Who Owns the Standard Definition of Evolution

There is much we have learned about biological make-up, chromosomes, DNA, et al., and this has all been accomplished through the painstaking work of sincere scientists. I suspect the majority of the knowledge that has been amassed is observable and, effectively, factual.This notion that biological similarity equals some type of ancestral link between all lifeforms - the linchpin of evolutionary theory - has not been proven nor disproven empirically. Keep searching for this if the will and the resources are there, but presenting this evolution "linchpin" as just another factual biological observation is, simply, disingenuous.

There's no such thing as proof within science. Again, not proof, but are you saying you don't believe that measures of degree of similarity of DNA isn't a measure of relatedness? On the contrary, it is a principle that laypeople take advantage of on a daily basis when they submit their DNA to find their ancestry. The degree of similarity can tell who's a parent or child or sibling or cousin or more distant relationship, and what parts of the world they have ethnic contributions from. Law enforcement has used it to successfully track down criminals. There's nothing made-up about DNA providing a measure of degree of relatedness. I think if we all keep our focus on the facts and away from denigrating thoughts about other people that we'll do fine. Again, there's no proof, only interpreted evidence around which a consensus might form. It's fine if for you the theory of evolution is weak and unacceptable, but if you're here to convince other people of that then you need to describe why.--Percy

I'll just copy paste what I just explained to sensei in my previous message. Just as we can measure our degree of relatedness to other humans through DNA testing, science can use DNA measure the degree of relatedness between species. For instance, we're closely related to chimps, but not so close that interbreeding is possible. But lions and tigers are even more closely related, and there interbreeding is possible. The more closely genetically related, the more likely two species will be able to interbreed.These *are* facts, not "disingenuous" observations.--Percy

There's a great deal we know about DNA, and any legitimate scientist will concede there's a great deal we don't know.Ancestry.com can tell people whatever they want - who's to argue?We can take a set of known parents and their off spring, compare their DNA, and draw conclusions - this is legitimate experimentation with hard, empirical data
- but extrapolating these conclusions and extending them to all past and present lifeforms is mere supposition.All I would ask of scientists is to maintain overt separation between biological fact and evolutionary supposition.

I am one life form, my children are other life forms. Because they were similar but different from their parents, and because each possessed their own unique mutations, their births were examples of "random, non-directed evolution of one life form to another."But I don't think that answers the question you actually meant to ask. I've been assuming that you're actually referring to speciation, but I don't think other people have picked up on that yet.As I explained yesterday, no, speciation of any life form higher on the classification scale than bacteria and viruses has been observed in the laboratory. As I said before, you'll see some claims out there, but I remain skeptical. In my view, for speciation to be said to have occurred the descendent population must be unable to mate to any significant degree with the parent population due to incompatible genetics.But such strictness about what constitutes speciation is not universally shared. It's not uncommon for biologists to hold that if two population don't mate because they're separated by rivers or mountains, or because they've developed different mating habits, or for any reason they simply don't interbreed, then there are different species and genetic compatibility doesn't matter. In their thinking if two populations don't mate in the wild then that's all that matters and they are two different species.Determining whether two species should be considered the same species often isn't easy to figure out. As I mentioned earlier, lions and tigers, donkeys and horses, zebras and horses, polar bears and brown bears, are so similar genetically that they can interbreed, even though we consider them separate species. And if you examine the skeletons of lions and tigers it is barely possible to tell them apart. If they'd been discovered as fossils then if the fine details had been not preserved we might consider them the same species. It might be better to consider 100% certainty as an ideal one should strive toward, not an achievable goal. Evolution is not synonymous with universal common ancestry. I think this has been said a number of times now. I won't belabor the point by again defining them to make clear that they are not the same thing, but they definitely are not the same thing. There is no contradiction in accepting evolution while rejecting universal common ancestry.That being said, there can be no doubt about the relatedness of all mammals, or the relatedness of all birds (dinosaurs), or the relatedness of all reptiles, or the relatedness of all fish, or the relatedness of all insects. Both morphology and genetics agree.And if you continue studying the genetics and the fossil record it is clear that mammals, birds, reptiles and fish are all related, though more distantly, but it is still clear that land animals descended from fish (including insects from crustaceans), that dinosaurs and mammals descended from reptiles, and that birds descended from dinosaurs, indeed, *are* dinosaurs.Sometimes morphology provides good clues about relatedness (obviously horses and donkeys are closely related), sometimes it doesn't (who would ever have guessed that the hippopotamus is the whale's closing living land ancestor, though in retrospect and if you've ever seen a video of a hippopotamus under water it makes a lot of sense). Some relationships require genetics to untangle.--Percy

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We can take a set of known parents and their off spring, compare their DNA, and draw conclusions - this is legitimate experimentation with hard, empirical data
- but extrapolating these conclusions and extending them to all past and present lifeforms is mere supposition.

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So where does the extrapolation cease to be valid and why? Have you actually investigated the nature of the similarities? Are you familiar with the evidence of ERVs? Or the structure of Cytochrome C ? Or are you making suppositions?

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All I would ask of scientists is to maintain overt separation between biological fact and evolutionary supposition.

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It is a fact that genetics provides considerable evidence for common ancestry. That is not supposition. Are you happy for that to be taught?

It appears that there is a danger within Scientific disciplines, that when factuality as determined by empirically demonstrable conclusion cannot be had, an arrogant fervor takes hold and the group simply declares as fact the opinion of the most credentialed within the group.A little more on this in Messages 211 and 213.

It will probably always be true about everything that there is far more that we don't know than we do. But not knowing everything is not the same thing as knowing nothing. Is there some contradiction or conundrum or mystery or problem concerning DNA analysis that you can point to. Is it just that you've heard something unfavorable about Ancestry.com? Or are you doubting DNA analysis in general, and if so why? Naturally it is presumed that life reproduced in the past the same way it reproduces today, and that mutations occurred in the past just like they occur today, and that selection occurred in the past just like it occurs today. How is anything else possible? Do you have evidence or any indication at all of life forms living out their lives in a way different than they do today? It seems more like you're asking scientists to accept your own uninformed judgments of what is mere supposition. Convince me it is an unreasonable presumption that life in the past engaged in the same general sort of things and lived out their lives in the same general sort of way as life today. How are you imaging life was lived in the past?--Percy

Can you provide any examples? The origin of life? Dark energy? Why just the four nucleotides? Are room temperature semiconductors possible? Where'd all the antimatter go? Cause of the Permian extinction? Dark matter?Is anyone out there actually following your template of insisting on specific answers when there's still insufficient evidence? You mean Message 211 and Message 214? Message 213 was from me.--Percy

Hi Percy,There's a fascinating article here that K.Rose, with his distaste for genealogy, might find worrisome. It's about finding murderers not simply by their DNA, but by tracing their relatives' DNA. Your DNA Test Could Send a Relative to JailNew York Times MagazineThese are cases where they have the killer's DNA, they just don't know their identity. Without a match from criminal databases, they instead compared the DNA to big genealogy databases, looking not for the killer, but their relatives. With that information they can narrow it down, identify the suspect and match their DNA to the original forensics. Clever stuff.I guess K.Rose must regard these cases as miscarriages of justice. I would be interested to hear his explanation for how this method could possibly work if genetic comparisons cannot be used to infer relatedness.Mutate and Survive

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It appears that there is a danger within Scientific disciplines, that when factuality as determined by empirically demonstrable conclusion cannot be had, an arrogant fervor takes hold and the group simply declares as fact the opinion of the most credentialed within the group.

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That looks like supposition to me. At best. Can you back it up? Neither of the messages you cite has any real support.

Hi Percy, Yes Percy I know you have been telling me that for 18 years.
And for that same 18 years I have been telling you if you don't have life existing there is nothing to evolve.You do know that Darwin believed God started the process with two or three life forms don't you?That means that those chemicals, clay, or out of space life is part of the process of life getting to where it is today.But if life came to earth on dust or meteorites, where and how did that life begin to exist? What evidence? No that would just mean I didn't know how they evolved if the did or if they started out as full grown animals. Percy I know you don't like religion and I am not to fond of religion because it covers a broad spectrum.But lets examine a few facts.It is a fact that science does not know how the universe began to exist or why.
It is a fact that science has no evidence of what happened untill 300,000 years after the universe began to exist.
That means everything that is said to have happened during that 300,000 years is an assumption or somebody's imagination of what happened.Science assumes the universe began to exist because it is expanding and could not have expanded eternally in the past as it would have been a dead universe a long time ago.ICANT assumes God created the universe in the Beginning.Tell me why my assumption is false and sciences assumption is true?
They are both assumptions and both could be true or false O both could be false.Science assumes life began to exist from non life.ICANT assumes God created life in the beginning.Tell me why my assumption is false and sciences assumption is true?
They are both assumptions and both could be true or false O both could be false. No I am not sure about that as there are 2.13 billion species of critters on earth. My mind gets ahead of my fingers sometimes.God Bless,

I think the point you're trying to make is this: Just as a coin might not be "true", just as it's possible for a coin to be made or weighted in such a way that the probability of heads or tails is not equal, it is possible that the 10³⁸ possibilities that Taq mentioned for independent phylogenies are not all equally probable.So let's assume that that's true. Let's assume that we only see a particular phylogenetic tree that happens to be nested because it is far more likely than all the other possibilities and not because the nesting has any significance. What do you think could possibly cause this? What factor other than that the nesting is real could cause a nested phylogenetic tree to emerge from the analysis?I couldn't tell if you grasped Taq's response about the comparison with cars. In cars from one model year to the next the body could be steel then aluminum then fiberglass then plastic. There's no nested hierarchy. The engine could be provided by different manufacturers every year, and in fact different models of the same car in the same year can have engines by different manufacturers. A phylogenetic tree would be impossible.When evolutionary phylogenies are plotted they are nested. The mammal subtree for primates only includes primates. There are no cats or elephants that are genetically more closely related to primates than other primates. The same is true for the whale/dolphin/porpoise (cetaceans) subtree. There are no kangaroos or bats that are more closely related to cetaceans than other cetaceans.Taq understands this better than I do and can fix any problems in my explanation.--Percy

Oh please K stop with the bull. Your problems stem not from our science but from your church. The rest of the world has already figured out this evolution thing. You still hold to backward barbaric creation myths that are known bogus.Science looks, science sees. The evidence is all we can rely on since our emotions are too prone to fantasy as you so well exhibit.Your personal problems with evolution stem not from the science but from what this universe is showing you.There is no god evident in the reality we see. There is no hint of such supernatural processes interfering with the matter/energy of this universe which would leave marks we are well able to discern.From the available evidence your god is not and your beloved afterlife of forced forever adulation for all eternity is not and your personal salvation by the divine saving you from the sting of death is not.Your problem is not with science or evolution. Your problem is with what the universe has shown you. This universe just will not comport to your fantasy.

Hi Percy, DNA is not an exact science.If you were to clone a person you would get an exact DNA match. Identical twins come pretty close sometimes, just twins not so much. In Sibling's the actual amount of shared DNA can vary between 1,613 to 3,488 centimorgans.God Bless,