Great Debate Challenge to DarkStar

Is Macroevolution a Myth?In the "Thread Reopen Requests" Topic, I made this challenge to DarkStar: Evidently declining to enter into a formal debate, but still wanting to push his points as proven, DarkStar responded,I made my challenge in good faith, with the intent of forging a serious discussion on the subject. DarkStar, after all, is the poster with the following as his signature:

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The theory of evolution is a viable theory, absent the myth of macroevolution.
Once the myth of macroevolution is included, the viability of the theory of evolution vanishes as it slowly evolves into just another example of an implausible story, nestled amongst the numerous fairytale's (sic) of our youth.-----DarkStar

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The points that he brings up in this post are open to debate, but apparently DarkStar wants them to be accepted as fact. Is it true that "We all know that there is no more scientific evidence to support macroevolution than there is to support creation, perhaps even less", or is this merely DarkStar's personal opinion?If he is afraid to subject his opinion to scrutiny, perhaps that's a sign that he realizes its potential shortcomings. If he is secure in his knowledge, and understands the scientific basis for his view, then I'm unsure as to the source of his reluctance to debate me on the subject.The challenge still stands.regards,
Esteban Hambre

I had a few minutes before I had to leave so I have chosen to respond in a small way. One of the major problems I see in a debate of this sort is actually one of an extremely limited perception coupled with preconceptional bias that favors a personal opinion and belief rather than an established fact. IMO, what you may perceive and accept as evidence of macroevolution is in actuality a personal opinion that must be based upon your own personal beliefs and preconceptions.While we are able to see microevolutionary changes within a single lifetime, visual observance of macroevolutionary changes is not possible. Even proponents of macroevolution will admit this. Therefore, macroevolutionists must rely upon interpretations, perceptions, and preconceptions of the so-called available evidence. Preconceptions and perceptions aside, their interpretations of the evidence may be totally erroneous and due to the lack of any actual visual confirmation of the macroevolutionary transformation itself, cannot be accepted as true and undeniable evidence.I have seen nothing to date that would convince me that macroevolution is not a myth. One analogy that I can give would be the christian myth of noah's ark. Were we to actually find this ark, this would still not be concrete evidence of the story as told in the blble. We may have the visual evidence that the ark actually existed but this would not be enough to confirm the biblical account of noah and the ark beyond any and all reasonable doubt.Were simple visual samples enough to fully confirm any myth or story was actual truth then the simple fact that Israel was born in a day would be enough proof of the authenticity of the biblical account that says this would happen. I see no macroevolutionists proclaiming the truth of the bible, or even the truth of this particular prophecy simply based upon this visible and verifiable historical truth. We are still left with a personal interpretation of what we believe we see, and it remains a belief that is based heavily upon personal bias.There may be many myths that will some day be proven to be fact but I truly doubt that the myth of macroevolution will ever be included in that group short of actual visual observance of macroevolutionary change, which any macroevolutionist will admit is not possible given the immense lengths of time required and the infinitesimal level of change over a given period of time much longer than the human lifespan.Because of this reality, the need for interpretation is required and as I have already stated, interpretation of evidence is not enough. If it were, none of us could, in all honesty, doubt the validity of much of the bible, many of its myths and legends, or the existance of the one true god these christians proclaim.One could read Fox's book of martyrs, a book that is filled with historically accurate and verifiable accounts of the persecution of early christians and reach the conclusion that these people were undeniably convinced of what they believed. Would their belief, their willingness to suffer what they suffered be enough to convince you of the reality of their god? I doubt it, but they believed and were willing to die proclaiming that belief.Somehow I doubt any that macroevolutionist will ever have that level of commitment to their own beliefs. I am quite sure that they would be willing to deny their belief in macroevolution and do it in a New York minute. There is a drastic difference between someone who simply accepts something and someone who not only believes but is willing to remain faithful to that belief even under penalty of torture and death.While one may not believe what these christians believe, one cannot deny that their commitment to their belief is based upon something far greater than mere visual evidence. Would that we all could acheive that level of commitment to our own personal beliefs.

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The theory of evolution is a viable theory, absent the myth of macroevolution.
Once the myth of macroevolution is included, the viability of the theory of evolution vanishes as it slowly evolves into just another example of an implausible story,
nestled amongst the numerous fairytale's of our youth.-----DarkStar

Not to get bogged down in details (and not to enter a discussion with a participant who has historically refused to respond to evidence), but it's obvious to me that we've observed macroevolutionary change:

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Coloniality in Chlorella vulgaris

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Boraas (1983) reported the induction of multicellularity in a strain of Chlorella pyrenoidosa (since reclassified as C. vulgaris) by predation. He was growing the unicellular green alga in the first stage of a two stage continuous culture system as for food for a flagellate predator, Ochromonas sp., that was growing in the second stage. Due to the failure of a pump, flagellates washed back into the first stage. Within five days a colonial form of the Chlorella appeared. It rapidly came to dominate the culture. The colony size ranged from 4 cells to 32 cells. Eventually it stabilized at 8 cells. This colonial form has persisted in culture for about a decade. The new form has been keyed out using a number of algal taxonomic keys. They key out now as being in the genus Coelosphaerium, which is in a different family from Chlorella.

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(Emphasis added by me.) Evolving into a different family? That's definately macroevolutionary change.

Using your method of what I consider to be flawed reasoning coupled with illogical assumption, one might just as easily consider a tadpole transforming into a frog or a caterpillar transforming into a butterfly as undeniable visual evidence of macroevolutionary change. They most surely are not. EnchantedLearning.com | Worksheets, Activities, Crafts & MoreBTW, you did not reference the source of your quote. Was it from http://www.carm.org/evolution_archive/kinds.htm ?This message has been edited by DarkStar, 11-18-2004 11:47 PMEdited by AdminHambre to restore page widthThis message has been edited by AdminHambre, 11-19-2004 08:35 AM

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The theory of evolution is a viable theory, absent the myth of macroevolution.
Once the myth of macroevolution is included, the viability of the theory of evolution vanishes as it slowly evolves into just another example of an implausible story,
nestled amongst the numerous fairytale's of our youth.-----DarkStar

This is an inappropriate comparison. You're comparing two different stages in the life style of the same organism. The normal Chlorella life-cycle does not include colonality at any stage, ever.These chlorella are fully mature, and have evolved from single-cell organisms to multi-cellular ones, a state that has now persisted in the population for over 2 decades. That's macroevolutionary change, and I find it amusing that the only response you have is to throw up some garbage about frogs and run away.So, yes. Quite good enough. Exactly what you asked for, and everyone can see how hollow and nonsensical your objection is.Since you're not willing to address evidence, why don't you drop the facade and admit you have no interest in debate, but rather, in taking hit-and-run potshots? Boraas, M. E. 1983. Predator induced evolution in chemostat culture. EOS. Transactions of the American Geophysical Union. 64:1102.Look it up.

that's nice. what's microevolution? what's macroevolution?i make no distinctions, personally. evolution is evolution and i see no glass ceiling preventing changes from compiling. but since you do, please define spefically what you are looking for. where is the line between the two kinds of evolution?this question must be addressed, and it must be addressed first, before we get to what mechanism would stop further change, or what reason changes would not compile. if we had a nice steele on the site of a giant boat exactly matching the descriptions in genesis that said "here i, noah, sacrificed to the LORD god in thanks for saving my butt from a big flood that killed everything else." it might help. or if the other people who were alive at the time actually had died off.evidence is not proof of textual correctness. in bible class, we looked a babylonian inscription once that heralded the victories of a king over a league of foriegn nations, including israel. but the inscriptions start going backwards, and the "victories" start become less and less magnificent. even though the record itself SAYS this king won all these battles, the inscriptions SHOW that he did not. it's like if 2000 years from now, archaeologists would find a bunch of magazines that say "america is doing great in iraq!" well, it took about 200 years before they convinced one very powerful roman, and the rest, as they say, is history. evolution is not a religion. it's not a die-hard conviction. it's not a belief. and if they don't have that level of commitment, it's because they know that further tests could yield new data, and modify the theory. overturning is very unlikely, as it has FAR too much data supporting it. but as i said, if you can show that some mechanism exists that keeps 1+1 from equalling 2, then you're all set.even if intelligent design is true, it does not disprove evolution. the existance of a concious hand in our creation does not stop evolution from happening and modifying that creation.

(from the earlier post) we "evos" like to point out archaeopteryx. it's a nice dinosaur. or maybe it's a nice bird. i still haven't gotten a consensus back from the creos. but we've got a half a dozen well preserved examples of it.what's more fun is that not only can you find refutations that it's just a dinosaur, or just a bird, but you can find similar creationist refutation of the dozen or so OTHER species of avian dinosaurs.yeah, there's a few prime examples that everybody has heard of, espcially archaeopteryx. but the fact that we have a whole array of things somewhere between birds and dinosaurs, each one different in the ratio of bird features to dinosaurs... we'll that should say something.like "you can't just pretend that transitional fossils don't exist, or that we don't have a good record of lots of them."at what point do a bunch of dots become a line? or in the case of evolution, a tree? how many examples do you need to connect the dots? it's not hard for me to imagine the creationist response if we had one example of each species from every generation that clearly showed a change: they were all just created that way.

Your poor debating skills aside, what evidence are you talking about? Oh wait, that's right, you have no actual evidence, absolutely nothing! Once again you have offered nothing of any real substance, you continue to offer up accusations that in actuality refer to your own style of debate, if that is what you call it, and no, my dear froggy, the claptrap that you offered up is not good enough. It does not even come close to being good enough, regardless of what your obviously undereducated mind is continually telling you.Once again you have proven that you are not worth the constant time and energy it takes to point out your seemingly endless inadequacies, faults, failures, and foibles. Please direct your worthless debating style, your low self esteem, and your unbelieveable sophomoric behaviour towards another, as you have repeatedly proven yourself to be an oxymoronic example of what a truly honest evolutionist is really like. You have now received your last response from me. Please learn to deal with it and seek professional counseling as needed.I shall henceforth direct my time and energy only towards those few honest and sincere evolutionists and creationists that are in this forum, two groups which you most assuredly do not qualify to be counted amongst. You will, I wager, continue to respond to my posts in a vain attempt to help bolster what can only be viewed as your extremely low self esteem and your terribly lagging sense of self worth. You obviously need help, as your posts have made so unmistakenly and painfully evident. Again, please seek professional counseling as needed in order to deal with my unequivocal rejection of you and your mindless drivel.

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The theory of evolution is a viable theory, absent the myth of macroevolution.
Once the myth of macroevolution is included, the viability of the theory of evolution vanishes as it slowly evolves into just another example of an implausible story,
nestled amongst the numerous fairytale's of our youth.-----DarkStar

The evidence of Chlorella vulgaris, which precisely meets the criteria of evidence you requested for macroevolution.But, of course, now your "reasoning" is made clear: "Macroevolution is a myth, because no evidence is observed. We know that no evidence can be observed, because macroevolution is a myth."Perfectly, utterly circular. An invulnerable entrenchment of ignorance. If only that were likely to be the case. Of course, since you respond to evidence only with a flatulent burst of name-calling, how you expect to entice the scant few evolutionists you do respect to debate with you is beyond me.I retract my earlier assertion that you do not desire legitimate, intellectual debate. I see now that you are simply incapable of it.

Within your question hides the answer to the question, "How do macroevolutionists arrive at their erroneous conclusions?"They think of fossils as dots, connecting backwards in time to form a what is in actuality a non-existant line. The last time I checked, it only takes to dots connected to form a line.Fossils do not work in this manner and the fossil record proves this to be an undeniable scientific fact, at least this is so for those who have removed the blinders of macroevolutionary bias.Dots and fossils. I guess I should not be surprised that so many macroevolutionists believe what they believe when they insist upon using that type of distorted reasoning.

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The theory of evolution is a viable theory, absent the myth of macroevolution.
Once the myth of macroevolution is included, the viability of the theory of evolution vanishes as it slowly evolves into just another example of an implausible story,
nestled amongst the numerous fairytale's of our youth.-----DarkStar

You mean induction? Yes, I can see how that kind of reasoning is so "distorted" that it forms the backbone of every science.Well, at least now we know that there's no point in arguing with you - it's not that you refuse to admit that macroevolution is an appropriate conclusion from the evidence; it's that you're mentally inequipped to do so.This message has been edited by crashfrog, 11-19-2004 02:08 AM

DarkStar,I started this thread to discuss the possibility of our engaging in a one-on-one debate concerning your assertion that macroevolution is a myth. I think it would be best if the debate took that form, instead of the hit-and-run posting you currently favor. The fact that you decline to enter into a moderated debate concerning your claim (while you continue to make the assertion as if you consider it self-evident) speaks volumes about your confidence in your own argument.Since denying evidence, misrepresenting scientific methodology, and puerile name-calling seem to constitute your debating skills, I’m not surprised that a structured debate doesn’t appeal to you.Regards,
Esteban Hambre

MrHambreI personally don't believe DarkStar has what it takes to debate since it would require restricting his assertions to actual evidence to back up the claims he is making.I also highly doubt that he has anything to bring to the table and so to save face he must deflect through character assasination and hope that he may troll again in some other thread.You would think that to help rid the world of the "myth" of macroevolution he would be open to the opportunity to lay waste to those who would side with macroevolution.Attack is the prefered weapon for those who have no better explanation and in doing so he need never be called upon to think of how to explain himself.I sincerely doubt he is capable of debating you and will expend endless effort to avoid doing so.Hell,I would bet money on it.

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"Calling Atheism a religion is like calling bald a hair color."
--Don Hirschberg

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They think of fossils as dots, connecting backwards in time to form a what is in actuality a non-existant line. The last time I checked, it only takes to dots connected to form a line.

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Fossils are not the only evidence that connect species. You forget that DNA is actually the strongest evidence linking species to a common ancestor. You and your creationist friends need to explain why DNA mirrors the order of fossils in the ground and why predictions made from fossils is supported by DNA similarities between species.

Closing it.Suggestions and questions should be used to request reopening with reasons.