Biological classification vs 'Kind'

If "grouped into larger classes" is your term for a nested hierarchy, then your conclusion that a nested hierarchy doesn't imply common descent is hard to fathom. So I click on the link to find the list of these "hundreds of cases" of convergent evolution so I can get a rough idea of why you think it's a weak assumption and what do I find? Jay Wile in his blog simply declaring that there are hundreds of cases. He doesn't provide even a single example.So since Mr. Wile provides nothing supporting what he says, can I presume that you can't explain why you think convergent evolution is an assumption? Can I also suggest that you not use as your guide someone so long on opinions and so short on supporting evidence? I think the rest of us believe that scientists should accept that for which there is evidence.You include a bunch of stuff about abiogenesis, geology and radiometric dating, but I won't address these parts since they're off-topic. Sure there are tests that falsify common ancestry. As already pointed out, rabbits in the pre-Cambrian, for one. Things that actually happened leave evidence behind. There is no need to rerun history because we have the evidence of past events. I hope you really meant something like "apparent evidence" or "detectable evidence," because a great deal of evidence isn't visible. Much evidence requires instrumentation to detect, or is only apparent to one of the other senses. We're having this conversation because evidence isn't how many people decide what to believe. Too often a good story trumps evidence. If this weren't true then homeopathy, chiropractics, ghosts, perpetual motion machines, creation science and ID would not still be with us. It's why many people want to teach a good story in science class instead of evidence-based science.Genetics and morphology represent extremely strong evidence of a nested hierarchy and common descent. Common descent and a nested hierarchy are things that we know for absolute certain are true of ourselves because of what we each know about our own family's history, such as the common ancestor we share with distant cousins three and four times removed. And when our genealogical evidence runs out there is no evidence suggesting that life long ago didn't reproduce precisely the way it does today, which can only produce nested hierarchies. For another example, the Belmont Stakes is this weekend, and many of the horses have known common ancestors going many generations back. Common ancestry is a known phenomenon of the real world.But an intelligent designer creating life in a manner that precisely resembles the nested hierarchy produced by generations of life just going about their business? There are no observed instances of this thus far, and so you are postulating a mechanism that possesses no evidence that it has ever happened in the natural history of the Earth.--PercyEdited by Percy, : Express the family history example more clearly.Edited by Percy, : Grammar.

Hi Bob! Just wanted to say that since few of your sentences don't invite multitudes of responses, its possible you might return Monday to find far more responses than any non-obsessive/compulsive could ever answer (I know I'll be doing my part if I can find the time). If that happens then don't feel the need to reply to every message, especially since many people are probably telling you the same thing.Also note that at the bottom of responses to you is a link that says, "BobTHJ has not yet responded." Click on it and it magically becomes, "BobTHJ acknowledges this reply." Poof, like that, you're done!--Percy

You're arguing this backward, just like in most of this thread. You have to argue *for* ID, not against evolution. You need to show how the evidence is more consilient with ID, not how it doesn't match evolution. Just because the evidence doesn't match evolution doesn't mean it must match ID. You must demonstrate that the evidence matches ID.If ID is what really happened then you'd expect to find that species possess the same genes according to need and not relatedness. Both bats and dolphins need echolocation, so did the IDer design the gene for echolocation and use it in both? If the genes for echolocation in bats and dolphins are the same then it would be stunning evidence for ID. So are they the same?Now before you go off and research whether the genes for echolocation are the same in bats and dolphins you need to tell us what you're expecting to find if these genes were the product of an IDer. What do you predict you will find? Do you expect the nucleotide sequence of the relevant genes will be the same in both bats and dolphins? Will it be the same even in different species of bats and dolphins? If different, how will you compare the different nucleotide sequences in different bat species to the different nucleotide sequences in different dolphin species.So now that you've presumably posted your predictions, here's a link to an article that should be very helpful to your research. There are other papers, too, but this is a good starting point: Convergent sequence evolution between echolocating bats and dolphinsUnfortunately it's not available for free, but their supplemental data is available online, and it should give you a good idea of the complexity of the task you have set yourself. You see, there are about 1100 species of bats and 40 of dolphins, and all their echolocation genes and proteins will differ. Here's the supplemental data: Supplemental Data: Convergent sequence evolution between echolocating bats and dolphinsCommon ancestry is not an assumption. Every time you see a family walking down the street, the tall ones are the common ancestors of the short ones. We all know from personal experience that all people trace back to common ancestors, even creationists who believe that the two principle common ancestors were Adam and Eve . We all agree about common ancestry - it is not an assumption.What you're actually arguing is that common ancestry does not continue infinitely back in time. You believe that at some point in the past all the species were created in independent acts of creation, and that the original individuals of each species were the common ancestors for multiple lines of descent leading to the modern species of today. That's your hypothesis. Now all you need is evidence. The real world doesn't really care what you believe, it carries on just the same. Mutations can both create and destroy information.--Percy

Uh, okay. And you think unfalsifiable and unevidenced ideas are science? If you falsify common ancestry for chimps and humans then all you've done is falsified common ancestry for chimps and humans. Maybe orangutans and humans share a common ancestor. When Michelson/Morley falsified the ether it didn't prove the Biblical account. When geologists falsified static continents it didn't prove the Biblical account. So when you falsify evolution that doesn't prove anything about the Bible or ID. You need evidence *for* ID. If you'd like to try to use Mr. Wile's unevidenced arguments about dating then please first see rule 2 of the Forum Guidelines (stay on topic) and also rule 5 ("Bare links with no supporting discussion should be avoided"). Well, I guess when you have no evidence you have to believe this. Can we expect you to next argue that "evidenced assumptions" are no better than actual assumptions?I think what you're actually thinking of, and what you're confusing with assumptions, is tentativity. We all agree that science is tentative and that good theory can only be displaced by better theory that explains more of the evidence. But underpinning all theory in science is evidence, and if you believe that ID is science than you need evidence *for* ID. Since we have evidence of common ancestry it isn't an assumption. Or, translating into Bob-speak, common ancestry is an "evidenced assumption."No matter what terminology you use, an idea supported by evidence is head and shoulders above what you've got, which is an unevidenced assumption. I guess when you have no evidence you have to do things like invent terminological mumbo-jumbo like "evidenced assumption." Looking it up in Google it finds the term once on the first page of results, an 1886 book by J. W. Mendenhall. You might want to update your terminology a bit. Again, I think the concept you're thinking of is tentativity. You forgot the most important principle of baraminology: when transitional fossils are found, simply declare that they're not transitional.--Percy

Again, you need evidence *for* ID, not against evolution. If you think there's an absence of evidence for evolution then one would have thought that you'd find the absence of evidence for ID even more stunning. Let's say you're right, that there's no evidence for evolution. Since there's also no evidence for ID, on what basis are you forming an opinion? The Bible? Would that be science? Wouldn't a scientist withhold judgement in the absence of evidence?If you choose to reject all the evidence for common ancestry (tiktaalik is the one that's most recently received public attention) then, if you're a scientist, that puts you among the 1% of scientists who reject such evidence. 1% is not a consensus. I'll bet even relativity has more doubters among scientists than 1%.And if you're not a scientist then that just puts you among the hoards of people who are more swayed by good stories than good evidence. You mean there's been an evolution in thinking in baraminology? Don't they still take the Bible as their basis rather than evidence from the natural world? Evidence is all it would take. Are you implying there's evidence of supernatural causes? Shouldn't I have already read about this in Time, Newsweek and the New York Times? Wouldn't it be the most momentous evidence of all time? Oh, by the way, this evidence of the supernatural, which of the world's religions does it tell us turns out to be right? There you go again, stating your preference for stories over evidence. You have evidence of something with a non-natural origin? Again, wouldn't that be momentous?--PercyEdited by Percy, : Typo.

Hi Bob,No one's ruling out the supernatural a priori. What we're ruling out is the incorporation of ideas into our thinking that are not supported by evidence. If evidence for the supernatural somehow enters into your thinking on kinds then we'd like to hear about your evidence.--Percy

Okay, I understand you now. You don't believe the evidence indicates a nested hierarchy. In other words, you pulled the trigger without first loading any ammunition and are unable to answer the question: why do you think convergent evolution is an assumption?After you've got some ammunition why don't you try again. Well gee, that's wonderful for you, common ancestry has already been falsified. My previous suggestions stand: stop posting bare links with no discusison and bring your evidence and arguments into the thread (rule 5), and provide evidence *for* ID instead of against evolution. I don't think you lack the intellectual capacity to understand the material. I'm just noting that you seem unaware of much of the subject material at this point, and I also find your several expressions of wishing to investigate things for yourself at odds with your unquestioning acceptance of articles by Mr. Wile and ICR. You say you disagree with the conclusions scientists draw from the data while giving no indication of any acquaintance with that data yourself. This is why I likened you to those who prefer a good story over evidence. So in your mind an observable and verified phenomenon is less likely than a phenomenon that has never been observed let alone verified.--Percy

Granting for the sake of discussion that the 47 shared mistakes between humans and guinea pigs occur at mutational hotspots, why are the mistakes the same? It isn't like copying down coin flips where there's only one way to be wrong. So in an ID context, how did this happen?--Percy

It might be a reasonable conclusion if the YEC model were built upon evidence from the real world, because there would then be all this other evidence that supported your conclusion, but the YEC model is not based upon evidence. It's based on a story in a book.If your views on the definition of kind have any validity then you should be able to describe for us some of the evidence behind it. I think it's great that there's evidence behind your opinions. What is that evidence? In case you're keeping a count of the number of times you've violated rule 5 of the Forum Guidelines (do not use bare links unaccompanied by description and discussion of its relevant points), please increment by one. This rule exists primarily to insure that participants understand the material they're referencing, but also to remove any ambiguity about what is being referenced, and because it is troll-like behavior to merely link to a webpage that people spend a lot of time and effort carefully dissecting only to have you link-spam them again and again. And you've got at least several "agains" so far. More accurately, the majority of scientists subscribe to what the evidence indicates. Scientists are biased toward the evidence while creationists are biased toward stories from a book. Mr. Wile discredits himself as a scientist by ignoring the evidence to instead follow stories from a book. No one thinks dissenting views based upon evidence to be inept. But a scientist with a dissenting view based upon revelation instead of evidence is pretty conclusively demonstrating ineptitude in his chosen vocation. But I don't myself think Wile inept because he's not trying to do science. He's doing religious apologetics, and at that he's very good and the very opposite of inept. But he's not doing science in his apologetics, he's just trying to make those who aren't very familiar with science think he's doing science. And then those people come here and tell us what a wonderful scientist Mr. Wile is. Pardon us if we roll our eyes.--PercyEdited by Percy, : Clarify rule 5 explanation.

Don't you see what's wrong with this? You're saying your beliefs are based upon evidence, and then you talk about the lack of evidence for the other view. This means your views aren't based upon evidence for what you believe, but upon your lack of awareness and understanding of the evidence for the scientific viewpoint.I think it's great that your beliefs are based on the evidence. What is that evidence?As for evidence for mutations ability to create new information, consider a population of organisms that has a gene with these alleles for eye color:

• GGAAGC (green eyes)
• GGAAGA (blue eyes)
• GGCACG (yellow eyes)

Then a mutation occurs in this gene producing an allele that didn't previously exist in the population so that these are now the alleles:

• GGAAGC (green eyes)
• GGAAGA (blue eyes)
• GGCACG (yellow eyes)
• GGCAAG (brown eyes)

The number of alleles was 3, which can be represented in log₂3 = 1.585 bits, and then it increased to 4, which is log₂4 = 2 bits, and that's an increase in information of .415 bits.--PercyEdited by Percy, : No reason given.

Wow, are you ever confused!Scientific theories are falsifiable. If evolution were not falsifiable then it wouldn't be science, but it is falsifiable, as the example of rabbits in the pre-Cambrian amply shows. We were talking about common ancestry, and rabbits in the pre-Cambrian would falsify evolution's implication of common ancestry. The necessity that scientific hypotheses be falsifiable, in other words, testable, is one of the cornerstones of the scientific method. Untestable hypotheses are useless. For example, when Einstein hypothesized that light was subject to gravity according to his equations, what would be the value of the hypothesis if it was untestable? Think about it. How would we ever know if it were true or false if it couldn't be tested? I'm confused why you're arguing that baraminology is falsifiable if you really believe, as you argued above, that falsification isn't a requirement of science, but anyway, no you did not provide a falsification test for baraminology. You said that clear evidence "for common ancestry between chimps and humans" would falsify baraminology, but of course it would not. The part of my post that you thought was semantics was trying to get the point across that the biological classification system and baraminology are independent of one another. You don't prove or disprove one by proving the other false or true. That's why I keep asking you for positive evidence of Baraminology. And if you think it's falsifiable, then what would be a falsification test that isn't evidence for evolution? Well, I think it's great that you have evidence for ID. What is it? Please try to stop yourself if you find yourself typing, "The evidence for ID is that I've never seen any evidence for evolution." Sure you have, over and over. Here's your entire discussion of your "scientifically irresponsible" link from your Message 156: That was your whole discussion. You need to bring the evidence and arguments from the link into the discussion here. That's what rule 5 is about. Being off-topic isn't an excuse to violate rule 5, it just means you've violated two rules instead of one.Here's the bottom line. We don't do debate by link here. It would be like the old joke about assigning jokes numbers, and then to tell jokes people just call out numbers like "5" or "16". Or it would be like a game of poker with links as chips: "Oh yeah? Well, I call your link to ICR with a link to Nature and raise you by a link to Science."If you need more information I already provided it when I explained in more detail the rationale behind rule 5 in a message I posted to you earlier this evening. Please use links only as references to provide a background or foundation for the evidence and arguments that you yourself enter into a discussion. The proper term is tentativity. I would absolutely *love* a discussion of the evidence behind kinds or baraminology. When are you going to present some?--PercyEdited by Percy, : Fix typo.

Well, that's wonderful that you've seen convincing evidence of a YEC model (how many models are there, by the way?). Care to share any of this evidence with us, especially for kinds or baraminology? Okay, this is the second time you've talked about testing hypotheses, which is great, we agree about this, but now I'm really confused. So earlier when you said that theories don't need to be falsifiable, that was I guess a joke, right?Anyway, what evidence from the natural world supports the Biblical hypotheses of kinds or baraminology? Abiogenesis has been discredited? Really? Get thee over to the Origin of Life forum right away, I can't wait to hear about this.About naturalistic origins for things, look at it this way. When God smote the Israelites who were worshiping the golden calf and they were swallowed into the Earth, didn't that leave evidence behind? It did, right? So supernatural events operate in and have an effect upon the natural world. Scientists seek evidence in the natural world. If you have evidence of processes that violate the laws of nature and are therefore supernatural then you have to bring them forward. But in the absence of such evidence scientists can only invoke processes for which they have evidence. That's why when scientists invoke a natural origin through natural processes for life they are doing science, because they have evidence for these processes. And when you invoke supernatural processes for the origin of life you're not doing science, because you have no evidence for supernatural processes.--Percy

Well, the only reason we think it's unevidenced is because we haven't yet seen any evidence, but if we're wrong about that then that's easy to fix. So you've got the evidence for an intelligent supernatural Creator? That's wonderful. Stupendous, even. We all can't wait to see it. Shouldn't you be holding a press conference about this in Times Square?By the way, I asked this in another post, and I hate to be repetitive but I just can't help it for something so important: which world religion turns out to be right?--Percy

Hi Bob!As noted, Milley/Urey is probably off-topic in this thread, but I would like to comment on one thing: Most people who accept mainstream theories in science like evolution are not atheists. Myself, for example.Dr Adequate framed the issue pretty well. For most things you're pretty much like the rest of us in that you know the supernatural isn't involved. The key question is why you think the supernatural is involved in anything. Is it evidence driving you or something else?To sum up, you're talking to both atheists and non-atheists, and we're all wondering about your evidence.--Percy

What if an intelligent supernatural creator (Bob's term) placed the genes for hair inside a reptile (not one of the familiar examples, I know, but I'm trying to stay on-topic and keep the focus on kinds). Wouldn't this be a scientifically observable miracle? Wouldn't any miracle that "intersects with the natural world" leave evidence behind that could be scientifically examined?--Percy