenever a creationist claims to speak for "evolutionists", our first and best reaction should be disbelief.
For example, my research into Kent Hovind's solar-mass-loss claim (see my page, DWise1: Kent Hovind's Solar Mass Loss Claim) was triggered by a cold email I got from a young creationist in which he stated authoritatively:
quote:
As any good scientist will tell you, the sun burns half of its mass every year. If you multiply the sun's mass by millions (even though science says it is in the billions) the sun will be so incredibly huge it will stretch out past Pluto. And if you say that the planets would stay close to the sun as it shrank, then why don't the planets still move closer?
Of course, that is completely and utterly wrong in several ways (which I covered in my reply to him); I cover a lot of this at that page:
  1. The rate at which the sun is losing mass through hydrogen fusion is less than 5 million tonnes per second. Since there are about 31,557,600 seconds in a year (using astronomy's figure of 365.25 days per year), that would amount to about 1.57788×1014 tonnes lost per year.
  2. The sun's mass is about 1.98855×1027 tonnes. That would make the annual mass loss due to fusion as one 1.2602669×1013-th of the sun's mass. Immensely smaller than half the sun's mass as claimed.
  3. Taking the claim at its face value, we would not be talking about mere millions or billions (US/UK billions, not real European ones which would be US trillions). But that has no bearing on reality anyway, so just quibbling here.
  4. If we extrapolate that 1.57788×1014 tonnes per year loss back for the life of the sun so far, it amounts to a few hundredths of one percent of the sun's total mass. For that calculation I assumed Hovind's slightly inflated figures of five million tonnes per second over five billion (5×109) years -- see my page. That are also reasons to believe that the rate of mass loss was less in the past and is slowly speeding up as the sun's core is becoming increasingly hotter.
  5. Those calculations show that that slightly more massive ancient sun's gravity would have been a few hundredths of a percent greater and its size would have been very nearly the same as it is at present.
The kid's story was that he was a high school student who had just attended a Christian summer camp and he was given that claim by a camp counselor (I had requested that he ask his source for that guy's source, but he'll never see that guy again). The kid was wondering whether that claim was true, so he emailed me because my website indicated that I should be able to give him a straight answer. Which I did, though perhaps not very gently -- I took him through a step-by-step analysis to show that none of it could pass the smell test.
Part of that claim might be based on an actual fact (albeit grossly misunderstood): the sun's core (about 5% of its volume) contains half of its mass and fusion only happens in the core where it gets hot enough and dense enough. That tells me that someone must have read or heard that fact and misunderstood it. After formulating the first draft of the claim then more and more error kept accumulating with each person it was retold to (AKA the Game of Telephone). It's even possible that it started as a different claim altogether which included that valid fact, but then in the accumulating corruption of the claim the emphasis shifted to a corruption of that fact.
The point to that is that these claims are little more than urban myths that keep circulating about in the wild, mutating as it gets passed on.
The other point which started this is that this completely and utterly and flagrantly false claim started with the proclamation, "As any good scientist will tell you, ... ". Uh, no, absolutely no competent scientist would ever tell you such complete and utter nonsense! That is just yet another creationist lie.
And I have no doubt that the same applies to candle2's "evolutionists insist ... ". Just yet another creationist lie that had been fed to him and that he passes on like a COVIDiot mask-hole.
Edited by dwise1, : US/UK billions, not real European ones which would be US trillions

This message is a reply to:
 Message 761 by PaulK, posted 08-01-2021 3:10 PM PaulK has not replied

  
dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


Message 767 of 830 (887685)
08-20-2021 4:24 AM
Reply to: Message 766 by Percy
08-19-2021 7:32 PM


Re: Ordinary selection of built in variation is not species to species evolution
Dredge writes:
A biblical "kind" may refer to a phylum.
There are 35 animal phyla. One very large phyla, the chordata, includes all vertebrates, meaning fish, frogs, lizards, birds, lions, tigers and bears - oh my.
Well then, that completely solves the entire problem, doesn't it?
They already admit that "micro-evolution" is real, but they define it as "variation within a single 'kind'." They deny "macro-evolution" which they define as requiring change into an entirely different "kind".
Well, since all vertebrates are part of that one big happy "kind" called chordates, then all the evolution of mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians evolved from tetrapods, including the evolution of primates which includes humans, is just "variation within the single chordate 'kind'."
So, that resolves all the differences between us and the creationists. Dredge now has a very good reason to accept evolution in full agreement with his creationism.
But of course, he will most likely commit the common creationist "Peppered Moth fallacy": " ... but ... but ... but ... but they're all STILL CHORDATES!!!!"
If kind is the same thing as phylum then a toad could give birth to a human and it would still be according to the Bible.
Still not the way that it works. Even though that's the entire wrong idea that most creationists have of how it would work.
To point out to Dredge and others, due to nested clades, all descendants of a population, including all descendant species, are of the same "kind" (AKA "clade") as that parent species. We cannot expect an animal of one clade to ever give birth to offspring of an entirely different and distantly-related clade (ie, disregarding hybrids between very closely related species which means that they are members of the same clade going up one of two levels).
Which is another way of saying that evolution teaches that organisms do indeed reproduce according to their own kind (AKA "clade"). So why do creationists pretend that it doesn't teach that?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 766 by Percy, posted 08-19-2021 7:32 PM Percy has seen this message but not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 768 by AZPaul3, posted 08-20-2021 7:47 AM dwise1 has replied

  
dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


Message 770 of 830 (887719)
08-21-2021 3:26 AM
Reply to: Message 769 by Dredge
08-21-2021 2:47 AM


Re: Ordinary selection of built in variation is not species to species evolution
Really? Which Bible verse says/implies a toad could give birth to a human?
Evolution most definitely teaches us that such an event would be impossible. Despite so sickingly frequent false creationist claims to the contrary.
Rather, it is the creationists themselves who insist that that must be the case if evolution were true. Plus that would be the logical conclusion of the standard creationist claim about "kinds".
Percy was just taking the creationist claims about "kinds being phyla" to their logical conclusion and a bit beyond. So the real question you should be asking is toads giving birth to humans isn't the case. We all know the answer to that one, but creationists appear to be completely clueless.
So then, Dredge can you, an obvious creationist, answer that question? If you insist that evolution would require such things, do please explain that to us.
Edited by dwise1, : "despite creationist claims to the contrary"

This message is a reply to:
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dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


Message 771 of 830 (887720)
08-21-2021 3:43 AM
Reply to: Message 768 by AZPaul3
08-20-2021 7:47 AM


Re: Ordinary selection of built in variation is not species to species evolution
Dredge doesn't understand what a phylum is.
Granted. I have yet to encounter any creationist who has any clue what he's talking about. That seems to be an article of faith.
Plus there's that unspoken requirement for them to lie once they have learned anything about what they are talking about. And the more that they actually learn, the more they have to lie.
I have seen that happen so sickeningly often, over and over again.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 768 by AZPaul3, posted 08-20-2021 7:47 AM AZPaul3 has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 774 by Dredge, posted 08-21-2021 3:03 PM dwise1 has replied

  
dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


Message 786 of 830 (887760)
08-21-2021 5:42 PM
Reply to: Message 780 by Percy
08-21-2021 4:14 PM


Re: Ordinary selection of built in variation is not species to species evolution
I wasn't sure what you said that dwise1 thought a lie, ... I'm not sure why dwise1 called it a lie.
I didn't do any such thing. Rather, this is what I wrote in Message 771:
DWise1 writes:
I have yet to encounter any creationist who has any clue what he's talking about. That seems to be an article of faith.
Plus there's that unspoken requirement for them to lie once they have learned anything about what they are talking about. And the more that they actually learn, the more they have to lie.
So I was not addressing what Dredge had said, but rather I was making a general observation about creationists in general.
That Dredge immediately took it personally speaks to me of his having a very guilty conscience. Kind of like if the police pulled you over for not stopping at a stop sign and the first thing you blurt out is "I didn't kill anybody!" That would be rather suspicious, wouldn't you agree?
So then the question is: What lies does Dredge know full well that he has told which would make him feel so guilty that he would drop that very telling tell?
Edited by dwise1, : added final paragraph

This message is a reply to:
 Message 780 by Percy, posted 08-21-2021 4:14 PM Percy has seen this message but not replied

Replies to this message:
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dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


(2)
Message 787 of 830 (887761)
08-21-2021 6:49 PM
Reply to: Message 782 by nwr
08-21-2021 4:55 PM


Re: Ordinary selection of built in variation is not species to species evolution
I take lying to mean asserting as true what you believe to be false. So I'll give Dredge a pass on that.
That is and has always been a problem when calling creationists out on their lies.
If you repeat a lie but you believe it to be true, then are you actually lying? Yes, you are making a false statement, but since you believe that false statement to be true then you do not have to bear the moral onus of lying. But if you are repeating a lie knowing that it is a lie, then you are indeed guilty of lying.
The problem for us is how to determine when a creationist knows that he is telling a lie. In four decades, I have been able to detect a deliberate creationist lie only a few times.
But the moral issue is not important since that's completely between the creationist and his imaginary god whom he disregards anyway. The important issue is that spreading lies does very real damage.
When you spread a lie, it does real damage. And that damage does not depend on whether you know that it's a lie or you don't. Deliberately or unknowingly lying does not change one single bit the damage that it does.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 782 by nwr, posted 08-21-2021 4:55 PM nwr has seen this message but not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 801 by Dredge, posted 08-21-2021 10:27 PM dwise1 has not replied

  
dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


Message 788 of 830 (887762)
08-21-2021 8:12 PM
Reply to: Message 774 by Dredge
08-21-2021 3:03 PM


Re: Ordinary selection of built in variation is not species to species evolution
Hilarious. Pray tell, what " lie" have I uttered?
Just what the hell are you talking about? Why are you falsely accusing me of something that I did not do? And I am making the assumption here that you are able to read plain English and actually comprehend what you are reading. So am I wrong in that assumption?
Refer to my Message 786 to Percy:
DWise1 writes:
I didn't do any such thing. Rather, this is what I wrote in Message 771:
DWise1 writes:
I have yet to encounter any creationist who has any clue what he's talking about. That seems to be an article of faith.
Plus there's that unspoken requirement for them to lie once they have learned anything about what they are talking about. And the more that they actually learn, the more they have to lie.
So I was not addressing what Dredge had said, but rather I was making a general observation about creationists in general.
As I also said in that reply to Percy, your reaction speaks loudly of your guilty conscience, like if the police were to pull you over for going through a stop sign and the first words out of your mouth were "I didn't kill him!" Very suspicious, you must agree.
So then, what have you done to be so guilty about? What lie are you admitting to having told? Do come clean; confession is supposed to be good for the soul.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 774 by Dredge, posted 08-21-2021 3:03 PM Dredge has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 795 by Dredge, posted 08-21-2021 10:02 PM dwise1 has replied

  
dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


(1)
Message 825 of 830 (887863)
08-23-2021 10:01 PM
Reply to: Message 795 by Dredge
08-21-2021 10:02 PM


Re: Ordinary selection of built in variation is not species to species evolution
Why are you lumping me in with other creationists?
I am doing no such thing.
Rather you are doing that yourself. For that matter, you are working overtime in demonstrating that you are one of the worst kinds of creationist troll.
To be honest, you have been away for so long that I honestly did not remember what kind of completely and utter ludicrous nonsense you had presented before. Now that's starting to come back to me.
Even without any kind of forum history, everything you have presented here in this most recent outburst demonstrates conclusively that you are nothing more than the most base bottom-feeding creationist troll. With absolutely nothing of any worth to contribute to any discussion.
Pity, that.
There are so many dark corners in the creationist mind that could illuminate that particular sickness were we allowed to examine them. Sadly, you sick creationists remain silent where it would most matter.
Edited by dwise1, : he's a troll

Edited by dwise1, : added "where it would most matter"


This message is a reply to:
 Message 795 by Dredge, posted 08-21-2021 10:02 PM Dredge has not replied

  
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